Fabmart is one e-tailer, which keeps hitting the headlines often, as much for its new initiatives, as well as for reports that say that Rupert Murdoch and Dhirubhai Ambani have looked at equity stakes in the e-tailer. So, what makes this 10-month-old online store click? Fabmart went online on September 29 last year, and processed 12 transactions in its very first day of operation. What followed were days of struggle when the store survived on minimal transactions. But shoppers kept trickling in, and there was no day when Fabmart failed to attract at least one request. The store now registers about 250 transactions a day, with the average transaction amount hovering at around Rs 200.
A leading IT magazine in its recent survey on Indian e-commerce engines picked Fabmart as the ‘best focused’ e-commerce shop. More recently, readers of Chip magazine voted Fabmart the ‘best virtual superstore’. Fabmart acknowledges that not all e-commerce ventures will survive and expects “most of them to fall by the wayside”. Talking to Praxis, K. Vaitheeswaran, Vice-President, Marketing, Fabmart, outlined how his company’s e-tailing model is different from horizontal portals and other e-commerce engines. Being an early mover, and now an established one, the Fabmart model is now considered a benchmark for financial institutions looking at e-commerce ventures.
How it Differs
According to Vaitheeswaran, horizontal portals offer all things to all people, and online shopping will remain a small part of such ventures. These portals are not focussed e-commerce engines. Fabmart believes in providing depth rather than width. Starting with books and music, it now offers a wide collection from within these categories and, according to Vaitheeswaran, it focuses on providing high levels of customer satisfaction. The store is designed on the ‘find what you need fast’ policy. Take the bookstore, for instance. A shopper can use the option of searching either by title, or first/last name of the author. There is also an additional facility of advanced search for those who would like to search by combining two or three options.
The search options are similar for the Fabmart music store. Once the customer has selected the items to be purchased, he/she then clicks on the ‘add to shopping cart’ icon and goes through the entire shopping process. At the time of confirming his/her order, the shopper is given a reference number that can be used to track order status. Fabmart is banking on the virtual store’s depth in offerings and customer satisfaction initiatives to add value to its e-tailing business. And this, it hopes, will be the final differentiating factor.
The Fulfillment Process
It’s easy to lose an online customer. For him to prefer an online store to a neighbourhood shop would have been a difficult decision involving a fundamental behavioural change. And the e-tailer just cannot disappoint the customer in service or delivery. In fact, Fabmart is to shortly introduce an online call center (live chat) where a customer can get instant feedback on his/her queries
A leading IT magazine in its recent survey on Indian e-commerce engines picked Fabmart as the ‘best focused’ e-commerce shop. More recently, readers of Chip magazine voted Fabmart the ‘best virtual superstore’. Fabmart acknowledges that not all e-commerce ventures will survive and expects “most of them to fall by the wayside”. Talking to Praxis, K. Vaitheeswaran, Vice-President, Marketing, Fabmart, outlined how his company’s e-tailing model is different from horizontal portals and other e-commerce engines. Being an early mover, and now an established one, the Fabmart model is now considered a benchmark for financial institutions looking at e-commerce ventures.
How it Differs
According to Vaitheeswaran, horizontal portals offer all things to all people, and online shopping will remain a small part of such ventures. These portals are not focussed e-commerce engines. Fabmart believes in providing depth rather than width. Starting with books and music, it now offers a wide collection from within these categories and, according to Vaitheeswaran, it focuses on providing high levels of customer satisfaction. The store is designed on the ‘find what you need fast’ policy. Take the bookstore, for instance. A shopper can use the option of searching either by title, or first/last name of the author. There is also an additional facility of advanced search for those who would like to search by combining two or three options.
The search options are similar for the Fabmart music store. Once the customer has selected the items to be purchased, he/she then clicks on the ‘add to shopping cart’ icon and goes through the entire shopping process. At the time of confirming his/her order, the shopper is given a reference number that can be used to track order status. Fabmart is banking on the virtual store’s depth in offerings and customer satisfaction initiatives to add value to its e-tailing business. And this, it hopes, will be the final differentiating factor.
The Fulfillment Process
It’s easy to lose an online customer. For him to prefer an online store to a neighbourhood shop would have been a difficult decision involving a fundamental behavioural change. And the e-tailer just cannot disappoint the customer in service or delivery. In fact, Fabmart is to shortly introduce an online call center (live chat) where a customer can get instant feedback on his/her queries