5 minutes on getting a ‘foot hold’ in India – Birkenstock's expansion into Asia
Driving Birkenstock’s Indian expansion is Vinay Bansal, Managing Director, Birkenstock India. Having begun his career as a chartered accountant, Vinay brings an interesting amalgamation of ecommerce experience to the table. Drawing on his expertise in FMCG, Fashion, Footwear and Finance, Vinay told us about Birkenstock’s Indian expansion, why immersive experiences both online and offline are a top priority and why businesses must be future-ready and continue to adopt new technologies as they emerge, should they want to keep up with customer demand.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and Birkenstock India?
Chartered Accountant by profession and have completed Executive Program from IIM Calcutta. In my professional journey of about 20 years, I have been a part of Telecom, FMCG, Fashion and Footwear industries across India and Middle East. In 2018, I joined Birkenstock to launch Birkenstock subsidiary in India.
Birkenstock expanded its worldwide reach to India in December 2019, and since then, we have launched 24 retail stores in premium shopping malls and destinations throughout the country's leading cities. We have also strengthened our online presence through our ecommerce website www.birkenstock.in/, which is an extension of our global website www.birkenstock.com; and partnership with premium marketplaces.
Birkenstock is a global lifestyle brand with a heritage in iconic footwear, rooted in the creation of the famous Birkenstock footbed. The brand stands for excellent comfort, high functionality, and extraordinary quality. The high level of quality is the result of carefully selected, high-quality materials from sustainable sources that are processed under demanding conditions. Manufactured in Germany, the sandals are sold in more than 100 countries on all continents.
How are you keeping up with the trends and technology advancements in the industry?
In an increasingly digitized world and with new technologies all around us, it’s important for businesses to embrace state-of-the-art technologies and implement them properly to enrich the experience of consumers while augmenting business prospects. Providing immersive experiences both online and offline continues to be our priority.
We are using marketing automation tools to help us with tailored offers and personalised communications based on the specific behaviour or journey of our customer on our website. We are also using QR codes in our stores and marketing events. These codes are used to communicate brand campaigns or redirect customers to website which can increase traffic as well as sales.
Running a D2C retail business requires tools like POS system, ecommerce shopping cart, payment processor, accounting software, ERP, CRM and the list goes on. Brands are hard pressed to find a single solution that does all the above well, which is why retail ecosystems are so important. We are working on seamlessly connecting our apps with each other, so that we can keep retail business running like a well-oiled machine.
We are also evaluating contactless services in our stores today. The pandemic has increased the demand for cashier-less stores, which are gaining popularity among consumers as well. This technology helps the store staff in ensuring the swift movement of consumers and can also help to reduce operational costs.
How do you see physical retail evolve in an ever more digitalised world?
As we all know, digitization is the talk of the town these days. In my opinion, both the digital and retail industries in India must work together to produce a better ecosystem for customers. This can be brought to life with multiple digital touchpoints at the retail outlets, like e-invoices, self-checkout counters, wider catalogue display through digital screens, interactive AI mirrors etc.
We, as retailers, should move towards such integrations to provide a wholesome experience to the customers. Being future-ready and continuing to adopt new technologies as they emerge, should be the key.
What are some O2O commerce market opportunities that Birkenstock has seen result from?
It is very important for us to provide our customers access to our entire product range and have the flexibility of buying any of our product at any of the brand exclusive doors. Due to constraints of the space in the stores we cannot showcase our entire range, our staff can showcase our exclusive range on our website and provide them a chance to place an order. The orders can be placed and can be delivered to customer’s home or stores as per their convenience. We are also working towards offering in-store pickup of products purchased online and allowing online purchases to be returned to the retailer’s location with few of the company owned stores as pilot project to ensure the store productivity is not compromised. In case this project is successful, we can extend it our other doors as well.
Don't miss out on this panel, featuring Vinay on Day 1, Main Conference, 7 June 2023
