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Shop
24 Seven, the media commerce venture of the Hinduja Group's
convergence arm HTMT and US-based Planet E-Shop, is about
to bring in more interactivity into the channel.
It will be introducing a live phone facility for prospective
buyers before the week is out, says Eric Mausolf, CEO, Shop
24 Seven. Mausolf said the channel would be screening callers
before putting them through to prevent crank calls. The
system was still being fine tuned but at the basic level,
a caller who has made a purchase before would immediately
be cleared, Mausolf said.
Live
content on the channel is currently at six hours a day,
five days a week, in a tapeless format, Mausolf said. Elaborating
on the reasons for the live element in the show, he said
that the effort was to bring the product as close to the
customer as possible. "We're here to show real people showing
real products," he said.
Mausolf
said once the channel has established itself, the live content
would be gradually increased from the present six hours
to eight, 10 and finally capped at 12 hours.
Asked
to comment on how far the channel had progressed since its
launch in the beginning of November 2001, Mausolf said the
channel was still in what he termed the pre-operative stage.
"Our focus has primarily been Mumbai, which is our test
ground," Mausolf said, adding that he expected the channel
to be ready for a countrywide push by May or June.
Commenting
on growth in terms of actual sales, Mausolf while offering
no actual numbers, said it had settled to about a nine per
cent growth month-on-month. He however pointed out that,
comparing December sales figures with November, a five fold-jump
was seen. January saw a two-fold jump over December and
since then it has levelled off at the present level, he
said.
Queried
as to what would be offered to other MSOs as an incentive
for carrying the channel, Mausolf said it was essentially
a revenue sharing model that was being proposed. The MSO
would be offered 10 per cent of sales revenues. The main
goal on that front was to increase carriage and get the
channel on a good band, Mausolf said.
Another aspect of the Shop 24 Seven rollout plan is the
franchise point-of'-presence outlets which will be used
to push the products. Mauser said that five such outlets
were already up and running in Mumbai (Marine Lines, Lamington
Road, Borivali) and adjoining Thane district (Thane, Badlapur).
Another 10 locations are in the process of getting finalised
in Maharashtra. He clarified that these were not exclusive
Shop 24 Seven outlets. What has been done is that floor
space has been taken up in the five outlets and it is the
retailers themselves that decide the inventory on display.
As
for viewer profile, Mausolf said the target was primarily
housewives. As far as buying patterns are concerned, 45
per cent of sales are being recorded in the 1 pm to 4 pm
and 7 pm to 10 pm bands, he said. Mumbai accounts for over
80 per cent of these sales, he added.
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