These retailers through their industry groups have already written letters to Samsung, Oppo, Vivo, Realme, Xiaomi and OnePlus. They said they are in the process of writing to other big brands such as LG, Bosch, Godrej, Whirlpool and Sony for the same.
The retailers fear that the brands may undertake deep discounts on their online exclusive and end of life models whose supplies will be focused on e-commerce platforms considering almost all are carrying excess unsold inventory which they want to clear off in the up-coming festive sales.
These retailers together operate over 1.55 lakh outlets and have collective turnover of more than Rs 42,000 crore. This includes All India Mobile Retailers Association (AIMRA) which represents interests of 1.5 lakh neighbourhood stores, South Indian Organised Retailers Association (ORA) which includes over 20 retail chains such as Poorvika, Big C and Sangeetha, and Association of Consumer Electronics and Home Appliances Traders (CEHAT) which has 43 retail chains including Viveks, Great Eastern Retail, Adishwar, Girias and Pai Electronics.
“We hope that the same prices, offers, and sufficient stock of all models in the mainline (or offline channel) will continue to be available across platforms,” said the AIMRA letter written by its chairman Kailash Lakhyani to Realme.
CEHAT president Raj Kumar Pai said the body will write the letter to all the brands next week since the industry desperately needs a level playing field for survival. “Predatory pricing will kill offline retail. Retailers need decent profit to run the show. If brands offer discounts on online exclusive models, the offline too needs a similar model with similar pricing,” he said.The ORA letter to Samsung India CEO JB Park said the company’s prices and offers provided must align with online sales initiatives during the festive.Flipkart and Amazon are starting their biggest discounting sale from October 8 and have already started pre-festive discount in a rare move which industry executives said is to further clear inventory. Other online platforms like Reliance Retail-owned JioMart and Tata-owned Tata Neu are going to jump into the discounting bandwagon too, the executives said.
E-commerce platforms have always maintained that any discounting is done either by their sellers or brands, while almost all the brands have said they maintain pricing-and offer parity between channels.
Deep discounts on electronics and mobile phones – the largest selling categories during online festive sales with over 50% contribution to total sales — had reduced significantly since 2020 till last year due to high demand and low supplies. However, demand has nosedived since last Diwali with all brands under pressure to liquidate stock. Festive season is the largest sales period for electronic products accounting for over 30% of their annual sales.
