Comments
Shoppers Stop is planning to invest ₹50 crore in its e-commerce business in the next two years, expecting the new channel to generate 10 per cent of its annual turnover.
With 72 stores across 34 cities, Shoppers Stop reported an annual turnover of ₹3,370 crore last fiscal. Its net profit rose 10 per cent to ₹40.7 crore.
The company has recently appointed a new CEO, Sachin Oswal (Co-Founder and former chief operating officer of Infibeam), to head its online business, apart from implementing the hybris operated software from SAP to give fresh impetus its e-tailing.
Scaling up infrastructure, software, people and delivery systems, the company is set to step up competition with the existing e-commerce players who have been eating into sales of most of the brick and mortar retailers.
With its omni channel strategy in place, Shoppers Stop will initially engage in e-commerce in places where its stores are physically present and then take it to tier II and III cities and even to international markets.
“In the next 24 months, we would invest ₹50 crore for the online channel and now have a new CEO onboard. There would be separate websites across our formats like Homestop and Shoppers Stop, supported by the same infrastructure and software,” said Govind Shrikhande, Managing Director, Shoppers Stop.
“We will execute our e-commerce operations in three phases, including an online, multi channel and omni channel presence, and in the next one year, will get our online game right and even make it international,” he added.
Shoppers Stop is already selling through sites like Jabong, but is not satisfied with the response it’s getting.
“We have been experimenting through other websites but have to see whether we want to continue with it as a long-term strategy, as we are still behind target with our current online sales,” added Shrikhande.
However, unlike the rest of the e-commerce players, it would not give discounts.
“We will play in the online space on the strength of our physical brands and hope to make money in the next three years through the omni channel. However, unlike e-commerce players, we are here to make money and will not be giving discounts but sell at full price,” he said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.