ITC records 3 times growth in e-commerce sales compared to pre-Covid levels

Diversified Indian conglomerate ITC Restricted’s gross sales by means of the e-commerce channel within the final monetary yr noticed a threefold rise over FY 2019-20 ranges, taking the channel salience to 7 per cent.

In its just lately launched annual report, the corporate revealed that it collaborated with main e-commerce platforms on all features of operations, together with class improvement, advertising and marketing, and provide chain and buyer acquisition. This was augmented by the event of unique and related pack assortments, driving digital-first manufacturers, and enabling platform discoverability by means of collectively curated campaigns.

ITC’s multi-channel distribution community, which facilitates the provision of its merchandise in practically 7 million shops throughout India, was additional strengthened in 2021-22 with the addition of latest markets and shops to its direct servicing base. “Market and outlet protection had been stepped as much as appx. 1.4x and 1.1x respectively over the earlier yr,” the corporate stated in its annual report.

To cater to the huge rural shopper base, ITC continued to roll out market-specific interventions to boost direct protection on the idea of socioeconomic indicators and market potential to attain development charges larger than the business common. “Direct attain enhancement in rural markets was supported by means of a hub and spoke distribution mannequin with the enlargement of rural stockists community to 1.4x over the earlier yr and collaborations with rural-focused eB2B gamers,” the corporate stated.

By executing over 110 new product launches, ITC unlocked new routes-to-market by means of a number of strategic partnerships to deepen capabilities catering to specialised segments, together with ‘on-the-go’ consumption, direct advertising and marketing and QSRs. The corporate’s enterprise with fashionable commerce continued to develop on the again of a format-based assortment method catering to the wants of a various set of buyers with category-specific sell-out methods.

Throughout the yr, ITC’s Commerce Advertising and Distribution (TM&D) vertical demonstrated a excessive diploma of agility and responsiveness to mitigate the heightened uncertainty and market disruptions attributable to the second wave of the pandemic. “Concerted actions, together with realignment of distribution infrastructure, deployment of modern supply fashions, strategic partnerships, enhanced utilization of digital applied sciences and targeted method to speed up development in rising channels, had been taken to make sure environment friendly market servicing and availability of merchandise,” the corporate stated in its annual report.

A number of different interventions had been additionally undertaken by TM&D throughout the yr to boost operational effectivity and productiveness with a purpose to drive structural aggressive benefit. These embody delayering of operations by means of direct shipments to prospects, good shopping for together with environment friendly freight procurement and provide chain and community optimisation.

ITC additionally scaled up UNNATI, an app-based anytime ordering system for retailers, together with the eB2B platform to cowl practically 3 lakh shops in 2021-22. It additional strengthened VIRU (Digital Salesman), a know-how resolution to allow contactless ordering by retailers and direct communication with commerce, particularly throughout instances of restricted mobility or absence of salesforce, utilizing Machine Studying for hyper-personalisation.

–IANS

san/dpb

(Solely the headline and film of this report could have been reworked by the Enterprise Customary employees; the remainder of the content material is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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