Pareto distribution or the 80-20 rule states that 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. The theory came about when Vilfredo Pareto noted that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Popular observation in retailing is that 80% of sales come from 20% of the products or 20% of the customers. In the last decade, e-commerce businesses realized significant profits out of selling small volumes of hard-to-find items to many customers instead of only selling large volumes of a reduced number of popular items. The total sales of a large number of items & customers in the remaining 20% came to be known as The Long Tail. ”This has gained popularity in recent times as a retailing concept describing the niche strategy of selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities – usually in addition to selling fewer popular items in large quantities.” Chris Andersen popularized this concept through a Wired magazine article and then his book. The 80% opportunity is the Heads business & the 20% opportunity is Tails.

In India since 2005, phone commerce is disrupting brick-and-mortar commerce in similar ways as e-commerce did in the US since 1995. While all attempts at phone commerce at scale have been driven by getting a piece of the high-volume-low-margin 80% (Home Shop, Indiatimes Readers’ Offers, Naaptol, etc.), what has worked for them are actually the 20% products that are exclusively available by phone or the 20% markets where customers do not have convenient access to the product category. In other words, market access is the primary driver for the phone commerce business at this time rather than cost or convenience. Discounts and offers can drive trials and turnover, but market access is essential to drive repeats, word-of-mouth, brand, profits and therefore true value creation. The more the industry understands this essence, the more we are likely to succeed in the coming years.

In the process of helping brands and retailers create an alternate direct-to-consumer sales channel using the phone (via phone pe deal), we are exposed us to a diverse set of product categories, geographical markets and customer segments that help us learn the market. Brands and retailers that seem to be addressing the Heads business at the outset are only successful doing phone commerce as a Tails business. Those who understand the power of the Tails business are able to quickly scale it to monthly sales of 1Cr+, while those who are trying to force the Heads business are banging their heads against the wall while bleeding through the nose.

Admittedly, it is getting hard to not scratch the itch to build our own consumer brand, to practice what we preach, to snatch the whole pie of a large market. However, it requires us to focus on a specific consumer, specific need, specific product and all of that good stuff. As the wise man said: “focus is not about what you decide to do, it is about what you decide to not do”. We have been exploring a few options on the table to build a compelling brand, and with each attractive choice we want to make, there is a lesser attractive but attractive enough choice we do not want to let go. Something says, there is a way to create an institution that can do it all. Phone commerce at the core and many owned brands addressing many Tails.

So it’s been about 9 days since I joined here at Chaupaati and yes its fun. Boy, am I blown away by the amount of work we accomplish on a daily basis. Although my checklist is just a few lines, some checklists that I have seen here require entire white boards. Basically we are a phone commerce company that caters to both online and offline mode of commerce. So what have I learnt in these past few days? Let me jot it down.

First I learnt the value of customer feedback. In a business like ours where we do this 24*7*365, customer feedback is one of the foundation stones. If the customer is not happy your business can’t be doing the best it can. As a part of an exercise I called up some of our Amar Chitra Katha customers. And I was surprised to hear the feedback. Here’s an example:

Yashad (Y): Hello am I speaking to Mr. X?

X: Yes, who is this?

Y: Hello Sir, this is Yashad calling from Chaupaati Bazaar, do you have a few minutes?

X: Yes, go on.

Y: Sir, you ordered a few products from our website from ACK; I just wanted to know your user feedback.

X: I could navigate through your website easily; I found what I wanted and would like to tell you that your call centre guys are very good. They are very resourceful. They gave me every bit of information that I wanted.

Y: Anything else, sir?

X: No, I will keep shopping from Chaupaati. I like it.

Y: Thank you sir, have a nice day!

An interesting case was when I called up a lady and she said that she and her son both love ACK products. They own many of the titles that we have uploaded on our site, and so they visited our site to see if they could find the titles that they didn’t have. Interestingly the lady told me that she isn’t technologically savvy so she had her son sit on the computer and tell her what books he wanted to order! “It’s very nice that you have ACK in your catalogue, I liked shopping with you, will definitely tell all my friends that I have found a good place to buy ACK from.”

A third and perhaps most interesting of all the cases was from one of our abroad customers in Dubai.

“Wow

I got my order already today…..So quick and so efficient….SO EXCITED…..going to start reading them ASAP.

Thank you”

That’s the mail he sent, after our delivery reached him in 3 days instead of 15.

Phone commerce isn’t a simple to pull off. That’s the second of my learnings here. Imagine that you are ordering for a product via the phone and want it delivered to your doorstep. So we have to do everything from answering your call to getting you the delivery in good condition within the specified time. Try to mentally map the steps you may take while you do this. Once you have that in place multiply that several times and now you know the intricacies of the business. Well, try sending your next door neighbor a package via post. Once you have visited a DTDC or a Vichare you will know how tough it can get.

Putting together the machinery that does this seems to me like a hard nut to crack. Imagine that you have to get a catalogue from every brand, host a website, get permissions, upload your catalogue online, acquire a phone line, and set up a call centre to handle calls and you are done with only step one. Order processing and fulfillment are the other side of this coin. But the job has only begun here. You constantly have to get customer feedback and better yourself. Have I mentioned Sales yet? Okay, sales is the third part of this process, since we constantly get real time data from our call centre, we have to put it into an understandable medium so we can comprehend it and generate more sales.

Here we as designers, catalogue managers and sales executives have to think of each new idea in two ways. One from our point of view and secondly how the end user will think about it. This effectively doubles up our work load. We learnt about web designing in XIC but I never knew that what we do here in about a 100 times tougher than that. It’s not always about hyperlinking photos to static pages. We conveniently take that for granted as well. So in conclusion:

• Phone commerce is a very demanding business

• It is heavily based on customer feedback

• Getting your operations right is only part of the process.

So do visit our website www.chaupaati.in and give us your feedback.

Have I mentioned that I like what I do here? Well, for the record, I do. More on that later. Its time to get cracking!

Well, it’s good to say that I am finally employed now. Feels very nice, and even though I joined Chaupaati Bazaar only yesterday, the atmosphere here is very enriching. From day one itself I am already in the loop of all things. Being given updates on everything really makes me wonder how tightly knit start ups are. The calls have been flooding in and my new Chaupaati Id is beginning to complain about the HUGE stack of mails that have been flowing in from the second it was created. On one hand, seeing that almost bursting mailbox gives me hope that there is a bright future for me in digital advertising industry, but on the other hand it scares me seeing the volume of work that will eventually come to me.

As a part of our Digital Advertising module at XIC, we had done a campaign on Google Ad Words, but it was only yesterday that I realized that our seemingly pointless campaign helped Chaupaati convert our click through to actual sales figures. From yesterday I have begun to look at each and every suggestion that I make to the team very very carefully. Because now I know that every suggestion has the potential to be a successful idea and every idea can be converted into money. In addition to learning a new bunch of things that I did not know before, I have also been made aware of the fact that from this point onwards I am collectively responsible for running a part of Chaupaati. That is a good feeling. Plus Saturday and Sunday are my weekly offs!

It is good to work here, I have been able to make the most of it till now and I am given an opportunity to better myself every day. I guess I attribute my comfort at work to the entire team. Especially to Kashyap, Zishaan and Amit, all of whom made me feel welcome.

It was an awesome first day and I look forward to many more such days at Chaupaati!