While e-commerce is still largely an urban phenomenon, TV home shopping has managed to touch India’s hinterland.
It has helped brands reach out to smaller towns and even villages, particularly in the past couple of years.
The home shopping industry, for instance, has a majority of the sales coming from tier II cities and beyond. Women are the main customers of home shopping companies.
For Naaptol, 84 per cent of the sales come from tier II and cities beyond. Metros and tier I account for just 16 per cent of their sales.
Contribution to sales by tier III cities is 37 per cent and even smaller towns 22 per cent. This includes cities and towns like Ernakulum, Lucknow, Jaipur, Patna, Kanpur, Kollam and Medak.
“We launched Naaptol Blue our first 24x7 Hindi home shopping channel in September 2013. After that we didn’t take long to realise that a sizeable chunk of our orders come from smaller towns. Its contribution has been increasing by 50 per cent Y-o-Y,” said Manu Agarwal, CEO & founder, Naaptol.
Shop CJ has expanded its media service by almost one-third in the past one-and-half years. Its Hindi channel used to reach 80 million homes earlier while another 20 million was added in this period.
Likewise, a Telugu channel too was launched recently.
During this period, contribution from places other than top 10 cities went up to 50 per cent.
“In the past couple of years, the home shopping industry has seen good growth in smaller towns and cities. The spending in these places has gone up, especially after the monsoons,” said Dhruva Chandrie, COO, Shop CJ.
According to him, the companies also increased their reach, working on last mile delivery by associating with courier companies.
“Increasing logistic reach and addition of more TV sets every month due to more distribution and cable TV digitisation has helped us increase our reach in the far off towns. As they say India lives in the hinterlands, we reach where others couldn’t,” said Agarwal.
Naaptol has recruited logistic partners at district levels, which will help the company reach the last mile and enable faster deliveries to locations where most of the courier companies don’t service.
They also find that TV is a more trusted channel in smaller cities, especially among the women customers, who are not comfortable with the internet.
Demonstration of the products too adds to the trust. They do not have as many options to buy from.
In the case of Naaptol, women from rural regions buy more of home decor and kitchen storage products.
On behalf of women who are not call centre- friendly, products such as jewellery, sarees, dress material and kitchen products are ordered by the male member of the family.
Shop CJ has 80 per cent of the airtime dedicated for ladies’ products. These customers are more comfortable with cash-on-delivery transactions. It used to account for 90 per cent of the sales for Shop CJ and 95 per cent from Naaptol. However, after demonetisation, card-on-delivery mode is going up.
The industry is currently valued over Rs 4,500 crore and is expected to grow faster in the coming years, as companies add channels in more languages along with distribution.
According to Chandrie, by way of comparison, TV home shopping is valued $20 billion in a market like Korea.
sangeethag@mydigitalfc.com
It has helped brands reach out to smaller towns and even villages, particularly in the past couple of years.
The home shopping industry, for instance, has a majority of the sales coming from tier II cities and beyond. Women are the main customers of home shopping companies.
For Naaptol, 84 per cent of the sales come from tier II and cities beyond. Metros and tier I account for just 16 per cent of their sales.
Contribution to sales by tier III cities is 37 per cent and even smaller towns 22 per cent. This includes cities and towns like Ernakulum, Lucknow, Jaipur, Patna, Kanpur, Kollam and Medak.
“We launched Naaptol Blue our first 24x7 Hindi home shopping channel in September 2013. After that we didn’t take long to realise that a sizeable chunk of our orders come from smaller towns. Its contribution has been increasing by 50 per cent Y-o-Y,” said Manu Agarwal, CEO & founder, Naaptol.
Shop CJ has expanded its media service by almost one-third in the past one-and-half years. Its Hindi channel used to reach 80 million homes earlier while another 20 million was added in this period.
Likewise, a Telugu channel too was launched recently.
During this period, contribution from places other than top 10 cities went up to 50 per cent.
“In the past couple of years, the home shopping industry has seen good growth in smaller towns and cities. The spending in these places has gone up, especially after the monsoons,” said Dhruva Chandrie, COO, Shop CJ.
According to him, the companies also increased their reach, working on last mile delivery by associating with courier companies.
“Increasing logistic reach and addition of more TV sets every month due to more distribution and cable TV digitisation has helped us increase our reach in the far off towns. As they say India lives in the hinterlands, we reach where others couldn’t,” said Agarwal.
Naaptol has recruited logistic partners at district levels, which will help the company reach the last mile and enable faster deliveries to locations where most of the courier companies don’t service.
They also find that TV is a more trusted channel in smaller cities, especially among the women customers, who are not comfortable with the internet.
Demonstration of the products too adds to the trust. They do not have as many options to buy from.
In the case of Naaptol, women from rural regions buy more of home decor and kitchen storage products.
On behalf of women who are not call centre- friendly, products such as jewellery, sarees, dress material and kitchen products are ordered by the male member of the family.
Shop CJ has 80 per cent of the airtime dedicated for ladies’ products. These customers are more comfortable with cash-on-delivery transactions. It used to account for 90 per cent of the sales for Shop CJ and 95 per cent from Naaptol. However, after demonetisation, card-on-delivery mode is going up.
The industry is currently valued over Rs 4,500 crore and is expected to grow faster in the coming years, as companies add channels in more languages along with distribution.
According to Chandrie, by way of comparison, TV home shopping is valued $20 billion in a market like Korea.
sangeethag@mydigitalfc.com
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