According to a recent report, Samsung is planning to adopt hyperlocal strategy in India to boost its online sales through top e-commerce sites in the country. With this strategy, Samsung authorized dealers and its own brand stores will fulfil deliveries for orders placed on e-commerce sites. This strategy ensures online pricing on par with offline stores and offline retailers and facilitates faster delivery and installation of the products, especially televisions and appliances.
Samsung is localising ecommerce order delivery, installation and even collection of payment for cash-on-delivery orders through authorised distributors and dealers who will be market specific.
Samsung sells its wares through WS Retail on Flipkart and Cloudtail on Amazon. When India allowed 100% FDI in online retail of goods and services, it also made some regulatory changes, which makes sure that no single vendor can contribute to more than 25% of the sales. By letting its own dealers handle sales and deliveries, Samsung has more control over its online portfolio.
While there may be potential advantages for consumers such as installation, but the real test will be in service delivery and post-delivery issues for which the ecommerce sellers have already built their name.
Samsung is will list its local sellers on Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal whereby all orders will be redirected to the closest brand store based on their pin code. While the move is certainly interesting, industry experts believe the real test will be in implementing the plan.
