From the day I was born in what was then Calcutta in 1961, till the early 1980s by which time the family had moved to Chennai, the only refrigerator that my siblings and I had ever known was an Electrolux.
From the day my brother was born in 1957 till the late 1970s, the only music system he listened to was a Gerrard. Later, he changed to a Philips. Not because the Gerrard malfunctioned, but because he wanted to shift from the valve-amplifiers to solid state.
I could write similar paragraphs about the gas burner, the iron, the coffee filter, the frying pan, lamps, fans, and so on.
All the products were expected to be ‘durable’ and brand choice was made based on one’s conviction of the durability.
In those days, there were few exclusive single-brand outlets in any category; so you went to a white-goods shop that stocked the widest possible range.
Consumers ask a lot of questions — all focused on durability. How long was the guarantee for? How good was the service team? Where were they located? How long would it be between a complaint being registered and the complaint being resolved? What was the thickness of the metal sheet that the fridge was made out of? Was the casing of the stereo system really wood?
It was only when these questions were answered and the consumer has made a short-list that the conversation turned to price and delivery schedules.
Because when it came to durables, price and delivery were far less important than the durability aspect. They still are, I would argue.
In all the years that I lived in Kolkata, all our durables were bought from the same shop: Schugane’s. The Electrolux that my father bought from Schugane’s on Park Street would have been available cheaper at Dharamtolla, but would have inspired less confidence in durability.
Schugane’s was the guarantee of durability, whatever the brand of fridge, TV set, air-conditioner, music system or toaster that he sold you.
Schugane’s was the bigger brand than the branded appliance that you bought from him. Schugane’s made higher margins than his competitors.
Why can’t the e-commerce brands learn from the Schugane model that the highest turnover would come from expensive, large durables, if the consumer trusted you.
E-commerce focuses disproportionately on price and speed of delivery, two attributes that are not the most important attributes when it comes to purchase decisions in e-commerce.
How can Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal not only sell a million mobile handsets on a single day and make profits doing so?
By building a relationship with their clients through the life time of the durables they sell to them.
When my father bought an Electrolux fridge from Schugane’s, after-sales service was still done by Electrolux. But it was Schugane’s that was the single point of contact for us, the only solution provider. As a result, if Electrolux dealt efficiently with a complaint, our gratitude was more to Schugane’s and less to Electrolux.
That’s an amazing achievement in durables. The more expensive the product, the shorter our patience with a grievance redressal system. In the e-commerce world, as in the case of Schugane’s, if a company in the ‘marketplace’ fails or is slow in the after-sales area, the consumer’s ire is firmly, irrationally and angrily targeted at the e-commerce brand, notwithstanding the hundreds of pages of legalese that you have acknowledged having read when making a purchase.
The price and delivery stories were stories that needed to be told when e-commerce was in the nascent stages. It’s time now to move to other stories: reliability, dependability, and trust.
Or you become like the store in Dharamtolla, the one my father never went to.
The writer is Editor, Storyboard
