Online shopping of fashion merchandise does not give customer the luxury to feel the texture of the fabric before booking.
Now an app is wooing customers by showcasing fashion stores in their area on mobile and giving them points or rather money to visit and buy at the shop of their choice. And before they splurge they can feel the softness of the cotton shirt or the texture of the silken top. And in all this normal shopping experience the customer only has to use the software or app to indicate his/her presence in the shop to avail the discount.
Fashalot App is in the news for getting thousands of footfalls at its partner stores – 2,600 national as well as international brands – within a year of its operation. This fashion app empowers customers to check in what is best suited for him. The look book has information on all major brands and updates on the latest fashion trend.
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Right now in operation in Delhi/NCR and Bangalore, this is the brainchild of Amit Koshal, who lures prospective customers by giving them information on the brick and mortar stores near their vicinity.
“On this offline to online location based fashion store, customer does not have to haggle with the proprietor to give him concession. Instead, he gets points which translate into amount of Rs.300 to Rs.500. Some customers, particularly girls, like to bargain with owners. Now they do not have to do that as I have already entered into a deal with the brand owner before the customer steps into the shop,” says Amit.
Pointing out that e-commerce sites have to cover costs in inventory and logistics, Amit says: “We do not have to worry about any of these as we only facilitate shopping at our partner stores for which we get commission and a fraction of it is passed to the client.” Another advantage, Amit says, is that customer can directly communicate with brand retailers. On their phones, they can check about the garments on offer.
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Giving an example, Amit says: “Say a customer based at ITO wants a crisp khadi kurta. Now we update him on the khadi shops at Connaught Place where hand spun hand woven garments are available.
The app tracks the customer’s location. So he has to go to the exact shop which we have indicated, get a feel of the kurta and then buy and earn points.”
A win-win situation for both as the more frequent customer shops, better discounts he/she gets and more commission comes to Fashalot App. “Suppose a company’s Rajouri Garden outlet is not attracting customers so I might offer more discount to tempt shoppers to buy merchandise. On every purchase we get a commission of 15 per cent. We offer Rs.300 or Rs. 500 depending on how many times our customer shops. He might avail the points while shopping at Big Bazaar or recharging his mobile. This universal loyalty platform is such a successful model that last month we got 30,000 footfalls at our partner stores,” claims Amit.