Even as retailers in many sought after commercial streets across country are witnessing a decline in footfalls in the range of 25 to 60% this Diwali season compared to last year, HomeShop 18, a virtual shopping channel from the TV 18 group launched around a year back, is now registering 3,000 to 4,000 new customers on a daily basis.
The company is concluding transaction every 22 seconds on an average, recording a 50% month on month growth in sales and has recorded a total sales of Rs 2.5 crore in the weekend before last, said Sundeep Malhotra, CEO, HomeShop 18.
The channel expects the business this weekend to surpass the last as the Diwali gift orders placed to be delivered across the country is bound to shoot up. The bottoms up approach and staying off magical fitness products category seems to have paid off for HomeShop18, the first and only 24/7 shopping channel in the country today.
At a time when most products and services launch in the metros first in their zeal to capture high disposable incomes households concentrated in there and follow it up with launches in tier-I, tier-II, this virtual shopping network decided to first launch in 250 tier II cities, visibly to cross out competition with mall complexes concentrated in the metros and tier I cities. After consolidating its services in lower half of the pyramid, it has now grown its presence to 1,800 cities and is in talks with DTH players for distribution of channels.
?When we started off, consumers associated the home shopping segment with magical fitness products like sauna belts and odd hours, all of which lacked credibility. Our first challenge was to establish that trust among people. We took a conscious decision to dissociate with that category of products and instead offer brands and products which come with warranty periods,? said Malhotra.
To induce credibility, the channel not only takes 25% of default rate (people changing their minds at the time product delivery after placing orders) in its stride but offers a money back offer within 15 days if the customer is dissatisfied.
The channel has invested heavily in a logistics company, tied up with eight courier services and Indian postal services to carry out the delivery process besides setting up a call centre employing 500 people at Noida.