)
Hong Kong based online marketing company QNet - is planning to shift a majority of its manufacturing bases to India in the next couple of years from all over the world. QNet offers a wide range of products including 30 different brands classified into 9 different categories that focus on enhancing the lives of customers and promote and encourage a healthy lifestyle.
The products range from wellness, skincare and nutrition to Swiss-made watches and jewellery. QNet has expanded its business from South East Asia to more than 100 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, Central Asia, East and West Africa and most recently Europe and Russia.
Its manufacturing bases are currently spread over a dozen countries across the world and distributes products with exclusive franchise with manufacturers. QNet also offers services, including vacation packages and online learning courses.
"Despite our challenges in India, we are investing heavily in manufacturingfacilities and new product development here. We already produce some of our watches in India and our energy drink Nutriplus was created especially for the Indian market with production facility in Himachal Pradesh, which we eventually want to take to our global markets. We want to consolidate manufacturing facilities in India," said Zaheer Merchant, Director, Corporate Affairs, QNet.
The company which sells a host of best suited consumer products online has grown manifold since its launch in India 13 years ago ."Shifting production to India will give us a cost benefit of between 8 and 12%," he added.
Three years ago the company decided to change its product development strategy by focusing on a niche; choosing products that added value and made a differenceto daily life. The over reaching product criterion since then has been Life Enhancement. This shift from merely lifestyle to life enhancement allowed QNet to expand product offerings into education, weight management, air purification and water filtration. Not all products are currently available in India but the company is working towards making more of these available to Indian customers.
Merchant said that India's investment climate evidently has many challenges. Many multinational companies want to come to India and see it as the last frontier, however they are cautious. India's regulatory landscape will no doubt evolve to provide a safer business environment for foreign companies. Policies need to be created to regulate emerging industries such as direct selling, he added.
"Despite having a fully legal structure in place and we are complying with all the Indian government regulations, paying relevant taxes and duties, we are being subject to various legal challenges arising from baseless claims. If a clear legislation was in place, the investigators would be able to see as much as apply, that QNet's Indian operationsare legal, compliant and transparent," he added.
QNet's 'Amezcua' brand wellness and energy range of products are unique. It has an exclusive license to distribute products such as the bio disc and the chi pendant, two of its most popular products in this range. The glass from these product ranges is produced in a state-of-the-art technology facility in Germany, which has morethan 100 years of experience in glass manufacturing and is known as the leading manufacturer of glass in the world.
This glass is energized using proprietary technology in order to create the finished product.Merchant clarified that QNet never made any other claims apart from the ones clearly shown on its website and marketing materials for Amezcua products. As acompany, we follow a vegetarian philosophy.
