Ecommerce portals helping old brands to make a comeback

It is not just the up-and-coming and established brands that are benefiting from the emergence of ecommerce companies. The long forgotten brands that were a rage in its heydays are marching towards ecommerce route too with a hope to restore its past glory.

From Offline to Online

The once popular brands had a monopoly of sorts before other global brands such as LG, Philips, Whirpool and Samsung came in. For instance refrigerator meant Kelvinator. BPL was a trusted company for washing machines. Same goes for Onida for television sets, Sansui for audio system and Maharaja for mixers-and-grinders. Gradually the competition took a toll and market share of these consumer brands shrivelled.

But with online shopping gaining pace in India, these brands have identified a new channel to distribute its products. Electronics companies such as BPL, Kenstar, Onida, Kelvinator, Maharaja and Sansui have already started offering their products at a discounted rate on popular online marketplaces namely, Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal and Paytm. While BPL has exclusively joined hands with Flipkart by signing a 3 year sales deal contract just like Sansui, Videocon is selling its brands on various online sites.

Positive response

This move has turned out to be a very profitable one. According to Gulu Mirchandani, Founder Chairman of the Onida Group, “If ecommerce can account for 50% of white goods sales in China, it is possible it will scale up at the same pace in India in the next 4-5 years, which means a huge opportunity to gain back lost share. The number of positive reviews we have gained from buyers in ecommerce helps to build the brand and viral marketing.”

Nationwide reach with less overheads cost, less investment and assistance is shipping & delivery are few of the points that has convinced traditional brand owners to experiment with the online channel. A senior Videocon representative reiterated this fact by saying, “The overhead costs are almost half in online than in retail shops. And there is a large breed of impulse buyers who purchase just on price in online.”

Looks like old brands are going to give their big rivals a run for their money. More power to them.