E-commerce Is A Tool That Has To Be Handled With Care: Benu Sehgal

At the CII India Retail conclave 2017 Benu Sehgal, Head Retail and Marketing Ambience Private Ltd was one of the panelists at a panel discussion on  "What after discounts, Framing the ideal success strategy for e-commerce players and retailers in the online space ", talks about the importance of e-commerce in today's time, her journey from the brand's presence in the brick and mortar space to e-commerce and retail. In an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld Sehgal sheds light on the road ahead for e-commerce as an industry from here.

How important is e-commerce for you?
Very important, without e-commerce now I don't think any brand, any mall, any retailer can exist. It is a tool which has to be handled with care if used properly can really increase your sales.

How has been the transition from Brick and mortar from e-commerce been for you?
Everything in this universe evolves so retail has grown into e-commerce, now e-commerce will have to grow into a co-existence so which is how now my experience with e-commerce would be that it was only brick and mortar. The prime thing is to get the customers and make them aware. E-commerce comes into existence wherein the awareness of the products have increased so much that even people sitting in the remotest of the village know the brands, their quality, about discounts. Discount is one strategy which is there I think will eventually will because sustainability would not come but in e-commerce, everything has to be digitalized, and it will help us reach to the remotest customers.

So what do you think is the road map ahead from here? 
The road map ahead from here which I see, brick and mortar will not go, it will become even better. The experiences will even evolve into better ones. The consumer will expect much more when they will come to brick and mortar, so they have to evolve. They have to give very good experience because the consumer has the accessibility of the product on the e-commerce so it has to be more than that. So I see stores becoming better, I see stores offering customers very good experience which is more personalised, I see stores offering like Zivame for that matter, Zivame has taken a very good road.  I was a loyal MNS person and I have now enrolled into Zivame because of that. Every time I would go on Facebook Zivame would pop-up and this kind of created an inquisitiveness in my mind and when I saw a Zivame store, in fact, the first Zivame store I had opened in Delhi was in DLF Mall, Saket and then I went into the store and I saw and interacted and when I saw the product then I went on the internet and then I bought and then you this how the whole thing got into.

So how do you think we can make an experience seem less for a consumer now when discounts are an obsolete strategy?
Discounts are going to go they have a very small life. They will remain there until the end of the season as we have in brick and mortar, they will be there for the last year product, they will be there for the things which are not moving in brick and mortar. The discount strategy is not going to last because it has no sustainability, no oxygen and anything which does not have sustainability will ultimately perish.