Sangeetha Mobiles, a leading registered mobile dealer in India with more than 415 stores across South India, has recently expanded out of South with a franchisee model retail store in Gujarat. The company is also planning to unveil stores in Uttar Pradesh through their entry in Varanasi. Subash Chandra L, Managing Director, Sangeetha mobiles, in an exclusive chat with Retail4growth explains his plans for the year ahead.

In what ways are you enhancing the customer experience?

Being an offline player, we want to give the customer the human emotion. That would come only if we have maximum interaction with the customer who enter our shops. We train our employees to understand the customer expectations and interact with the customer at the maximum level. Today, even in out personal space, within our family, we spend our time more towards a display device- be it a TV or a mobile or computer. There is no point giving the same experience for the customer inside our premises also. 

What are the activities you do within your stores? 

In store, we mainly do activities to change the consumer perception towards retail shops. Everyone thinks online is cheaper, which is not true in all the cases. There are mobile phones which is available at the lowest cost in our store compared to online or other stores. We also display the fast moving and newer model to give them a touch-and-feel. 

What is your expansion plan? 

We are well penetrated in South India. Outside South India we want to try the franchisee model. We have recently entered Gujarat with stores in Ahmedabad. We are coming up with a store in Varanasi also. However, we have unique concept in franchise also. We do not encourage multiple operators open our shop in one city. So, in a city there might be multiple stores which would be owned only by one person across the city. This way we do not want to encourage unhealthy competition.

How you design your stores and how do you update them for new age customers?

Our store formats are simple. Most of our stores measure a 1000 square feet with live display and standard furniture across the stores. We see to that our displayed products look bright and good. We ensure that for every 1 lakh population, we have a store in place. Renovation of stores is an on-going process with our stores. We are planning to renovate close to 100 stores predominantly in the tier-2 and tier-3 cities across South India. We are not keen on expanding vigorously in the malls even though we have presence in certain malls. The challenge with malls are the factors like revenue sharing, maintenance charges and charge for super-built area etc. 

Please explain your omni-channel presence

We are present online also. However, as I said earlier, there is not much of competition online as the price parity is maintained. However, on the online part, we assure delivery within 1 hour anywhere in South India. 

Any recent innovation you have introduced for better customer connect?

We had tied up with a company that provides air-ambulance. Through them, we are providing free air-ambulance for our customer who buy a mobile priced more than 10,000. Any customer, in emergency, can use this service for flying someone who has met with an accident or any life-challenging situation.