Offline mobile retailers may eventually not compete with online marketplaces. Yes, you read that right! They have found a unique solution to the price battle with online marketplaces. Now, mobile manufacturers will be launching special ‘online only’ handsets, which are models that will exclusively be sold online. Additionally, this will also curb the fatal price competition that online retailers were giving offline brand stores.
Micromax Informatics and Kolkata-based mobile handset brand Hitech Mobiles have launched exclusive mobile models that will be sold online only. Hitech Mobiles Managing Director Mohammed Gyasuddin said, “We have also launched Maxcell brand for mobiles only for online marketplace. With exclusive online brand, the issue had been resolved as no price comparison factor remains valid.”
Ever since the electronics war between online and offline retailers began, we have been covering all the details of what has been happening. Let’s have a quick recap. Online retailers ramped up their sales in 2014, giving extraordinarily priced deals on electronics, primarily mobile phones. This led to a rapid rise in ‘electronics’ as a product category in online shopping. In fact, it is still the leading product category.
Offline brand stores began to feel the heat of the situation. Sales of mobile phones from traditional brick and mortar stores had dropped by an astounding 40 per cent during Diwali. This was an unnatural occurrence that was primarily triggered by competition from online retailers.
Offline retailers began to raise their voices. They brought to light various incidents like sale of a fraudulent product on an online marketplace, all in an attempt to jam the brakes of the online retail frenzy. In a repercussion, brand houses had issued notices declaring that they would not cover warranty for certain electronics sold online. This obviously dulled the shine of buying electronics online.
With this smart move of launching ‘online only’ cell phone models, we think the online retail industry will have to gear up for another dimension to the electronics sale war.
Editor team is specialized in introducing the marketplace content targeting the Indian online sellers. They plan and coordinate to bring the appealing content for the small businesses on how to partner with the e-commerce sites like Amazon and Flipkart and strategies for improving their online business.
Leave a Comment
