Online to offline: Big shot e-commerce players go Brick and mortar, want customers to touch and feel before buying

To give their customers a feel of the product that they want to buy, several reputed and established e-commerce companies are opening physical stores. This would also make them stand out in the overflowing online retail space, and would also add credibility to their business. In these stores, customers would be walking in, browsing through the products offered and then book their orders accordingly.

Zivame, for example, has plans to open 100 stores in the coming three years. The Bengaluru-based online lingerie company has already opened its first offline store in the city.

"We spend Rs 8-15 lakh per month on a store. For a large hoarding, it will cost us about Rs 5-10 lakh per month, depending on the location. So, we opened studios where customers can experience and not just recollect the brand," Ashish Shah, founder of Pepperfry.com, told ET. Pepperfry has set up six offline stores and coming three months would see four more of them. These stores give the company almost 20% of its sales.

Flipkart, which happens to be the largest Indian e-commerce company, has opened 20 offline stores across 10 Indian cities, with plans to expand to around 100 experience zones by March next year.

According to experts, the line between online and offline is getting thin day by day and companies have started to switch between the two sides more than ever.

However, these plans do not fit well with the strategies of all online companies. "We are a pure technology player working towards building a virtual experience zone. Hence, we don't see the need for an offline store," Prasad Kompalli, Myntra’s e-commerce platform head, told ET.

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