The 148-year-old Tata Group has made a foray into the Indian ecommerce market through TataCLiQ.com.
The venture will sell apparel, electronics and footwear among other products. “Currently, there are only 30 million regular online shoppers in India and there is immense potential to bring the next 100 million with an offering that builds from their current path to purchase rather than expecting them to change behaviour,” Ashutosh Pandey of Tata Unistore, which runs Tata Cliq, said.
The group said it developed the Tata Cliq website over a year-and-a-half at a cost of “several hundred million dollars”. The site would act as a marketplace for its in-house and partner companies. The venture marks a new direction for the salt-to-steel conglomerate which has so far focused on physical retail stores.
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Customers can order online at TataCLiQ and get the items home-delivered or pick them up at designated stores, a model the company termed “phygital,” a combination of physical and digital. TataCLiQ.com services will be available in the unveiling phase in 6,856 pincodes across 689 cities and towns. It plans to scale up to more than 2,000 stores from 500 stores in the coming months.
“Phygital” play can be a game changer in e-commerce, significantly enhancing customer experience while reducing logistics and delivery costs for a long-term, profitable business, said K.R.S. Jamwal, Executive Director, Tata Industries.
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The Tata Group said its focus was on profit margins. “We don’t want to get into discount wars; we want to serve customers with great products and build a sustainable business,” said Mr. Pandey.
Start-ups Flipkart, Snapdeal and U.S.-based Amazon are battling it out for market share in the country. E-commerce giant Alibaba is looking to enter the India market. By 2025, online merchandise sales will hit $220 billion in India from $11 billion last year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.