The Teleshopping Business in India

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How the Indian Teleshopping Market was Won Contd...

While deciding on the product-mix, teleshopping networks focused more on offering innovative and value for money products, which were not available in the market otherwise. These were primarily, impulse buying products, aimed at attracting viewers and inducing them to take an buying decision promptly. Thus, a select range of imported products were offered that mainly included electronic goods, fitness devices, home appliances and toys. The networks sourced their products with help of their agents (both in India and abroad) who identified and certified the quality of these products.

In some instances, the manufacturers of the products approached the networks directly for marketing and distribution of their products. The India-based networks such as ASK also offered products made in India apart from their imported range. In early 2000, many local players also entered the teleshopping market and began offering products on local cable channels. However, the imported products were more successful as compared to the Indian products being offered. Analysts attribute this to the novelty of imported products and the inherent customer orientation towards foreign goods in India. In the early 2000s, the networks began offering various customized products such as jewellery with birth-stone, which became very popular. New products were introduced constantly to attract customer attention and ward off competition. The products offered were broadly divided into two categories, Utility products (fitness devices, heathcare/autocare products, household appliances and electrical devices) and Value-expressive products (jewellery, apparels and, home decor).

The range of product offerings increased through 2001 and encompassed many more products that included electronic goods, toys, clothes, books and music (Refer Table II for some of the popular teleshopping products). Utility products accounted for a majority of teleshopping sales in India, while value-expressive products registered low sales. Explaining the rationale behind this, analysts said that Indian customers were used to go to their trusted shop-keepers for buying such high-value products and liked to ascertain the product's worth by physically handling and inspecting it.

Teleshopping networks adopted two types of persuasion modes to induce viewers to buy their products, namely Functional Congruity and Self Congruity. While functional congruity aimed at attracting consumers by emphasizing the utilitarian aspect of the product, self-congruity aimed at attracting customers by matching the product user image with that of customer's self-image. The products were advertised through infomercials which were aired in 1-2 minute time capsules between scheduled programs (both national and regional) or in 30-minute time capsules on various TV channels.

Most of these infomercials were aired only on weekdays while a few were aired seven days a week (Refer Table III for air-time of various teleshopping networks). Since initially, only imported products were being offered and the market was very limited, companies did not find it commercially viable to prepare detailed infomercials for them. Hence, they offered dubbed versions (English, Hindi and other regional languages) of the original infomercials (made in different foreign languages).

As the product range expanded to include domestic products as well, the networks developed (shooted) infomercials in India. Most of these were developed in studios and featured well-known personalities such as former film and TV stars. However, dubbed versions of infomercials were used even in the early 2000s, as foreign products still formed a substantial part of product portfolio of all major teleshopping networks in India.

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