MUMBAI: Gizmobaba.com, a portal for all wacky gizmos recently launched their first physical store in Mumbai in reaction to customers seeking for physical demo of products.

Gizmobaba founder Alok Chawla stated, “This is the first step into offline retail; we will further expand after evaluating the customers’ response.” He further added, “We believe, in India, people love to go to the store and get a feel of the product, see how it functions and if it really does look good. Additionally, a physical store allows greater reach especially among people who are not comfortable with an online payment or return options. ”

Talking about the further expansions of the offline stores, Chawla said, “We are soon coming up with SIS retail formats and we are targeting multi-brand gadgets stores / departmental stores inside which we can set up Gizmobaba’s mini stores. We see a huge potential in hybrid model of business. On one hand online dimension of the business helps us reach out to infinite customers however offline will complement the online as it enforces the value of the brand in the minds of our customers, and buyers will trust the brand more if they see it offline as well as online. Therefore, we look for franchise out the offline stores as well.”

The company plans to roll out five to eight more outlets in 2015. Also, they expect to have an equal number of franchises ‘Shop in Shop’ outlets across the nation.  Gizmobaba ensures a perfect customer experience at their offline store. Before a customer buys any product they witness a complete demonstration of the product given by the tech experts available at the store. They have installed a screen showing videos and demos of their product.