Firstcry.com: Interactive kiosks at stores to boost sales

Footfall at baby care products start-up Firstcry.com goes up with seamless integration of online and offline channels

Visitors to any of the 100 stores of Firstcry across cities would soon be able to order online from the 70,000 stock- keeping units of the company with the help of store managers, armed with touch-screen terminals.

The baby and child care products company, with its headquarters in Pune, touched the 100-store landmark this month. Every store has around 1,500 stock-keeping units. But customers can request the store managers to order from the full online inventory - comprising products from 600-odd Indian and international brands - of Firstcry.com with the help of the touch screen terminals.

The products are delivered within 24 to 48 hours.

"This has helped improve footfall in our stores," said Supam Maheshwari, co-founder, Firstcry.com, adding that some of its store have reported a 20 per cent jump in footfall after the seamless integration of online and offline channels.

At present, 25 Firstcry.com stores have touch-screen kiosks. The company management plans to open such kiosks in all the 100 stores over the next four to five months.

On the technical front, the interactive kiosk is being positioned as a business-to-business online platform for its franchisee store owners. The four-year-old start-up follows a purely franchisee-owned offline model. In some cities, the stores also act as delivery centres for those ordering online.

As Firstcry.com pushes its offline presence with plans to put in place 400 stores by 2017, Maheshwari says they have had to put in place five regional teams across the country to improve liaisoning with franchisees and customers. Its tech team has doubled to 70-odd over the past year, even as company's overall headcount has jumped from around 250 to 400 in the same period. As part of efforts to improve customer connect, Firstcry.com has launched a customer loyalty and a subscription programme for parents to save money. It has also tied up with hospitals for a gifting programme for new parents.

Maheshwari says these efforts have helped the company's topline to jump by 100 per cent from the November last year, though he is unwilling to share absolute numbers citing competition as his reason. In an interaction last year, the company had indicated that it was expected to register gross merchandise sales of around Rs 250 crore in FY 14.

At 27 million, India has the largest number of child births per year in the world. The market size for baby, children and maternity products is pegged at around Rs 40,000 crore annually, growing anywhere between 15 per cent and 20 per cent. Industry experts say only around Rs 400-odd crore is currently being serviced by half a dozen-odd online players.