The one difference between unorganised and organised retail is, one of the business tries too hard to develop a relationship with its customers and for the other, it is a legacy of relationships. Multinational retail giants try very hard to maintain the customer relationship. Marketing campaigns are focused towards pulling more customers and developing the companies brand image. Organised sectors market very hard to make themselves relatable to the general public of India. But the masses still gravitate towards the corner mom-and-pop stores to buy products for their daily needs – the factors being convenience and trust.
Even today, no matter how convenient the e-commerce retail industry might become for the customer, no matter how customer-friendly these companies might be, they will never be able to match the trust that has been instilled within the customer for the ‘dukandar’ that they interact with on daily basis.
In 2017, allegations were raised against e-commerce giants that more than 70% of the products they sell are fakes. Some of the distributors registered on these websites are skillful counterfeiters. Amidst all this, undiscerning customers are most gullible. A bit of research on the internet can give you enough information about the number of court cases registered against them.
Retail platforms today may have tighter regulations and strict norms against these counterfeiters and the numbers of such cases may have gone down but we still do hear about them.
Dilemma with the rectangles
We all know the story of a man who ordered a high priced phone and got a set of 3 dishwashing soaps and a girl who faced a similar experience, with a brick shipped to her home. We are not writing this to chastise these platforms for shipping invaluable rectangles to these unfortunate people, but rather pointing out the irreverence these companies have in dealing with such cases.
Sometime these companies are good at morphing their brand identity to make themselves relatable, but there is certainly some sort of a disconnect when it comes to their customer support quality and the brand perception that they have in the market.
Now, compare the same with the corner mom-and-pop store where you buy your supplies on a day to day basis. Of course the relationship and the trust factor is better. Even if we buy a defective or an expired product from the dukandar, he will not hesitate in replacing it. The likelihood of the dukandar to not conform to its routine customers demand will be less as these retailers are looking to maintain a long-term relationship with the shoppers. The customer support with your favourite kirana store will always be first rate.
A platform to enable
It is about time that these unorganised retailers be empowered. The reach and the geographical spread these merchants have in India cannot be compared to any e-commerce retail market or even the organised retail market. We have more than 14 million retailers in India and each of them is a network center-point that connects to at least a couple of hundred people in their locality. We have a tendency to support the companies who spend millions of dollars on marketing campaigns and inadvertently sideline the dukandar who we interact with on the daily basis.
Working towards the betterment of these dukandars is what Pay1 is focused on. We as a platform enable these retailers by providing them access to any products, services and credit to make them organised. This will not only help in improving their service standards but also help other products and service industry to promote themselves through these retailers.
