Description
For many years now, retail pundits have been predicting the demise of brick-and-mortar retail stores at the hands of e-commerce backed by the fact that the global e-commerce sector is dominating consumer spending worldwide with an impressive forecasted CAGR of over 19 percent by 2020.
With so much happening in the online space, it comes as a huge surprise then that major e-commerce players worldwide are pushing for the physical. International online giants such as Amazon, Warby Parker, Zappos and Bonobos have been opening stores for some time now. Th e-shift towards physical has become more noticeable over the last few years – across the globe including India. It seems that while the Internet may have penetrated the heart of India, the hearts of Indians still lies with the brick-and-mortar model.
In the May 2018 issue of IMAGES Retail May, we bring you an in-depth analysis into why successful e-commerce portal are opening physical stores. We tell you why pure-play e-commerce companies now have an offline strategy and are rushing into the traditional retail space. The feature analyzes the market, the challenges, as well as the approach of the big players of the Indian e-commerce industry along with their expansion plan, while bringing you a roundup of the revenue and footfalls the O2O method has managed to rake in.
Adding to the O2O debate, in the My Thoughts corner, is an article from Amit Chaudhary, Co-Founder & COO, Lenskart, who gives a detailed account of why the firm took the offline route after becoming the number one online player in the Indian eyewear market.
In keeping with the brick-and-mortar focus of the issue is an article on in-store retail executives in our new section Th e Front Desk. Written by BS Nagesh, Founder, TRRAIN, the article focuses on the role of the front-end retail associate in identifying and solving consumer problems.
We also bring you an exclusive interaction with Gunjan Soni, Head of Jabong & Chief Marketing Officer at Myntra, on how the two Indian e-commerce behemoths have revamped the country’s online fashion retail sector, with the use of Vorta.
As always, we hope you find this issue informed and beneficial. Do logon to our website, www.indiaretailing.com, to read more informative articles and analyses on the state of the global retail industry, with an emphasis on India.
