FabMart
FabMart is an Indian retail venture founded by Alphonse Reddy in 2011, as part of MRPL (Madanapalle Retail Private Limited). FabMart is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. Although e-commerce sites like Flipkart make use of Postal Service's registered post or Speed Post to deliver products in remote areas, FabMart exclusively caters to the Tier 3 & 4 cities and towns of India and employs what is known as TouchStop & CyberShop affiliates to serve its customers. In this model, the company will tie up with retailers in various small towns, who will book orders by displaying merchandise using a touch-screen tablet with Internet connectivity provided by the company. The key differentiator of FabMart is that the whole shopping experience for customers in tier 3 and 4 towns is completely seamless by including Local retailers as a part of the model. The same partners/affiliates serve as front end sales affiliates and delivery partners in the towns. FabMart also follows a zero inventory model, which is one its USPs.
FabMart already has a presence in 20 Indian towns and is expected to increase its reach to 1000 towns by 2013. It has recently launched it's operations in The INDIAN city of Madurai.
Founders and advisors
- Management Team
- Alphonse Reddy (Founder & CEO), an Engineer from BITS and a management graduate from INSEAD. He has experience across Retail, Telecom and IT in Strategy, Finance and Sales & Distribution domains.
- Avinash Mohanty(A VP Commercial), a management graduate; has a career spanning over 10 years. He has played a significant role with companies like GoAir, MakeMyTrip and others. He currently is the head of south (MBO, EBO, Trade Channel) for Belmont and World Player.
- Investors & Advisors
- Hemachandra Javeri (Investor), Co-Founder of a private equity fund manager 'Forum Synergies', he is an expert in the areas of retail, e-commerce, FMCG, apparel business etc. He has been among the pioneers of retail in India, and was ranked the 12th most powerful person in Indian retail in 2006.
- Anand Morzaria (Advisor), a Finance graduate from BITS and currently the CEO of PennyWise Solutions.
- Ashish Agarwal (Advisor), with an Engineering degree from University of bombay, an M.S. from University of Illinois and an MBA from INSEAD, is currently the Investment Director of Navis Capital.
Business model
FabMart is the pioneer of Ru-Ban model aimed at connecting the demand in the towns with the supply from the cities. The uniqueness of this model lies in putting the power back in the hands of the retailer in the small towns. The business model of FabMart taps the Rural markets and is expected to make online shopping in Indian towns easy. The general perception by Indians is that a cash transaction is always safer than an online transaction. More than 90% of the retail transactions in India are in cash. The idea of online shopping is still relatively new for smaller Indian towns and thus, they are not too comfortable to pay for a product before they have a physical feel of it. Penetration of internet in smaller towns is still very poor with a vast majority has scarce or no access to it.
FabMart uses an e-catalog called the TouchShop TouchShop device, which is an Android Android based tablet that has the details and list of all the products that the company offers. Apart from the local store collect, it also offers multiple payment methods like credit card, debit card, net banking, Cheque and Cash on Delivery.
FabMart is also known for its 'local store collect, wherein customers who do not prefer using a credit card or a Debit Card for an online transaction can opt to pay and collect the product ordered from a local retailer. In this model, the product instead of being shipped to the customer's address, is sent to a retail partner who then collects the money and delivers the product to its rightful owner. This offline transaction model also works the other way round wherein a customer can place an order with the retailer (if not online) to purchase products being sold. A similar delivery method is used by Argos, a UK based retail group.
Products
The categories of products available on FabMart are:
- Men's and Women's fashion - including footwear, bags, accessories, personal care electronics, apparel, and health products.
- Baby & Kids related products - for infants, pre-schoolers, kids, and kids sports products, among others.
- Personal electronics & Home appliances - including phones & accessories, cameras & camcorders, MP3 players, digital photo frames, computers & accessories, and home appliances.
Investors
The Primary investors for FabMart are Hemu Javeri and PennyWise Solutions. Pennywise Solutions is a custom software developer for SMB's around the globe. PennyWise has been identified by NASSCOM as an emerging enterprise under its NASSCOM EMERGE 50 Awards and also been recognized by ET Now - Indiamart as one of the "Leaders of Tomorrow".
News
- FabMart launches new retail model for rural markets.|
- FabMart Launches Operations in Tamil Nadu to Empower Retailers.
- FabMart plans expansion.
- FabMart launches new retail category in Andhra Pradesh.
- FabMart woos small town retailers.
- FabMart plans to bring big brands to small towns.
- FabMart launches operations in Tamil Nadu to empower retailers.
- FabMart incorporates technology in rural shopping.
- New retail model for rural India
- E-Commerce goes hunting for non internet users in the hinterland
- Fabmart business model explained by Sakshi TV