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Acer mall gets off to a blistering start
Barely a month old, Acer’s first mall in Bangalore is
going places. It did brisk business to close 2003 with sales of Rs 38 lakh and
has definitely set new standards for other IT retail stores in India, says Akhtar
Pasha
The next time you are planning to buy a desktop, notebook
or PDA you might want to visit the Acer mall. Acer India plunged into retailing
with the opening of its first Acer mall in Bangalore on December 21, 2003. The
aim behind this initiative is to capitalise on the increased disposable income
with consumers, offer wider financing options and provide a better shopping
experience. Branded as the ‘Acer mall’, it stocks a wide range of
Acer products and other value-adds such as PDAs, MP3 players, digicams and office
software.
Walking on the footpath of Cunningham road in Bangalore you will see a signboard
directing customers to the Acer mall. As you walk into the store, you notice
the Acer logo splashed all over the store in green. The company will provide
storeowners with branding and visual merchandising in the form of banners, external
and internal signage.
No hard sell
A key point in the store’s favour is its friendly sales staff, from the
salesman to the manager. There is no hard selling or prompting from salesmen
as in so many other stores. The mall’s décor is designed keeping
the younger generation in mind; the ambience is pretty good. There is a lot
of space to move about, and customers can choose a product after testing it.
At any given point of time the mall keeps eight to 10 Acer products on display,
including the hot-selling AMD Athlon-based Ferrari and the Centrino-based TM
290XCi and 291XCi notebooks.
Vikram Nadgir, partner, Creative Infotech, which runs the Acer mall on Cunningham
road says, “Between December 21-31 we sold five Ferrari notebooks priced
at Rs 1,78,000. These mostly went to company executives and individual businessmen
who walked into the store.” The mall also stocks and offers value-added
products and services—Palm PDAs, the latest mobile phones and gizmos, MP3
players, digicams, office applications and games are also on sale.
Nadgir says, “Products such as PDAs, MP3 players and other add-ons increase
office and personal productivity. Making them available under one roof makes
the mall a complete and satisfying experience for our customers. Indian consumers
still need handholding and what makes the Acer mall different from a conventional
channel partner is the consulting service we offer.” He cites the example
of a customer who walked into the mall with the intention of purchasing an entry-level
multimedia notebook. After consulting the mall’s sales staff he came to
know that he needed a fast processor and 256 MB RAM and an 80 GD HDD to run
a high-end application such as Oracle. “We suggested an Aspire G600; a
high-end desktop with 17-inch monitor at Rs 55,000. He was quite happy that
he got the right product and was able to check out the system before buying
it. It met his requirement and also saved him a couple of thousand bucks,”
adds Nadgir.
That’s not all. For those who need financing, the Acer mall can arrange
finance through ICICI Bank and Bajaj Capital. Special offers include an interest-free
loan from Standard Chartered for its credit card holders. Nadgir adds, “The
mall stocks some products which the OEM (Acer) misses in their product advertisements.
For example, you will not find Acer Aspire 1353XC in the advertisement but it
will be available in the Acer mall.”
Early success
Nadgir and his partner Mohit Hedge are more than happy with the mall’s
initial sales. It did record business of Rs 38 lakh to close 2003. Of this,
Rs 28 lakh come from notebook sales—four Acer Ferrari 3000LMi notebooks,
a couple of tablet PCs and the Centrino-based TM 291XCi and TM 290XCi notebooks.
A dozen Aspire desktops contributed Rs 10 lakh. Nadgir says, “In the desktop
category, the Apsle-m comes with an Athlon 2200 and a 17-inch monitor and is
priced at Rs 25,000. The same model with an Athlon 2400 processor and a CD-Writer
goes for Rs 30,000. The Acer 1353XC is again powered by an AMD Athlon 2400 processor
with features such as a 14” TFT screen, a combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-Writer)
and FireWire, and is priced at Rs 65,100. We did not anticipate that these products
would be such as hit and we ran out of stocks. Businessmen, company executives,
including top business honchos and home segment visit the Acer mall.”
- It’s not an ordinary cramped store. The
mall has plenty of breathing space. Customers can sit down and test
products before buying them.
- There are plenty of products
to choose from; both Acer’s range of notebooks and desktop PCs
as well as other productive tools such as PDAs, mobile phones, MP3 players,
digicams, software and gaming pads—all under one roof.
- EMI-based schemes with
zero down payments are available for credit card holders.
- Non-biased consulting
helps buyers gets the best deal in town.
- Customers can tweak configurations
to suit their requirements. Custom configurations with minor changes
to the base configuration are delivered
within a day.
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akhtar@expresscomputeronline.com
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