By Ramdas S
Targus is in the process of revamping its India strategy. The notebook accessories vendor is looking at setting up a chain of exclusive stores and appointing specialized distributors. The vendor also plans to have focus on accessories products other than its popular notebook backpacks.
“Our new go-to-market strategy is in keeping with our recent rebranding exercise, which reflects the changing demographics of the lifestyle consumer. The key element of our new strategy is to launch Targus branded retail outlets across all major cities, and focus on growing our channel base in smaller cities,” informed Sukumaran Pallikara, General Manager, Targus India.
The company plans to grow its channel base ten-fold over the next two years. “Presently, we have 200 focused partners predominantly based in large cities. Now our plan is to develop channel network in class B & C-cities as we believe the demand for notebooks will shift to smaller cities in the coming months. To achieve this, we have divided the country into 12 different territories and plan to appoint one master dealer per territory. The role of the sub-distributor would be largely to develop new partner in smaller cities within their respective territory,” added Sukumaran. “These sub-distributors will buy from Compuage.”
Targus is expected to announce its first retail store in Bengaluru followed by one in Mumbai. “We have successfully launched our retail stores in China and we believe it will work well in India as both countries have many similarities. Also, we believe that a retailer can today garner significant business by just selling options and accessories. A retailer earns less than Rs 1,000 by selling a Rs 40,000 laptop. He can make the same kind of profits selling accessories worth Rs 3,000. This makes the business hugely profitable,” opined Sukumaran.
According to a recent research done by Targus, consumers spend an average 12 percent of the cost of their laptop on notebook accessories over the lifetime of the product.
An important element of the company’s new market strategy is to broad base its portfolio. Known mostly as a notebook casing company, Targus has widened its products range to include wireless keyboards and mice, power adapters and cool pads. “We intend to increase the share of our non-casing business. Here our focus is to provide better price-performance products than the more established players. For instance our wireless mice has a battery span of 15 months as compared to three months of competing brands,” claimed Pallikara.
Presently the non-casing accessories contributes less than 15 percent to the company’s overall business, which it plans to double over the next year. |