Retail chain V-Mart is gearing up to join the fast growing e-commerce sector by next year with a mobile app-based platform to sell products.

It has 108 stores and plans to use its existing outlets as delivery hubs for online customers in the initial stage. “We will have an offline and online combined strategy, where offline would feed the online demand. We need at least a year to start online retail and it will be around next Diwali,” V-Mart Retail Chairman and MD Lalit Agarwal told PTI.

“Initially we are planning to use our existing stores as the delivery hubs. We are in the process of finalising the details,” he said.

The company would roll out in a phased manner in selected cities and later extend to other places. It would start the pilot project by June 2016.

V Mart will first develop an app for android, followed by Apple’s iOS, Agarwal said, adding “we will offer our entire stock online. To start with, we would only offer the products — apparels and non apparels, which we are selling offline.”

On why the company has chosen mobile app strategy, Agarwal said: “The territories in which we are working such as tier III cities, mobile penetration is deeper with very little high speed broadband connections. Mobile is the preferred connection.”

It has plans to target migrants, who want to send gifts or apparels to their families back home in tier III & IV places.

Commenting on expected contribution from online retail, Agarwal said, “By FY 2019-20 we expect that the digital venture would contribute around 5 per cent of our total turnover as the offline model of the company is also growing.”

In FY 2014-15, the company had a revenue of Rs 720.50 crore. It is targeting over four-fold jump in revenue to touch Rs 2,500 crore by 2020 with smaller towns expected to be its key growth drivers.

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