Our Brand Does Not Allow Too Many Discounts: Salil Malik

At the CII India Retail conclave 2017 Salil Malik, Director, Rosso Brunello spoke about the strategies of success for e-commerce players and retailers in the online space after discounts. He spoke at length about the importance of e-commerce, what is the way forward and his transition from a brick and mortar to his brand’s online presence. Malik believes the next ten years will change the face of the e-commerce industry.  He also believes discounts will always be helpful as India is a price sensitive market.

Tell me how important is e-commerce for you?
E-commerce is very important, and in next 10 years, it is going to become great. The internet penetration is growing and the country is going ahead. You know the number of users on the mobile platform and the kind of structure everyone has been working on it and it seems there is going to be a lot of attention.

We had an intense discussion on how discounts won't be sustainable so what do you think is discounts are not sustainable, what is the road map ahead, what would be sustainable?
I think discount should always be a part of it but not to an extent that it is right now, the other factors, other driving factors as discussed in the panel that there's going to be accessibility and the availability of products of which is easier for people to have been going online and shop so which is always going to be a big driver ,  but discounts will be to some extent because India being very sensitive price point market, it will be a part of entire e-commerce growth.

Yours has been a brand which is had a very strong bricking mortar presence and now you have transitioned into e-commerce, how has the transition been for you?
For our brand, e-commerce sales just contributes for sale of 7%, so at the moment we know we have been aggressive because you know as I told you that e-commerce over here in India has been very discount centric, so we are the brand be very careful we don't allow so many discounts so we've not been very aggressive in that segment so going forward as discounting will not be the only thing so we would be more aggressive in this field.