Ever since it first started to attract funding, ethnic handicrafts marketplace, Craftsvilla has been turning heads in more ways than one. In July it launched a state of the art image search feature for its customers. This prompted IOS to do a thorough report for our readers, on how to sell on the niche marketplace.
Craftsvilla has now earmarked Rs. 65 crore to open up 10 experience centres across India by March 2016, in order to let its customers check out the product before parting with their hard earned cash. Craftsvilla will display some of its finest merchandise and will also have trained staff on hand to assist buyers to purchase products online, within the shop.
“With the e-commerce market growing steadily in India, it is essential that the customers get acquainted with products thereby inculcating brand loyalty. Our centres will bridge that gap for a better customer experience,” said Manoj Gupta, Founder, Craftsvilla.
The omni-channel approach seems to be the next big thing in ecommerce, with retailers having online stores and etailers opening up physical bricks and mortar stores. The concept of experience zones is slightly different, in that etailers aim to provide pre-sale services in the stores with the hope to generate further sales online.
“The focus is to provide customers the top selling products of Craftsvilla which they can try out before they buy. Though the products will be only available online, our staff will provide them assistance with choosing the product,” stated Gupta.
Furniture etailer, Pepperfry has set up experience studio’s and even Snapdeal last year started experience zones for its fabric, wedding and running products to educate customers on latest trends. Flipkart also launched experience zones, which allowed its customers to pick up their orders from the store itself. It is too early to gauge the success of experience zones, although having an online to offline strategy is definitely the way to go.
Craftsvilla aims to pump in $10 million to make acquisitions that will impact its technology, which includes search and analytics capabilities. It plans to launch its own private label to cater to the 40% of its customers who hail from small villages. Craftsvilla wants to also tap the luxury ethnic wear category by recruiting Bollywood celebrities for its advertising campaign.
Currently the inventory on its site is procured from Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, but the ethnic marketplace is planning to onboard 25,000 online sellers over the next 3 years which is likely to broad-base the sourcing of its product range.
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.
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