Phones have become central to our lives. A recent Economics Times article refers to a study that finds that the average Indian spends around 4.7 hours on their phone. We use it to communicate, learn, conduct business, pay,forge relationships, and more. According to a Statistica report, India had around 75 crore (or roughly 750 million) mobile users in 2020. That is estimated to rise to around a billion users by 2026, as declared by a recent Deloitte report.

With greater internet penetration, more disposable income, increasing digitization and improved connectivity, the demand for smartphones is sure to increase, especially in the post-covid world. We needn’t look further than the 35 million smartphone units that were shipped to India in the second quarter of 2022, furnished by IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.

To meet this demand, local retailers and enterprise merchants are always devising strategies to increase footfall at their stores, clear their shelves and drive offline sales. With the fast approaching festival season, merchants need to be at the top of their game, to take advantage of the generous spending habits of festive Indians.

However, a smart business strategy factors in several factors that affect consumer spending, like customer preference. Not merely in terms of brand or model, as owning a phone is no longer a luxury. Today, the customer is looking to buy their next smartphone on flexible financing options, namely EMI.

This isn’t all.

Innoviti’s transaction data shows that customers visiting offline handset merchants are keen to purchase phones, even premium phones, on brand EMI.

In this blog, we’re going to share our key insights that can be fed into your business strategy so that your business thrives in the festive months to come. Furthermore, we will explain how our brand of collaborative commerce is helping drive in-person sales at your store.

What Does Our Data Reveal?

On studying our transaction data for the last quarter—volumes, transaction value, model and all! –we discovered that there is a steady inclination for brand EMIs.

An Equated Monthly Installment or EMI on a phone is a financial scheme that allows customers to pay in installments rather than paying the product price upfront. The obvious advantage of an EMI is that it offers flexible repayment tenures.

A Brand EMI, however, is a special offering. Most often, it is offered at brand certified retail stores. Meaning, scores of local retailers often don’t have the means or market presence to offer such payment options to their customers.

Also, a brand EMI reaches the customer the retailer after a firm partnership with several banks. Since the EMI is a bridge that behaves as a loan, much discussion and thought goes into devising an EMI scheme that benefits the customer while safeguarding the interests of brands, and issuing and acquiring banks.

Additionally, certain favored cards, credit and debit, enjoy greater cover from such schemes over others, making brand EMI’s all the more sensitive.

This ultimately makes brand EMI all the more preferred as customers trust the brand, especially if they are loyal customers, and are especially looking to purchase premium phones on buy now pay later options.

Our transaction data shows that 40% of purchases on the Innoviti terminal, across cities, is driven by brand EMI. But why?

We explained how brand EMIs are the product of banks and brands joining hands. However, how does brand EMI capture a huge transaction volume when not all electronic retailers extended brand EMIs en masse?

The answer? COLLABORATIVE COMMERCE.

Collaborative Commerce

We are convinced that collaborative commerce possesses the potential to drive sales for the simple reason that we studied last quarter’s transaction pattern along with the brand wise EMI purchases for the past year.

Our terminals have recorded diverse transactions, with customers purchasing premium phones from key players in the market, across cities. Going deeper, when we probed into our city wise transaction data, brands like Oppo, Vivo, Samsung, Apple, and Xiomi, registered higher or lower performance— all on the basis of brand EMI. Notably, cities like Gurugram, Pune, Chennai and Bengaluru have few brands performing better than the others.

Our data goes on to prove that profit and success isn’t linked to aggressive marketing or business strategies but rather is conditional to smart collaboration.

Collaboration improves access. This in turn provides the customer’s of a local retailer flexible options to purchase, which ultimately drives revenue.

As a pioneer in collaborative commerce, Innoviti’s transaction data reveals the power of partnership and alliances. A regular retailer may not possess the bandwidth to offer brand EMI’s at his store, however, with our terminal, merchants have been able to leverage effective collaborations (with brands and banks) at our end to create meaningful purchase opportunities for customers.

To summarize, as new innovations in the mobile space shape the needs and gadget preferences of customers, there is always going to be sustained footfall at merchant stores. However, the right solution makes or breaks a purchase. Innoviti is committed to sharing our data insights to help you make smarter and informed business decisions.

Conclusion

Choosing the right and suitable POS system has a greater impact on your business performance and efficiency. Not only large organizations, but even small businesses can attract more customers and increase revenue with the suitable POS system.

But where can you find an affordable and versatile POS system which considers your business needs? We got you!

Explore Innoviti for a comprehensive PoS terminal and other payment solutions. Benefit from the power of collaboration with India’s largest collaborative commerce platform. Attract customers, boost revenue and offer a variety of rewards without cutting your margins only at Innoviti, hurry now!