Bengaluru, May 29: First with the launch of Moto G and now with the launch of Moto E on e-portal Flipkart, the Motorola may well be setting a new channel model in India and the traditional channels are worried that leading companies may follow the suit.
The partners have been struggling to compete with the e-commerce sites as they were undercutting the prices. While the impact of Motorola not opting to go through the traditional channel is much lesser, there is a fear that owing to the success of this model even other brands may prefer to go online. The latest vendor is Alcatel, who launched their One Touch Idol X+ on Flipkart.
It’s interesting that Google Motorola never appointed a master distributor and is instead opted for the reach and capability of the e-commerce player.
A partner, who had handled Motorola products earlier, says that no one can predict that an exclusive partnership with an online portal may not help them get market share. However, he accepts that a trend has been set and created a win-win situation.
“Yes. In my words they are committing chaos. You take any IT product and it needs configuration, setup, cutomization and fine tuning. In present scenario client buying online ends up paying more indirectly,” says Arvind Singh, CEO, Maxnet computers.
Kuberan, CEO, VBK computers, Trichy feels such new trends may change the business eco-systems followed till date. “We are not sure, this trend may be followed by other companies also.”
There are many mobile phones that exist only online and there are more people getting into the space. “This is just a marketing myth. Opening the market place, shutting down and claiming that the e-market is closed due to huge orders is a type of marketingm” said a seasoned advertising professional who claims that these marketing ideas had been done in early ears to promote the movies in the initial days with house-full boards outside the theatres.
He also feels that this trend is not good for the website not only because of the competition but also due to regular server shutdowns during the launches.
The consumers have run into several technical problems both during the launch of Moto G and Moto E. Either they had difficulty in logging into the product page or received an error message when they were about to book the order.
Gurpreet Singh Jagdev, CEO, Netline infotech, Ludhiana says that partners in the last tiers will get affected if other IT companies start this approach.
Until now the vendors opting for the exclusive partnerships with online have not affected the traditional channels, because they were not the leading brands in India. But there is a sense of insecurity that owing to the success even the leading brands like Samsung and Nokia may opt for this unconventional brand in future.