Home-shopping grabs the eyeballs

 

Since its launch in August, Star CJ Alive – the 24 hour home shopping channel from Star India stable – has recorded a three-fold increase in franchisee sales.
 

Home Shop 18, the market leader and an early mover in the space, is registering a new customer every six seconds.

Welcome to the home shopping revolution in India. With sales figures surging across channels, it’s no surprise that several new players are planning separate 24-hour channels.

Industry insiders say Future Group is evincing keen interest in the space. Zee TV network too is contemplating a dedicated home shopping channel. Future Group has made investments in digital retailing and already has a significant presence in the space with its shopping portal, futurebazaar.com. Considering that the present home shopping channels are seeing uptake in sales, it is only logical for the Future Group to foray into a teleshopping channel.

“To start with, we will be buying airtime for our shopping shows on some channels. We will have programmes of over an hour and see how it pans out,” says Kishore Biyani, founder and CEO, Future Group.

Meanwhile, the present operators vouch for the growth that home shopping is seeing in India. Sundeep Malhotra, chief executive officer (CEO), TV18 Home Shopping Network, says “when we started two years back, there were hardly any companies which wanted to sell through the medium. Now, we have over 400 brands selling on our network and the number is on the rise.”

“We are operating in a big way in the digital space. Nearly 4.5 per cent of all digital cameras sold in the country are purchased through our channel. We are also seeing considerable demand for mobile phones, branded apparel and lifestyle products on our network”, he adds.

Paritosh Joshi, CEO Star CJ Network, agrees: “Mobile phones, digital cameras, microwave ovens and juicer mixer grinders are top performers. Consumer electronics and household goods contribute most, in terms of value, to our franchisee sales.”

But if you thought electronic goods are the only ones which are the preferred picks of customers procuring products on a home shopping channel, you are in for a surprise. Branded apparel manufacturers like Reebok, Levi’s, Lee and Benetton too are selling aggressively through Home Shop 18.

Home shopping channels operate on a commission-based model wherein brand owners pay them for every sale. Profit margins vary across product categories. However, commissions range between 10 and 40 per cent depending on the product.

The potential in the segment is huge, industry experts say, with over100 million adult consumers who can be offered products for sale on TV. India has around 120 million paid TV homes, and nearly half of them could be potential customers for home shopping channels.

The growing DTH subscriber base will give further momentum to home shopping. Industry players quote a report by Media Partners Asia that says DTH subscribers in India will climb from a net installed base of over 20 million now to 45 million by 2014 and 58 million by 2020. Digital cable will grow to 29 million by 2020 while cable broadband will grow to three million by 2014.

Malhotra says, “We have a customer base of two million now, and this is showing a strong month-on-month growth. Our turnover in our second year of operations was around Rs 330 crore and I am confident that we will double this by the end of the fiscal.”