Abstract

The case talks about the omni-channel marketing strategy of Croma, an electronics retailer belonging to the India-based Tata Group. Croma was launched in 2006 and was termed as India’s first large format specialist retail chain for consumer electronics and durables. It was among the first electronics retailers to launch the online portal ‘cromaretail.com’ in 2012 to face growing competition from both brick and mortar and online retailers, who were making their presence felt in the Indian market. The foray into e-commerce helped Croma integrate its physical stores with its web portal and mobile phones. This became popular as the omni-channel strategy. Through this, Croma allowed buyers to order online and pick up the product in the store. Or, customers could check the products online, order at the store, and have them delivered at home. This became highly popular and almost 50% of the customers visited the website before visiting the store. The success of the omni-channel encouraged the Tata Group to adopt the same strategy when it launched its online platform CLiQ, to sell apparel, electronics, and footwear from both Tata and non-Tata brands.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• Emerging trends in retail in a developing market like India
• The changes in the e-commerce segment in India
• Omni-channel marketing
• Multi-channel retail

Keywords

Croma,ecommerce,electronics,retailer,Woolworths Limited,Infiniti Retail Limited,Online shopping