With Online Festive Discount Offers Increasing, Offline Retailers Takes Up The Issue Of Disparity Between Online And Offline Offers (Image: Pixabay)
The troubling issues between the offline and online retailers on price parity, customer offers and supply of stocks during the festival season has surfaced again after three years. India’s physical, brick and mortar retailers have requested the major mobile phone and electronic brands to keep parity in price and supply of stock with the e-commerce platforms during the coming festival season. The industry groups representing the retail owners have submitted written letters to market players – Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Xiaomi and OnePlus on this.
The letter mirrors their concerns about the deep discounts which could be offered for online exclusive stores which in turn could leave the physical stores at a disadvantaged position. The industry representors are also to write to other big companies like LG, Bosch, Godrej, Whirlpool and Sony, on this issue, the ET reported.
The retailers are concerned about the discounts, offers and stocks which are focused on the e-commerce platforms, taking into consideration that almost all the big firms would have unsold stock supplies which they would intend to clear off during the festival season. The retailers together have a collective turnover of above Rs. 42,000 crore and outlets which number above 1,55,000.
The retail industry groups which have moved the cause includes the All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA), representing the interests of neighbourhood stores amounting to about 1,50,000 in number; the South Indian Organised Retailers Association (ORA) which is a group of more than 20 retail chains, including the ones such as Poorvika, Big C and Sangeetha; and the Association of Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances Traders (CEHAT), which is represented by 43 retail chains, which includes the Viveks, Great Eastern Retail, Adishwar, Girias and Pai electronics.
Big online platforms like Flipkart and Amazon are to start their biggest discount sale this October and have already begun with their pre-festive-discounts, a move that industry executives says is to clear the unsold inventories. The Reliance owned Jio and Tata’s super app – Neu are also expected to get into the festive discount offers, widening the platforms.
The CEHAT president Raj Kumar Pai said that the association would write to electronics and home appliances firms the coming week as the industry badly needs a level playing field as a matter of survival. He said that, “predatory pricing will kill offline retail. Retailers need decent profit to run the show. If brands offer discounts on online exclusive models, the offline too needs a similar model with similar pricing,” he asserted.
Presenting its case, the AIMRA, in a letter by its chairman Kailash Lakhyani to Realme read, “we hope that the same prices, offers, and sufficient stock of all models in the mainline (or offline channel) will continue to be available across platforms.” In a letter to Samsung, the ORA also said that the ‘company”s prices and offers must align with online initiatives during the festive season,’ reported the ET.
On this, the E-commerce platforms have upheld that the discounting is done either by the seller or the brand while the brands have said that have kept parity in pricing and offers among the channels.
The festival season is the largest season for sales to electronic goods, bringing in around 30% of their yearly sales. From the year 2020, till last year, the discount sales on electronics and mobiles have gone down because of high demand and less supplies. The demand has gone down further, since last Diwali with manufacturers coming under the pressure to liquidate their stocks. Electronics and mobile phones are one of the biggest selling stocks during festival sales.
