Be it somebody’s birthday
or wedding or anniversary or a festival, any occasion is incomplete without
gifts. Hence, the presence of so many retail businesses with fancy and
attractive gifting options for people to pick up gifts from. The Indian gifting
market comprises of various players- from popular companies like Archies and
Hallmark, to niche and expensive brands such as Swarovski, to a large number of
locally-produced and Chinese gifts that can be bought from most local gift and
stationery shops in all nooks and corners of the country. It’s no surprise that
the Indian consumer is spoilt for choice when it comes to purchasing gifts.
Gifting has always
been a very personal activity for people. Nobody would have thought of
purchasing gifts online; it was supposed to be like a ritual- to find the right
and best gifts for people who matter to us. But Manoj Agarwal and Sameer
Khandelwal, founders of Giftxoxo, an ecommerce start-up which encourages and
celebrates gifting, think differently. They believe that in today’s day and
age, when most urban Indians are shopping for all kinds of things via
e-commerce companies, the time has come when they can confidently and
conveniently buy gifts online too.
So the question that
begs an answer is: how is Giftxoxo different from the multitude of ecommerce
companies in India? Unlike other ecommerce websites which stock a large variety
of products that consumers usually buy for themselves, Giftxoxo stocks products
and services that a consumer would buy as a gift for someone else. The company
retails a large variety of products ranging from gadgets to jewellery,
artefacts to fashion accessories, books to home decor. They also come up with
festival-inspired collections. In February this year, they had come up with a
Valentine’s Day collection, thereby cashing in on the popular love season. They
have also created a new category of high-end, niche gifting options called
experience gifting on their website.
So far, so good. But
how does this new e-commerce venture differentiate itself from the various
other existing companies, in an industry where rivals compete on the basis of
lowest prices? How does it take into account the bargaining power of consumers,
who can easily compare prices of identical goods on other websites and purchase
the one which is cheaper? Finally, what are the marketing strategies adopted by
Giftxoxo which will enable it to reach out to its target customers and persuade
them to choose it for all their gifting purposes? In order to answer these
questions, I did a thorough analysis of the marketing strategies adopted by
Giftxoxo to identify what’s working for them.
·
One thing which Giftxoxo is
very keen on doing is sponsorships for college events. The start-up has so far
sponsored dozens of college events, including the cultural and management fests
of top colleges BITS Pilani, Narsee Monjee Bangalore, IIT Kharagpur, IIT
Bhubhaneshwar, among many others. This clearly indicates that they don’t want
to touch their target audience just virtually; they want to meet them, interact
with them and build an association with them, which a mere Facebook photo or
tweet cannot do. In order to understand what kind of sponsorships Giftxoxo
usually do, I decided to dig deeper and spoke to a couple of organisers of
these fests. In majority of these cases, Giftxoxo offered sponsorships in kind-
in terms of gift vouchers of their own ecommerce website, which induces the recipients
of those vouchers to make purchases from the website in order to utilize their
prizes. This also becomes a talking point for them and it helps the company
receive word-of-mouth publicity.
·
Almost all e-commerce
start-ups have Facebook and Twitter pages. Most of them run contests from
time-to-time to invite more visibility, likes, shares and comments from their
potential consumers. The prizes awarded are usually specific products like a
concert ticket or a book. But in the case of Giftxoxo, they give away shopping
vouchers of their own shopping website as prizes. This corroborates that they strategically
offer gift vouchers with the intention of getting more sales of their products.
·
Another interesting
marketing strategy which Giftxoxo seems to have adopted is co-branding. They
regularly partner with other brands and come up with initiatives that benefit
both the brands. For instance, Giftxoxo recently organised a writing
competition in association with Let Me Know, a popular opportunities website
for students as well as job-seekers. They have organised similar events with
Cricket Magazine, among others. They also support and participate in events
that encourage entrepreneurship. Last year, they sponsored and participated in
a start-up event- Demo Day 2013- organised by Startup Club India.
·
Giftxoxo gets covered by the
media quite frequently. They have been written and talked about in popular
newspapers and websites including Indian Express, FirstBullet.in, myshaadi.in, ZDnet.in,
streetarticles.com, among many others. Such media coverage definitely helps a
brand in getting itself registered in the minds of consumers.
·
Another very interesting and
unique strategy adopted by the company is to position itself as a unique place
to work for. They highlight images and videos of their staff members on their
social media pages to build an emotional rapport with their consumers. They
also hire a lot of students as interns or part-time employees and highlight
their experiences on their blog. The core team of the start-up is participating
in an international event- Mongol Rally 2014- which will be held in June. They
have already started promoting it via social media networks. This kind of
employer branding has spill-over benefits- potential employees are also potential
consumers. It also gives away the perception of a credible and trust-worthy
company.
·
As already mentioned above,
Giftxoxo constantly leverages on the festival season by introducing special
limited edition collections during those periods. During Christmas time, they
sponsored a Christmas carnival and engaged with a live audience comprising of
customers across age groups.
These are just some of the
many things Giftxoxo is doing to market itself effectively. What remains to be
seen is how much of it helps in their business and whether they give the new
start-up an edge over rival firms in the highly competitive industry of
E-commerce retail.
---> Article by Pranav Sukhija
NMIMS, Bengaluru
To read more on the E-Commerce Industry
Click here
