Non-metro cities boost Tata Cliq’s luxury business

The luxury microsite of the Tata Group-backed e-commerce marketplace sells products such as watches, clothing and accessories. It has expanded its presence into categories like beauty, kids and home and added categories like audio, gourmet food and golf. It recently tied up with its Tata Digital-owned online grocery store BigBasket for delicious food.

Gitanjali Saxena, Global Luxury Business Head, Tata Cliq, said, “We have been in the business for five years and have seen tremendous growth year-on-year and COVID has really accelerated it.”

Saxena said that the revenue has increased significantly in the last 20 months. “We have also seen an increase in average order value as people become more comfortable buying products with higher price points online. There is a lot of wealth within India, where people have a lot of money and brand awareness, but maybe they don’t have a reliable source of reach,” she said.

On a standalone basis, Tata Unistore, which runs Tata Cliq, grew 58% in revenue 358.62 crore in the financial year ended 31 March 2021, from 226.64 crore in FY20. However, the net loss widened 362.01 crore to 270.87 crore during this period, as per the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies and accessed through business intelligence platform Toffler.

Before the pandemic, Tata Cliq Luxury used to get 45-50% of its orders from non-metro locations. It has since increased to 60-65%. Average order value has also jumped 10-12%, Saxena said, adding that categories like high-end watches have grown by 300-400% since the pandemic began, she said.

Consultancy Bain & Company has estimated India’s retail market at $810 billion, the fourth largest in the world. It said the market is growing rapidly at the end of March 2021, comprising a large e-retail component with an online shopper base of 14 crore and online retail penetration of 4.6%.

In the home category, which includes products such as home decor, linens and furniture, the luxury vertical of Tata Cliq is registering a four-fold growth every year. “Following the outbreak of coronavirus, a lot of time is being spent at home and there has been an increase in products like high-end serve ware and dinner ware. We saw a huge growth in this category and it came as a surprise to us as people had time to revisit and spend time renovating their homes,” said Saxena.

Saxena expects the luxury vertical to grow 2.5-3 times in the next five years.

He added that new categories like beauty, home and gourmet are expected to grow at a disproportionate rate.

The company in its filing said that by creating a unique niche for itself, the company had benefited from tailwinds in the e-retail space during the last year, when the country was badly hit by the pandemic. It added that the e-retail industry has significantly increased its pace of growth and some niche players have managed to do business differently.