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Retail is the name of the game

By Fairy Dharawat | February 06, 2014

The Gaming industry in India has seen an approximate 300% growth in the last two to three years. Game4u, a market leader in gaming retialing, has taken initiatives to translate this overwhelming growth at retail. Jayont R. Sharma, Chairman & CEO, Milestone Interactive Group (Game4U) who shares with Point Of Purchase, a glimpse into the trends in the gaming industry and the brand's intiatives at retail to keep up with their demanding shoppers.


The Gaming Industry


The gaming industry in India started in 1997 and real momentum was built up in 2007 when Sony launched PlayStation3 and Microsoft launched Xbox360. It took 10 years to get the enviroment prepared, and from 2007 onwards, the industry has seen a phenomenal growth in the category which is around 300 % and in the last two to three years we have been seeing a 20-30 % growth annually.

Target Shopper

India has the largest youth population of 500 million who are below 25 years of age, which is also our target group. Most people born in the 80's tend to be our consumers. 98% of them are males. Those born in the 90's and thereafter are adopting the gaming technology faster as they are native to the category. The age of our gamer is starting to get younger. However, our core audience comprises 16-24 year old's, but we have a sizable population in the age groups 25-34 years and 8-14 years. The total gaming universe has the age group of 8-34 years.

Retail Scene in India

Emergence of organised retail has helped push up the category sales. Specialised technology retailers like Croma and Reliance Digital have brought the change along with hypermarkets and toy chains showing interest in the Indian market. In multiple formats, we had the choice of placing video games within these chains and we experienced strong momentum from 2006-2012. During this time - in 2009, we realized that India did not have  specialised stores for Video games, considering specialist stores in North America and Europe play a very big role in the category and tend to control greater than 35% market share. Thus, we saw this as a big opportunity and launched www.game4u.com in September 2009 and Game4u stores in 2010.

Opening a retail store with a good location and appropriate size in a mall is very challenging for a single brand/ specalist player. In most instances, our category is placed in the wrong zone of a mall.  As a brand, we have the capablity to build huge excitement and interactivity for consumers through promotional activities around big game launches such as FIFA and also with the Xbox360 Kinnect activations.

Over the past three years, the good word is spreading, resulting in greater demand for our Game4u stores to open in new upcoming malls. As a result, we are able to now get prime locations, store size of our choice and also more competitive rentals/revenue share deals - it's a win-win for the mall management and us.

Engagement with Shoppers

We pioneered the midnight launch where we re-open our stores by 11.00 PM and launch a BIG game title at mid-night along with the International market launch date. We have received huge response to most of our mid-night launches - with large queues and eager fans enjoying the buzz that such launches have created. Recent launches that brought in very large crowds were for FIFA 2014 and the Playstation 4.

We also have gaming events in the mall where the shoppers can experience the Video games category and make an educated decision before buying. Such activities also enable us to attract new customers to the category.

All our retail stores too have a lot of interactivity built, so when the customer comes and tries a Playstation 3 or Xbox360 game, we have demo units set up in the store for a hands-on try-before-you-buy experience. We provide the biggest IDU space - Interactive Demo Unit within our stores in comparison to other players.We effectively use the walls for software & product and use the floor for customer engagement via the IDUs. We take measures to select our sales staff who need to be passionate towards gaming which is only when they can provide seamless service. Combination of two formats  - online and retail - help us connect with our shopper in the best possible way. Through our omni channel approach  we connect with them at different touch points which adds to providing our customers a memorable experience - inside the store and in the digital domain.

Retail Format

We are currently in the process of creating different physical touchpoints that have a backword integration into our e-commerce platform. Our stores will become kiosks and we will be keeping less inventory while all investory fulfillment will be done from the e-commerce model, We are trying to merge the best of both worlds - through kiosks. We are keeping touch and feel alive to engage with shoppers.  This is to create new customers and facilitate the transaction. We believe that a combination will create a cost effective model to move forward as the market evolves.

We have four models through which we plan to reach to our shoppers/consumers and they are:

-Flaghip stores - 750 Sq. ft to 900 Sq. ft
-Standard Stores - 400 Sq. ft to 500 Sq. ft
-Shop In Shops/Kiosks - 150 Sq. ft to 200 Sq. ft
-E-Commercce Store - www.game4u.com

Shopper Insights

The hardcore gamer wants latest game titles on the international release date. They have to be often indulged with incentives for pre-orders such as; free merchandise like, shirts, game memorabilia and DLCs.

We find that with these demanding shoppers become loyal shoppers once we have gained their trust on providing quality service. They have also shown patience with us on few incidents when the product has not reached on time. There is a lot of effort to feed the expectation and earn their loyalty, but once you have gone through multiple transactionsthen they are very supportive of our efforts. Thus, in view of this loyal customer base we launched the first of its kind Loyalty programme for the gaming community  named - Team Elite. Our Team Elite programme along with the unique option for our customers to trade-in their old games and consoles under our RePlay category is helping Game4u build a large base of loyal customers.
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