Indian Retail Congress 2016 attempts to nurture the retail business

Franchise India, Asia’s largest Franchise solution company, inaugurated the 5th edition of the Indian Retail Congress 2016 at Hyatt Regency Gurgaon (Gurugram). It was a two days summit (29 & 30^th may 2016) where corporate, start-ups, entrepreneurs from the Retail and eRetail space came together to discuss, share and motivate young guns from experience of each other, which will help them to grow their businesses.

Innovative eRetailers

On day 2 of the Retail Congress, Ritu Marya, Editor in Chief, Franchise India spoke about the disruption and innovations, “While discounting and cash backs are very much in demand, it is yet to be seen with the new policies announced by the Government, how will the business and trends change in the near future for the players.”

Speaking on the same note, Ankit Jain, Co-Founder, AskMe Grocery said, “Every disruption is not innovation, but innovation can be disruption. Apple is an innovation which created the disruption, but Patanjali is a disruption and not an innovation. The idea is to change the present trends and create a trend which everyone starts following.”

He further added, “The online grocery market is huge and there is a lot of scope- at least 50 online grocery players can survive and be profitable. It is a matter of awareness and once the customer has the right experience they are hooked on to the entire idea of shopping for grocery online. Also, once we start tapping the customers locally, we identify the local brands that they are used to consuming. So we give them what they want, rather than trying to sell what we want them to consume.”

However, Rohan Bhargav, CEO, CashKaro.com speaks on the usage of cards and cash backs, “Today there are 450 million debits cards in the entire country, but only a miniscule is in use. So, using of cards and getting cash backs is a behavioural change. Once, creating the right value and trust, it automatically gets the customer to start using cards. In the starting we realised in order to attract customers we need to give them actual cash backs, rather than the points which is a general trend. .”

Investing in Capital

In the second session- new-age capital, new-age companies and a new age of retail market was discussed by Sanjeev Krishan, Leader- Private Equity & Transaction Services, PWC India with a panel of bankers, investment firms and venture capitalists on which products, companies and technologies they are or should invest capital into innovative business models.

Retail Licensing

Apart from these, there was a session on how to win in retail with licensing session, Bhai Ajinder Singh, Managing Director, M&B Footwear and Srinivas Chilakalapudi, Chief Strategy Officer, Green Gold Animation spoke about how changing consumerism is pushing retail innovation, tapping Gen Y through corporate brands, maximising reach with digitisation of properties and licensing niche brands and handling infringement in India.

Loyalty in eCommerce

Next session was on how the loyalty programs have become cardless, portable and redemption has become multichannel across industries. Prashant Kumar, General Manager-India, Accorplusand Tushar Ahluwalia, Co-Founder & CEO, StalkBuyLove, discussed how to drive loyalty without a big burn rate, operational efficiency to meet new customer expectations and drive profitability.

Payment service in retail

Last session was on creating a cashless society - disruptive technology for the retail payment sector. Here, Vikram Khanna, SVP & Region Head - North & East India, Payments & Cash Management, India, HSBC and Shirish Andhare, Chief Product Officer, Ezetap spoke over how retailers/eRetailers could benefit from payments innovation and omni-channel payments merchant readiness.