Managing E-Commerce (Tata CLIQ Vs Reliance AJIO)

 Digital Marketing and E-Commerce are the emerging and trending fields and especially during this pandemic time, most of the work is done based on these two fields and post Covid i.e. in new normal, the world will be progressing and will be dependent in the digital era.

Tata Cliq

Tata Cliq (stylized as Tata CLiQ) is an Indian e-commerce company based in Mumbai, India. It is owned by Tata Uni Store Limited, of Tata Group. Tata CLiQ operates in categories such as Electronics, Fashion, Footwear and Accessories. Tata Group's E-commerce platform Tata CLiQ also launched a premium and luxury fashion and lifestyle destination, Tata CLiQ Luxury and It have house a wide range of apparel and accessories for men and women by luxury and bridge-to-luxury brands.

Tata Cliq was launched on 27 May 2016. It tied up with Genesis Luxury Fashion on to sell international luxury brands, and partnered with Adobe, for digital shopping. It launched Tata CLiQ Luxury, a luxury fashion and lifestyle venture, on December 2016.TataCLiQ has an omni-channel marketplace model. Tata CLiQ is the flagship digital commerce initiative of the Tata Group, the India-headquartered global conglomerate with over USD 100 billion in annual revenue.

Tata CLiQ has done a few things differently from other marketplaces. For one, it introduced the first real omnichannel experience in India called ‘phygital’. Two, it sells only fashion and electronics, and is working on adding more categories. But most importantly, it claims it is close to breaking even and turning profitable, if the company is to be believed.

Tata CLiQ decided it wasn’t going to have a large base of sellers. It started out by being completely brand-focused and onboards only brand-authorized sellers. And although it does offer discounts, lower prices are neither their USP nor critical to expansion.

Ashutosh Pandey, CEO of Tata CLiQ, says: “Our discounting is integrated across the online and offline stores. We do not manage the pricing of the product. This is very evident because our average selling price (ASP) for apparel is twice that of other platforms. Our relationship with brands allows us to delight our consumers by providing them value-added services (in the case of electronics) such as increased warranty, insurance, free installation, etc.” Of the 800 brands that Tata CLiQ has tied up with, the ‘phygital’ effort involves 50 brands, including Croma, Westside, Titan, FCUK, Police, Esprit, Metro, Vero Moda, ONLY, and Global Desi.

Quality beats quantity. Tata Cliq does not deal in the commoditized space either. For the regular marketplaces, products with a low ASP (read unbranded, or local labels) bring in large business volumes. Tata Cliq’s own market research and brand partners’ data contribute to their intelligence in choosing the brands they onboard. At the core are the 10-15 brands their customers have in their wardrobe and in their homes.

Tata CLiQ Luxury also has exclusive deals with 13 brands, including Hugo Boss, Armani Jeans, Coach, Furla, Michael Kors, and Armani Exchange. Monthly revenue, it claims, has been growing at 300 percent each month for the past one year. Further, domestic brands such as Croma, Zudio, and Okhai are also available only on Tata CLiQ (besides their own websites), which plans to add 8-10 more brands that will be exclusively available only on their site by the end of the year.

In omnichannel, the entire process of identifying a product, browsing, showing interest, purchasing, and delivery can be done across any channel—either offline or online as the customer prefers. Tata CLiQ has an advantage here. While Flipkart and Amazon have larger warehouses and control the supply chain, Tata CLiQ’s is dis-aggregated, as their inventory resides at partner stores. Every seller who ties up with Tata CLiQ for ‘phygital’ commerce has to on-board all of their stores on its portal. This helps route orders to the store nearest to the customer, and ship it from there directly. They claim to deliver orders in 24-48 hours for 90 percent of local orders.

Reliance AJIO

AJIO is the digital fashion extension of Reliance that unveiled in April 2016 at Lakme Fashion Week in Mumbai. AJIO, a fashion and lifestyle brand, is Reliance Retail's first pan-Indian ecommerce venture and is the ultimate fashion destination for styles that are handpicked on trend and at reasonable prices.

Celebrating fearlessness and uniqueness, AJIO.com is constantly looking to bring a fresh, current and accessible perspective to personal style. At the heart of it all, AJIO's philosophy and initiatives point to one simple truth-inclusivity and acceptance as the only way to make our society a little more humane and along the way, just a little more stylish, whether it's through creating capsule collections that make putting together great looks easy, making exclusive international brands available in one place, reviving India's rich textile heritage through the Indie collection or making great style an easy purchase through the in-house brand AJIO Own.

AJIO deals in categories of womenswear, menswear, kidswear and technology. With fashion technology in  particular, AJIO forayed into a category that combined the convenience of technology with the aesthetics of contemporary fashion by featuring a carefully handpicked selection of premium gadgets and tech accessories.

With the advanced internet infrastructure built by JIO and a robust physical retail business built by Reliance Retail they are creating a differentiated e-commerce model for India through AJIO. this model will entail seamless integration of online and offline models while innovating across superior customer experience, delivery services and payment ecosystem. Other categories like women’s clothing, fusion wear, lingerie, ethnic clothing, and regional wear are Ajio’s specialty. The app also lists various accessories like bags and belts, jewelry, earrings, necklaces, and other trending items. Other than that the online store also features a section called fashion week collections for those who want to shop for products, which are currently on the runways all over the world. 

They are one step ahead, in the matters of the latest trends and fashions. Customers can even get any global fashion from Australia, Russia and other international fashion houses from around the world. Ajio has even collaborated with the brands from Russia, Turkey, Singapore, the USA, and Australia besides other countries. They aim to focus on high-fashion designer wear from international brands giving it at affordable prices. Making it different from other applications in India.  

The wide reach of the brand- Ajio is an online e-commerce platform. The company has a wide reach, delivering its products to more than 15 thousand pin codes all over India. The company also has a facility where the customers can get their products from the retail store which operates in more than twenty-five thousand outlets across India. The application Ajio has a customer-friendly interface that allows the customers to easily browse through the products making it a lot easier for wholesome customer experience. They even run various offers and gives a facility of free home delivery.

Tata Cliq Vs Reliance Ajio

As part of the race to gain market share, Tata Cliq directed its focus on digital strategy. Tata Cliq used services from computer software company Adobe, such as Adobe Experience Cloud which offers a personalized digital experience for each consumer that uses Tata Cliq’s website as well as their mobile application. "A strong digital strategy has been central to our focus on appealing to high-end customers and delivering exceptional online experience for them," the CEO of Tata Cliq, Ashutosh Pandey recently said in a statement. Tata Cliq used software solutions such as Adobe Media Optimizer, Adobe Analytics, Adobe Campaign, and Adobe Target to make their website attractive and user-friendly. According to VP for Digital at Tata Industries, Sauvik Banerjee, the usage of Adobe Experience Cloud brought an increased consumer conversion rate by 40% and a significant decrease in operational costs.

 Tata Cliq created a personalized advertising campaign using Adobe’s software to interact with their customers on a personal level. This is seen as part of Tata Cliq’s long term vision of using digital media to gain market share and to reduce operational costs. Adobe is not a vendor or a product company to them but a partner in their journey. Tata Cliq has been working on its digital strategy for the past two years and the business sees it as the key to unlocking increased revenue and customers. The business will be creating personalized advertising campaigns using this software in order to engage with customers on a personal level. The development is part of Tata Cliq's "long-term vision on digital", according to Adobe's South Asia Managing Director, Kulmeet Bawa. This could see the business have a strategy and focus quite different to its competitors such as Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal. 

Ajio, headed by Isha Ambani, has tied up with around 200 international and national brands. Most of the brands are daily wear and affordable brands from markets like Russia, Australia, Singapore, Canada, America and Europe. Ajio also sells its own private brands. The company has an inventory led e-commerce model. It has also tied up with various third party logistics partners for last mile delivery. This makes the overall range of products affordable while also maintaining high quality, providing unique amalgamation of designer clothes and international brands, which as a result differentiates it from other online retailers.

Ajio was unveiled on 1 April 2016 at one of the greatest fashion events, Lakme fashion week. The brand promotes itself by using the tagline “doubt is out”. The focus of Ajio’s campaign was ‘inclusivity’, cutting through societal barriers of age, gender, class and career choices. The brand aims to inspire young India with their philosophy which says, “no matter from where one is from, what one does, what one looks like, one has the right to dress the way they want, the way they like it and invent their own rules”. Ajio does not promote itself by traditional means but aims to promote itself among the Indian crowds by delivering something totally different. The company wants to create a brand with strong ethics, emotional connect and high emphasis on design and collection. It aims to make foreign brands and designer products affordable and provide value for money.

Tata CLiQ's estimated annual revenue is currently $32.5M per year.

AJIO continues to make good progress as web/app visits grew 78% year-on-year, and the increased assortment enabling the number of orders double during the quarter,” the company said in a release.