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Richa \n Maheshwari & Sagar Malviya, The Economic Times<\/i><\/p>\n Richa \n Maheshwari & Sagar Malviya, The Economic Times<\/i><\/p>\n
Bengaluru\/Mumbai, \n 26 June 2015<\/i><\/p>\n
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A \n nondescript three storey building at Whitefield — the hotbed \n of tech companies in Bengaluru — where a team of around 100 \n people including 35 engineers talk more about cloud technology \n and analytics than catwalks and advertising, is not a place one \n would identify with a fashion powerhouse like Madura Fashion & \n Lifestyle. <\/p>\n
Yet this is where the country’s largest apparel retailer has \n its next big growth driver: Trendin.com, its online division. \n Within a year of its launch, sales of Trendin have equalled those \n of 30 branded stores, or close to 1% of Madura’s turnover. <\/p>\n
In fact, Kumar Mangalam Birla’s fashion flagship claims that \n Trendin — run by a completely independent management team \n and having dedicated warehouses and partnership with many tech \n startups — is the largest online portal of any brick-and-mortar \n retailer in the country. <\/p>\n
"The engineering team of Trendin has built the platform, \n which is unlike any other brick-and-mortar company setting up \n ecommerce," said Shivanandan Pare, head of e-commerce at \n Madura, which has over half a dozen marquee brands including Louis \n Philippe, Van Heusen and Allen Solly. He said that unlike its \n peers Madura’s Trendin has built its technology in house. <\/p>\n
"This gives us extreme flexibility and agility." Before \n joining Madura, Pare, 41, was instrumental in turning around Reliance’s \n BigAdda by changing the social networking site into a commerce \n venture five years ago. The stakes are much higher now as there \n are strong rivals including Flipkart and Amazon in the online \n space and his merchandise spread is limited to own brands. <\/p>\n
"The mandate is clear — Trendin should be Madura consumers’ \n first choice online. We have the widest range of merchandise available \n compared to online marketplaces and even our own stores," \n said Pare, an engineer and management graduate. <\/p>\n
After sudden market share gains by online players, strategies \n of several traditional retailers including Reliance, Tatas and \n Future Group now revolve around omni-channel retail, which requires \n IT systems and processes to support customers shopping both in \n stores and online. <\/p>\n
For Birlas, it is no different. Devangshu Dutta, chief executive \n officer at retail consultancy Third Eyesight, said Trendin’s big \n challenge is to attract enough customers to its site. <\/b><\/p>\n
"The online market, in the last there years, was driven \n by discounting. Such a [blended business] platform has an inherent \n strength of product mix and service, which is now becoming important," \n he said. <\/b><\/p>\n
"Trendin is driving customer acquisition online which can \n also work vice-versa but the real challenge is whether they can \n build enough traffic." Trendin is only a fraction of Flipkart \n or Amazon in terms of sales, but it is also helping Madura’s offline \n sales by sharing consumer insights. <\/p>\n
For instance, search queries on Trendin get shared with Madura’s \n merchandising team to help forecast demand better. So what’s moving \n online faster is stocked at stores too. <\/p>\n
Just like his daily six-kilometer commute for office on his bicycle, \n Pare has been hitting the pedals hard on partnerships – from involving \n startups such as Infinite Analytics and Cloud2scale to roping \n in FedEx, Ecom Express and India Post for delivery of products. \n The company’s dedicated 60,000 square feet warehouse comes handy \n too.
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