)
In order to connect with consumers shopping in-store or online, Adidas Group which owns Adidas and Reebok launched its omni-channel operations in Chandigarh, the second city in India only after Delhi NCR. The group has plans to launch the omni-channel strategy in over 200 stores across cities by March 2016 from six at present. The company says this will help grow its India business by around 10-15% annually.
Omni channel installation in Adidas stores comprises tablets installed at the retail outlet which enables the consumers to browse, research and to place order goods from any of its stores irrespective of its location. Through this new technology, the retailers will be able to sell products which are not available in their stores and at the same time service orders received from the Adidas web store. Hence, the strategy enable retailers to become e-tailers.
Speaking to Business Standard, Abhishek Lal, Senior Director E-commerce; adidas Group India said; “Our aim behind launching omni Channel is to provide credibility, choice and convenience to our valuable customers. Through this we would be able to provide our customers a complete range of products across designs, models, colours and sizes. At the same time we are also endeavoring to communicate more effectively with our customers and therefore are working to acquire atleast 1 million consumer details by 2016.”
“We at Adidas group aim to fully integrate 200 retail outlets with omni channel across India by March 2016. Further we have plans to integrate all our existing retail outlets, i.e. 750 stores by 2017. Around half of Adidas India's total omni-channel sales will come from Tier 3 and 4 cities, as our reach is limited,” he added.
On being asked the expected growth with the implementation of this new technology, he added, “ We are looking to grow at least 10-15% annually by deploying this model. The strategy allow us to showcase more than 3,500 products at a store using with the implementation of this technology while the actual number of products available at an Adidas store at any given point in time less than around 1000. We also have plans to increase the total number of products to 5000 in next two months.”
He also added, ‘ We also have product lines such as, Adidas Neo exclusive to omni-channel model keeping in mind the expected demand from smaller cities and towns.”
