Firstcry.com Creating Waves Offline

Media News

National, August 04, 2014

Firstcry.com, Asia’s largest online baby products portal today announced they would be expanding their offline presence in India by increasing the number of stores from 70 to 100 by end of 2014 and 400 by 2017. While most brands are looking at growing their presence online, Firstcry.com is going strong in proactively setting a benchmark in the e-commerce space by adapting a hybrid business model.

Since more than 95% of sales happen offline, there is still a large part of baby products market to be tapped. Firstcry already has over 70 franchised stores across the country, operating under the brand ‘FirstCry.com’.

With a vision of reaching 400 stores offline by December, 2017 the company is growing significantly in creating an ecosystem in the niche.

Mr.Supam Maheshwari, Founder and CEO, Firstcry.com says “We are extremely delighted to announce our expansion plans by increasing our offline presence. By entering into the untapped markets, where offline presence of baby products are low, we are highly optimistic about our company’s growth. We have built FirstCry.com with the vision to solve parents’ shopping problems related to purchases for baby and mother care products. Since shopper’s exhibit mixed behaviour by purchasing online and offline, we needed to offer solutions in both space and that is why we started building both the online platform and offline store in parallel. With this strategic expansion we aim to fill this gap and cater to the fast growing baby and mother care products for the customers”.

Firstcry stores have their presence in many Tier I, II and III cities. Currently operating 70 stores in 45 cities across all Tiers, they plan to expand to 25 other cities by October 2014. The carpet area of stores range anywhere from 1000 sq ft to 2000 sq ft. Franchisee investment of about Rs. 3,000 per square ft is required for setting up a store. The stores act as experience centres, successfully tackling the touch-and-feel challenges faced in purchasing online. Firstcry stores are standardised and display 300-400 brands across 15 categories. Making the buying process easier and interesting, Kiosk innovation in Firstcry stores, is a unique concept which allows customers to look through the 70,000 and above products on a 32 inch screen in stores, order online on spot, and find the product available at the store in 2-3 days.

Mr. Mufid Kaladia, franchisee of the FirstCry store at CG road, Ahmedabad says “Firstcry is truly a great partner and the team has the mind-set of a businessman. The best part is that we are able to get a great range of products, great margins and strong marketing support. The company’s latest program of gifting FirstCry.com boxes in hospitals is helping increase awareness and drive footfalls to my store. We love the company for doing such innovative activities.”

Overall, Firstcry keeps its model robust and scalable by controlling the franchisee’s investments, giving high return on investment and faster payback that has been instrumental in a break-even since inception. Firstcry.com along with its stakeholders look forward to growing in terms of business and loyalty both.

For further further, please contact:

MSLGROUP INDIA

Neha Ratta

Mobile: 7798177577

Email: neha.ratta@mslgroup.com