Small retailers flock to e-commerce to buy smartphones and televisions

There was a new generation of buyers for smartphones and TVs offered by Amazon and Flipkart at very advantageous prices: small retailers who bought the latest models online – in many cases at lower rates at distributor prices, four senior executives from the industry told me.

These retailers bought Apple iPhones and Realme, Honor and One-Plus smartphones while sourcing Xiaomi handsets, which are not powered enough to meet offline demand. In TVs, they bought brands such as Xiaomi and Sanyo, whose prices were well below those of similar models to other brands sold online and not yet widely available offline.

In the past, small offline retailers also bought handsets in e-commerce markets, but purchases were mostly for iPhones that had been heavily discounted. This year, brands and TVs tend to evolve.

Some retailers even sell the models they bought online at slightly higher prices than online prices because there is a demand, said Kumar Rajagopalan, Managing Director of the Retailers Association of India.

Most physical stores, including major chains, announced a 30-40% decline in sales of smart phones and TVs up to 43 inches over Navratri, Durga Puja, Dussehra and Diwali because online discounts of up to 30%. additional offers from banks. Flipkart and Amazon have both announced record sales of smartphones and TVs this holiday season.

According to Arvinder Khurana, president of the All India Mobile Retailers Association, a 25,000-store organization, small retailers purchased most of the handsets at the festive sale from online aggregators or indirect buyers. These are people with multiple accounts in the e-commerce markets who buy bulk products and resell them to retailers with a small margin.

"Some of these pieces were sold even below the prices of offline distributors," said Khurana.

Mumbai's small mobile retailers stocked these devices and resold them to consumers, often without valid bills, said the chairman of the Mumbai Mobile Retailers Welfare Association, Vibhooti Prasad. The badociation represents more than 4,800 retailers in the city.

Amazon and Flipkart stated that they have control mechanisms to prevent bulk purchases and to ensure that only end customers have access to the offers. A spokeswoman for Amazon India said the market had limits to purchase and was deploying machine learning tools to identify and prevent misuse.

"We have a dedicated team that detects the abusive behavior of resellers and is equipped to end bad practices without compromising customer trust," said the person.