Providing multiple services through single platform kiosks – be it ticketing for airline, railways, private buses, and movies or billing for telecom, electricity, natural cooking gas and financial services – seems to be the new marketing mantra among retail giants.
Reliance Retail, Aditya Birla Retail, Pantaloon Retail, Big Bazaar, Shopper?s Stop, InOrbit Mall, Nirmal Lifestyle, Mega Mall and RPG Group?s Spencers are currently talking to the Shapoorji Pallonji Group to set up the group?s new s-commerce venture ?Suvidhaa? kiosk within their malls, hypermarkets and retail outlets.
Paresh Rajde, managing director, Suvidhaa, told FE, ?We are in talks with retail majors in India and will tie up with them for setting up Suvidhaa s-commerce kiosks with multiple service verticals within their retail premises. Suvidhaa s-commerce venture is a new click and a mortar model whereby our kiosk operators will provide services demanded by the customers for a transaction fee of Rs 3 to Rs 5. Shapoorji Pallonji is planning to set up 10,000 shop-in-shops and neighbourhood and convenience ?Suvidhaa? kiosks apart from 500 to 3,000 flagship stores in the next three years.”
S-Commerce will be rolled out in India through a new venture called Suvidhaa Infoserve Pvt Ltd.
According to Reliance Retail officials, Suvidhaa s-commerce, which will act as a facilitator of multiple services, will meet the evolving needs of customers and thereby trigger footfalls and impulse purchases as well. Hence, there are plans to set up this kiosk within Reliance Fresh supermarkets and RelianceMart outlets across India.
Samar Sheikhawat, vice-president, marketing, Spencers said, “Retailers always look for innovative methods of marketing through their retail formats. S-commerce being a new service concept, we too would look at setting up Suvidhaa kiosks within our hypermarket.?
S-commerce is an emerging trend in the Indian retail history. Rajeev Bhatia, chief executive officer, InOrbit Mall, opines, ?With the available opportunity, the company would look at implementing these kiosks to provide innovative services to customers within InOrbit Mall.?
Indian mall developers have always wanted to be recognised as being at par with world class malls. According to Dharmesh Jain, managing director, Nirmal Lifestyle, ?India should be recognised as one of the best mall developers in the international market.