Tata Cliq Aims To Differentiate Itself With Omni-Channel Focus

India's biggest conglomerate Tata Group recently launched e-commerce platform Tata Cliq to capitalise on middle class growth and rapid internet adoption in the country. By 2025, online merchandise sales will hit $220 billion in India from $11 billion last year, according to estimates of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

However, the foray of Tata Group, whose businesses include steel production, tea packaging, information technology services and automobiles, comes at a time when other e-commerce players like Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal have established a strong head start by entering the space much earlier.

How the Tata group wants to differentiate its e-commerce venture? Speaking to NDTV Profit, Ashutosh Pandey, CEO of Tata Cliq, said, "Tata Cliq, I think, is India's first omni-channel and possibly world's first omni-channel market place." (Watch)

Omni-channel is a business model that leverages both offline (physical stores) and online channel with the aim of providing a seamless service to customers.

"We want to integrate the stores both online and offline and make customer experience seamless...like buy online and if you don't like it return it in the store and we ship you quickly from the store," Mr Pandey said.

Mr Pandey said that omni-channel will remain its key priority. "Some of the other players have launched omni-channel around a particular set of group companies or around particular verticals. In our case it is spread across the network," he added.

He also said that Tata Cliq has also "brought onto the platform a large range of fresh merchandise (fashion)."

"On this marketplace, you will find a lot of new ranges...things that you would like to browse in the store and buy in the store. Typically, most of the brands usually give old season, discounted very small range to multiple marketplaces."

Mr Pandey said that the initial response to Tata Cliq has been "overwhelming". The marketplace has been launched with around 400 brands and only a handful are Tata brands, he added.

He also said that the e-commerce player offers 20-odd exclusive brands on its platform.

Further rollout of omni-channel and launch of new brands and categories are among its top priorities, Mr Pandey said.