No-cost EMIs on electric cycles coming soon: Go Zero to focus on online sales

Electric bicycles will be in great demand. Post Covid-19 (if at all there is a phase), almost everyone has predicted that electric mobility will witness a rise. Not only this, but those who have their offices really close to their homes will also prefer taking electric cycles. Go Zero, a UK-based company entered the Indian cycling scene a couple of years ago. Express Drives had a conversation with Ankit Kumar, CEO of Go Zero Mobility. We asked him various questions, the one about coronavirus affecting business, cycle deliveries and the works. Here is an excerpt of the discussion.

ED:  How does Go Zero aim to entice new customers?

AK: We have kept our focus on “Make Fit” approach and all our campaigns are around becoming an aid for consumers to adopt a healthy and sustainable lifestyle. We aim to focus on the same through online retailing and offline channel sales. We are preparing grounds to enable prime delivery in order to fulfill the orders within 1-2 days in specific territories.

ED: Is Go Zero an Indian company and how many manufacturing plants are there?

AK: Our parent entity is in Birmingham along with the R&D centre, the India entity is for global manufacturing and sales here. At present, we have one manufacturing plant in Kolkata, India.

ED:  How much of the cycles are made using local components and are few parts imported from China?

AK:  60 per cent of the components, largely mechanical are locally sourced from well established and quality-oriented suppliers; 30 per cent components are imported from Taiwan (mostly electronics & tyres) and rest 10 per cent from China.

ED:  Has the pandemic changed your retail or production strategy?

AK:  Yes, to a certain level. Though the demand has slowed because of the huge delivery timeline, it gave us an opportunity to re-strategise our plans for retail. We shall be focusing more on online retail with a presence on other e-commerce platforms and allowing no-cost EMI schemes powered by Bajaj Finance. We believe easy financing with no interest implication for consumers can drive more sales for us. We will keep on creating such partnerships with banking institutions. We are also going to focus more on brand partnerships and invest heavily in brand marketing for the next three quarters.

ED:  What are the servicing requirements for the cycles and how often does one need to service them?

AK: Our e-bikes require zero maintenance for the first two years. As a regular service check, we suggest our consumers to service their ebike every six months which largely covers checking the mechanical wear & tear and wheel alignment. We provide two free services in select geographies to all our users in the first year of purchase.

ED: Can someone book the cycle online? If so, the delivery timeline as well as the online booking amount?

AK: Our e-bikes are very well available on Amazon and our official website. Consumers have different payment/discount options at both online places. The delivery for anywhere in East and South India takes anywhere between 3-5 days to get delivered. In the rest of India, it takes 5-7 days to deliver. As a promotional event, we are currently offering our customers to pay 10 per cent booking amount and reserve their e-bike. The order will be fulfilled once logistics services start for non-essential goods. Consumers can pay Rs. 2899 to book GoZero Mile and Rs. 3099 to book GoZero One.

ED: How many orders have been fulfilled so far? What is manufacturing capacity?

AK:  We began our deliveries from May 15th 2019. Between May 2019 – March 2020 we sold around 1,200 units of e-bikes. We now have over 50 orders which are yet to be fulfilled and we are happy that our consumers are patient enough to experience the GoZero products. Our current manufacturing capacity is 20,000 units per annum on a single shift.