OND quarter: a period of business, a period of high growth and a period of additions to statistics in the balance sheets. With the onset of winter earlier than expected, the vendors have already started rolling out trade promotional schemes for their partners. And, at the forefront are D-Link, Genius, BenQ, etc.
I am also excited about the promotions, schemes, goodies, etc., but one thing which baffles me is that, on the one side, we are heading towards the maturity of the industry which is solution-driven, and, on the other side, the festive season has its tempo. I hope it will be a passing phase, and very soon this trend will be over.
I was in Nehru Place much before this quarter and found that vendors have offers on various standalone products, including notebooks, digi-cams, handicams, memory sticks, etc. Even in the solution space, there are back-end discounts.
I thought these were enough to upsell the products. But whether the festive season can add to this or the resellers can do more this time is really a big question. For me, they will put themselves under tremendous pressure, which will add to overstocking and extension of credit limit, etc.
It is actually not a healthy trend for the industry. A technology product is sold on the basis of its strength, and not on the basis of offers or channel schemes. On top of it, if there are programmes spread throughout the year, a special programme can easily mount pressure on the partners. I would rather suggest that the partners should be incentivized for their year-long efforts for upselling the products rather than achieving goal in a single quarter. They should be taken to exotic locations or given a special recognition.
This is, of course, true that the consumer buying soars during this season, but that is more in respect of clothes, CE products or jewellery, but not in the case of IT products. If the price is on the higher side, a sudden discount can result in the upselling of the product. Here, the fact is that, as far as the IT products are concerned, the resellers are already operating at the rock-bottom level margins. So, do you really think that the festive promotions will really puff up both volume of trade and profit!
Sanjay Mohapatra
Editor
