When personal golf champion start selling online, it implies two things. One, Indians aren't afraid of spending online. Two, they expect to be pampered in the virtual world, too. Dhamini Ratnam on exclusivity the Internet isn't known for.
On the weekend before Valentine's day, 30-year-old Susan Das surprised her partner with air tickets to Goa. On landing, she took him to a five-star hotel inPanaji, where they spent three languid days. A business developer in a Mumbai salon, Das even indulged in a massage that came complimentary, because she had bought the package online.
Excluzen.com, a three-monthold luxury website, offers its members travel packages with complimentary sops. For instance, a two-night stay at the Galaxy Hotel in Gurgaon not only costs 7,000 lesser, but also includes unlimited usage of Internet, two complimentary drinks at the bar, and 15 per cent discount on food and spa treatment. All are limited offers, and a digi clock ticks away on the site.
But what is interesting is that Das's trip to Goa wasn't available on the website. The site's call centre located in New Delhi developed one especially for her, within a budget of 20,000, as requested.
Welcome to India's emerging 'exclusive websites'. Portals like Excluzen, offer high-end products and rare services to an audience that has grown comfortable spending large sums of money online.
A report released two weeks ago titled, E-commerce: A boon for the current economic downturn by First Data Corporation and ICICI Merchant Services, says that urban Indian consumers are confident enough to make online purchases up to 25,000 at a time. What's more, nearly 150 million Indian Internet users are estimated to be ready for ecommerce, an industry currently pegged at US $10 billion according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India.
With such comfort, however, comes great expectation, admits Urvashi Sahay, the founder of Excluzen. The website offers products across categories: artworks by Vietnamese artists; gadgets like the iPhone 4OS; and services such as one-on-one golfing sessions with Asian Gold medallist Shiv Kapur that cost anywhere between 2 and 6 lakh, depending on location, and duration. Customers can pay cash on delivery. Later this month, they will also get to pay through e q u at e d monthly installments (EMIs).
What Sahay is doing flies in the face of what French branding expert Jean-Noel Kapferer wrote in The Luxury Strategy, published last year. He contends that any product sold online ceases to be a luxury item, since "the personal relationship disappears quickly. But many customers, who have been buying iPhone, luxury watches, designer clothes and many other luxury goods from excluzen!, would disagree. The website has been treating every customer as a special customer with a specific need. Such experiences force us to believe that time has come to turn on the web for exclusivity.
Source - The Sunday Times
Link - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/people/Posh-pampered-turn-to-the-web/articleshow/12579605.cms
No comments:
Post a Comment