Marketing Strategy Analysis of Giftxoxo- A Niche Ecommerce Venture

Be it somebody’s birthday or wedding or anniversary or a festival, any occasion is incomplete without gifts. Hence, the presence of so many retail businesses with fancy and attractive gifting options for people to pick up gifts from. The Indian gifting market comprises of various players- from popular companies like Archies and Hallmark, to niche and expensive brands such as Swarovski, to a large number of locally-produced and Chinese gifts that can be bought from most local gift and stationery shops in all nooks and corners of the country. It’s no surprise that the Indian consumer is spoilt for choice when it comes to purchasing gifts.

Gifting has always been a very personal activity for people. Nobody would have thought of purchasing gifts online; it was supposed to be like a ritual- to find the right and best gifts for people who matter to us. But Manoj Agarwal and Sameer Khandelwal, founders of Giftxoxo, an ecommerce start-up which encourages and celebrates gifting, think differently. They believe that in today’s day and age, when most urban Indians are shopping for all kinds of things via e-commerce companies, the time has come when they can confidently and conveniently buy gifts online too.

So the question that begs an answer is: how is Giftxoxo different from the multitude of ecommerce companies in India? Unlike other ecommerce websites which stock a large variety of products that consumers usually buy for themselves, Giftxoxo stocks products and services that a consumer would buy as a gift for someone else. The company retails a large variety of products ranging from gadgets to jewellery, artefacts to fashion accessories, books to home decor. They also come up with festival-inspired collections. In February this year, they had come up with a Valentine’s Day collection, thereby cashing in on the popular love season. They have also created a new category of high-end, niche gifting options called experience gifting on their website.   

So far, so good. But how does this new e-commerce venture differentiate itself from the various other existing companies, in an industry where rivals compete on the basis of lowest prices? How does it take into account the bargaining power of consumers, who can easily compare prices of identical goods on other websites and purchase the one which is cheaper? Finally, what are the marketing strategies adopted by Giftxoxo which will enable it to reach out to its target customers and persuade them to choose it for all their gifting purposes? In order to answer these questions, I did a thorough analysis of the marketing strategies adopted by Giftxoxo to identify what’s working for them.

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      One thing which Giftxoxo is very keen on doing is sponsorships for college events. The start-up has so far sponsored dozens of college events, including the cultural and management fests of top colleges BITS Pilani, Narsee Monjee Bangalore, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Bhubhaneshwar, among many others. This clearly indicates that they don’t want to touch their target audience just virtually; they want to meet them, interact with them and build an association with them, which a mere Facebook photo or tweet cannot do. In order to understand what kind of sponsorships Giftxoxo usually do, I decided to dig deeper and spoke to a couple of organisers of these fests. In majority of these cases, Giftxoxo offered sponsorships in kind- in terms of gift vouchers of their own ecommerce website, which induces the recipients of those vouchers to make purchases from the website in order to utilize their prizes. This also becomes a talking point for them and it helps the company receive word-of-mouth publicity.

·         Almost all e-commerce start-ups have Facebook and Twitter pages. Most of them run contests from time-to-time to invite more visibility, likes, shares and comments from their potential consumers. The prizes awarded are usually specific products like a concert ticket or a book. But in the case of Giftxoxo, they give away shopping vouchers of their own shopping website as prizes. This corroborates that they strategically offer gift vouchers with the intention of getting more sales of their products.

·         Another interesting marketing strategy which Giftxoxo seems to have adopted is co-branding. They regularly partner with other brands and come up with initiatives that benefit both the brands. For instance, Giftxoxo recently organised a writing competition in association with Let Me Know, a popular opportunities website for students as well as job-seekers. They have organised similar events with Cricket Magazine, among others. They also support and participate in events that encourage entrepreneurship. Last year, they sponsored and participated in a start-up event- Demo Day 2013- organised by Startup Club India.

·         Giftxoxo gets covered by the media quite frequently. They have been written and talked about in popular newspapers and websites including Indian Express, FirstBullet.in, myshaadi.in, ZDnet.in, streetarticles.com, among many others. Such media coverage definitely helps a brand in getting itself registered in the minds of consumers.

·         Another very interesting and unique strategy adopted by the company is to position itself as a unique place to work for. They highlight images and videos of their staff members on their social media pages to build an emotional rapport with their consumers. They also hire a lot of students as interns or part-time employees and highlight their experiences on their blog. The core team of the start-up is participating in an international event- Mongol Rally 2014- which will be held in June. They have already started promoting it via social media networks. This kind of employer branding has spill-over benefits- potential employees are also potential consumers. It also gives away the perception of a credible and trust-worthy company.

·         As already mentioned above, Giftxoxo constantly leverages on the festival season by introducing special limited edition collections during those periods. During Christmas time, they sponsored a Christmas carnival and engaged with a live audience comprising of customers across age groups.

These are just some of the many things Giftxoxo is doing to market itself effectively. What remains to be seen is how much of it helps in their business and whether they give the new start-up an edge over rival firms in the highly competitive industry of E-commerce retail.

---> Article by Pranav Sukhija 

                          NMIMS, Bengaluru

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