New Delhi: In a virtual panel discussion ‘Supply Chain Digital Dialogue,’ prominent leaders of the Indian D2C industry shared insights on the supply chain challenges and opportunities COVID-19 pandemic created for D2C players in the country.
Talking about how the pandemic helped the D2C industry, Girish Kulkarni, SCM head at vegan beauty brand Plum said, “In hindsight the pandemic was a rollercoaster ride for all of us. However, It also gave us a lot of capability boost by increasing our daily order processing capability by around six times.”
Kulkarni shared that the brand did not face many hiccups in manufacturing and last mile delivery. However, warehousing and order processing segments of the supply chain turned out to be challenging for the company. As a result, the retailer went closer to the market and the customers, thereby reducing last mile delivery costs, he said.
Sharing learnings from the pandemic, Arti Gill, co-founder and CEO of Oziva, said that the companies got better at planning and making the right investments to procure and stock the inventory. Gill further added that, pandemic helped realise the benefit of long term negotiations to ensure a better pricing strategy.
Tarun Sharma, co-founder and CEO of mCaffeine also highlighted the importance of going closer to the source for brands. He shared that getting closer to procurement and sourcing during pandemic, has helped the brand to hyperscale.
Vikas D Nahar, founder and CEO of Happilo said, with impact due to COVID and other geopolitical challenges, the company is now planning 6 months in advance, instead of just one or two months. The brand is focusing on increasing its sources of procurement and go closer to the customer by opening multiple touch points.
He said at the front end, the company is trying to influence the customer and improve consumer experience. “Thanks to COVID, the technology has really accelerated. From delivering in three days to now in ten minutes, there is so much advancement in the commerce industry and the expectations of customer are very high.”
Commenting on the challenges during pandemic. Vedang Patel, co-founder and Director of The Souled Store, said, “Once the government puts a lockdown, the rules change. And what was very clear from that point is companies that are light and agile, are going to do really well.”
“From a supply chain point of view, there were a lot of learnings mostly in keeping a buffer stock. The other thing is to make sure that you’re well diversified. Don’t be reliant on one factory or two factories because if the cases rise there or if the local restrictions out there are different then that becomes a problem,” Patel said.
Sharing learnings for logistics service providers during pandemic, Rohan Shanbhag, Senior Vice President – Regional Sales at Delhivery highlighted that technology played a critical role for the company during the pandemic. He explained that Delhivery used technology to identify locations based on containment zones and understand whether products fall under essential or non-essential categories.
Talking about the consumer point of view, Arti Gill from Oziva said today consumers have a better visibility around the entire delivery process.
Expanding on the same, Shanbhag from Delhivery shared that coordinating with multiple stakeholders affects the product delivery visibility for customers, adding that to address this, the company has been working on bringing the end to end supply chain to D2C brands. “Delhivery has been not just a parcel company. We do warehousing, cross border and we stitch it together with the backbone of technology so that you’re able to see all the information and you have inventory visibility of all your warehouses which you can integrate with all your sales channels,” he explained.
Agreeing with Shanbhag, Mansi Gupta, founder and CEO of Tjori, shared that the apparel brand is focusing on tight integration with fulfilment centres to hold better estimation and communicate to the customer, adding that it leads to a better customer experience and more transparency.
Gupta further said that technology helps in attaining full visibility across fulfilment centres, which helps focus more on the core value that the business wants to create.
Talking from the vendors point of view and the challenges faced by brands, Kulkarni from Plum shared that there is a lot of uncertainty in the global supply chain at the moment. To deal with the same, Kulkarni highlighted the need for a straightforward system from vendors end to give visibility on the cost, availability, and manufacturing capacity to help the brands plan their inventories better.
Commenting on the challenges in attaining visibility, Sharma from mCaffeine said that Amazon has set the benchmark in terms of customer experience. However, beyond that, it is a nightmare for the brands. “It’s not even close to saying it’s integrated from procurement to finished goods. The cost of technology to get the central dashboard in picture what you have post purchase is incredibly large and brands like us think before investing that amount of money on technology.”
Sharing insights on the topic, Shanbhag from Delhivery said that delivery times have reduced to next day, hours and minutes. With this kind of aggression coming in, aggregators from the likes of Shiprocket, Pickrr, and Delhivery, all are trying to reach the last mile delivery. “They’re trying to open a lot of stores, enable the D2C, and also connect to the consumer.
