In the times of online shopping, here's why Chumbak is focusing on brick and mortar stores

Last year, as many as 55 million consumers shopped online, while this year, the number is expected to rise to 80 million, says a study from Assocham and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). This data is surely troubling for brick and mortar retailers, since more and more people are now choosing to shop online.

However, there is one lifestyle brand which has decided to increasingly focus on offline stores even in this age of online shopping. Chumbak, which has more than 70% of its customers shopping from its stores than its website, surely knows how to attract customers to its offline shops, thanks to the strategy thought by its founders unqu. What's more, even those who go online prefer to shop on Chumbak.com (75%) than on ecommerce websites (25%). This has been possible because of the unique experience the founders, Vivek Prabhakar and Shubhra Chadda, provide to their customers.


"Consumers walking in stores should have a great experience. We spent six months to understand what music should play in the stores, two months to decide on what it should smell like, another month to test out different lighting. We spent a lot of time to make our stores more conversational than transactional. We wanted to finalise all that before announcing that we have arrived with a bunch of new things," Prabhakar told ET.

It was in September 2014 that Chumbak launched its first flagship store in Bengaluru, announcing its well-planned expansion into home furnishings and decor. Now, this category makes 70% of the brand's revenue, and is sold out of 16 flagship stores across India. By the end of this year, the team plans to open 10-12 more stores.

"We are one of the true omni-channels because we are not defined by revenue derived from marketplaces, but through our own channels," claims Prabhakar.
When asked about online vs offline business, he said, "It is a myth that online is cheaper. There is a limit to how many organic consumers will come online and money will have to be spent on consumer acquisition in addition to the warehousing cost. The unit economics for both are the same and that is the critical part. We concentrated on the online stores to be EBITDA positive rather than concentrating on growing GMV and other such metrics. Chumbak should make money wherever it goes and all our stores are profitable."

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