One-to-One to Put MyShoppe Online

The Economic Times, Hyderabad: Despite the economic downturn and general gloom, One-to-One Marketing Solutions, a direct marketing and brand management company, is planning to take its MyShoppe rewards programme online within the next six months.

The company is in initial stages of talks with various online retailers or e-tailers and is looking at partnerships with Rediff, Sify and Fabmart among others, Mr M Subramanian, managing director, One-to-One, told ET while announcing the launch the MyShoppe in Hyderabad.

"The slowdown can't bog down the retailing business pegged at $180 billion in India. It's growing at 40 per cent. We expect to grow at the same rate to Rs 40 crores at the close of this fiscal. We are what every small retailer needs to survive against big players and in these hard times, and as long as people eat and live, we have nothing to worry, he said.

One-to-one has embarked on a major launch spree of MyShoppe, a customer loyalty reward programme which rewards customers with freebies redeemed against points collected on regular purchases of goods at select retailers that have tied up with the company.

MyShoppe, launched in June this year is currently present in 18 cities with 1,825 small retailers and 2 lakh customer base, and is being launched in more than 50 cities and towns including Calcutta, Noida, Lucknow and Jodhpur, this week.

In Hyderabad, the company has tied up with 52 retailers so far, and wants to extend it to a majority of the 36,000-odd retailers present in the city. "Hyderabad is a rapidly growing retail market with plenty of organised retail chains setting up shop. We are offering a service to the small retailers to help them survive the big supermarket chains and attract their customers back by offering the rewards program," he said.

The company, which has tied up with CMS Computers Ltd and GemPlus for the smart card technology product, is expecting to touch 3,000 retailers and 3.5 lakh customers across India by December end, and 10,000 retailers and a million customers by December 2002. We are also introducing a series of similar innovative marketing services in three months, Mr Subramanian added.