Pujashopee blends e-commerce with physical stores

Pujashoppe.com is blending the convenience of e-commerce with the wide customer base that physical stores enjoy to achieve faster delivery and customer delight in Rs 1,95,000 crore market for puja (worship) materials, CEO Tapas Mallik said.

"We have a fusion market policy. Customers can either order the puja materials online or visit one of our stores to get everything they need," said Mallik, who was here to launch a Pujashoppe.com retail outlet.

The company has so far opened 13 stores across six states and plans to take the number of its outlets to 500 over the next five years.

Besides providing puja materials, the retail outlets store sacred idols and a wide range of merchandise related astrology and spirituality, he said.

"Our business aims at a model of establishing a strong e-commerce platform for spiritual products and services with presence of physical outlets, which would act as delivery or distribution points," Mallik said.

"Our target is to achieve delivery time of maximum of 4 hours in the cities having our physical presence."

Retail outlets also create stronger brand value, which is why e-commerce companies like FirstCry and Lenskart have also started establishing offline stores, he said.

"Integration of online and offline helps in faster delivery and customer delight, providing convenience to clients with ease of payment and order fulfilment."

Pujashopee.com has an arrangement to supply puja materials to the centres run by the Art of Living Foundation of Sri Sri Ravishankar, Mallik said.

The company is also providing free wifi facilities to 100 temples of the country. More than 20 temples of New Delhi, Ranchi, Gujarat have also ready been provided free wifi facilities, Mallik said.

Launched in October 2015, pujashopee.com turnover last year was Rs two crore, he said, adding this year's sales target is Rs 20 crore.

--IANS

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