Homeshop18 looks to ‘book' loyalty

Homeshop18, the television and e-commerce shopping network, will add 10 million books to its product portfolio by end-October, a move that follows its acquisition of books, movies and music e-commerce portal Coinjoos earlier this year. It expects the addition to boost repeat purchases or loyalty, besides attracting new customers.

Speaking to Business Line , Mr Sundeep Malhotra, CEO, Homeshop18, said, “The current level of repeat purchases is at 30 per cent over the last six months. We see this going up with the introduction of books.”

Books as a category was absent in the Homeshop18 product portfolio, a gap that has been filled with the integration of Coinjoos with Homeshop18.

“Books also bring in a new set of users to the network; they tend to be more evolved e-commerce users. We see a large number of transactions and repeat purchases growing with books,” explained Mr Malhotra.

Bestsellers so far

Categories driving sales for Homeshop18, which claims to sell Rs 2 crore worth of goods per day via 15,000 transactions, are digital goods (led by mobiles and cameras), appliances (brown goods and white goods), and home and kitchen (stock and serve; and storage). “In the last eight months, lifestyle products have emerged as a key category - apparel, jewellery and footwear,” noted the spokesperson.

TV Shopping and e-commerce

For the company, 70 per cent of sales comes via its television shopping network, with the rest coming through the Web portal. For both, the back-end call centre and logistics are common. This share is changing with more Indians taking to e-commerce, according to the spokesperson.

“Being the only shopping network with both channels - television and e-commerce - has helped. Television has helped credibility and infrastructure. From day one we knew that we had to get into e-commerce, but the real thrust came a year ago. Television has also helped recruit people for the Web,” said Mr Malhotra.

Homeshop18 claims that over six million customers have transacted with it since its inception over three years ago. It has 11 warehouses across the country, helping it cater to 3,000 cities and towns.

Over the next three months, the network will expand its warehousing capabilities from 55,000 sq. ft. to between 1.5 lakh and two lakh sq. ft. The company is looking to close FY 2011-12 with a turnover of over Rs 800 crore - twice of what it was last year, according to its CEO.

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