Mahindra Comviva enters into B2C segment with Zerch
Mahindra Comviva enters into B2C segment with Zerch

Today consumers are digitally empowered and expect to be served at any time and place of their choice. Most of the businesses today believe that they need to be where the customer is. Keeping this in mind, Mahindra Comviva has forayed into the mobile D2C space through the launch of Zerch, a mobile first hyper-local deals discovery platform connecting merchants and consumers.

In Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Zerch has crossed 150,000 active users and has offers listed across 2100 stores. The app has managed to partner with popular brands such as Burger King, Pizza Hut, Ferns N Petals and Javed Habib hair salon across categories including food and beverages (fine dining/fast food/bakeries), spas and salons, apparel, accessories and so on. At present, there are 750 outlets in Bengaluru and 1350 in Delhi–NCR that offer app-exclusive deals and the number is expected to go beyond 5000 by end of the fiscal year.

Zerch is created to cater to this need of finding the deals anywhere, while also ensuring a user experience leveraging the power of technology to enhance the in-store shopping experience. Indian Retailer caught up with Srinivas Nidugondi, Senior VP and Head of Mobile Financial Solutions, Mahindra Comviva to talk about Zerch’s unique proposition, its usability and how customers and merchants can benefit out of it.

What is Zerch’s unique proposition for merchants across the spectrum (large chains to SMBs)?
Customer deals will emerge as an important medium for bringing traffic with buying intent to stores in the future. Zerch provides a convenient, effective medium to merchants of all categories to reach out to their target segments with relevant offers.

How businesses can leverage Zerch’s user reach to lower marketing spends and increase footfalls to their stores?
Instead of spending on traditional, non contextual modes of advertising, Zerch provides an alternative channel for discovery and fulfillment of offers. Brands can leverage Zerch’s consumer reach on digital and offline platforms to target their consumers more effectively and also lower marketing costs at the same time.

Talk us through the phase wise approach followed by the company for Zerch.
We are planning to on-board 5000 merchants by end of this fiscal year and to expand to two more cities in addition to Bengaluru and Delhi – NCR.

Could you share some details on the next phase for reaching out to consumers and its way-forward strategy?
We plan to use a healthy mix of online and offline promotional techniques: leveraging social media channels and affiliate channels to drive traffic, introducing incentives through referrals for organic growth, physical activations/events to create awareness and using traditional ATL advertising (TV, print, outdoor and radio) to reach out to mass audiences as we expand to more cities.

How is the company taking contextual marketing messaging in stores to the next level by leveraging on the O2O (online to offline) wave of the internet and enabling them to become smart stores?
Today, stores are using locational marketing to present offers to consumers in and around the store. Even special promotional mechanisms provided to merchants, like Deal(s) of the day, geo-fence notifications are a function of both store and consumer’s location. The proximity-based promotions and discovery of offers clearly has a higher propensity and is leading to better sales conversion. In addition, we are exploring the various ways to enable in-store promotions to help merchants to cross-sell/up-sell.

Explain to us the usability of the app.
Zerch is a hyper local app giving access to deals close by. We cover a large number of categories including food and dining, health and wellness, apparel, electronics and many more. We’re currently running a paid offers pilot with deals that users can pay for on Zerch. We plan to roll out more such attractive offers shortly.

How are the customers/merchants benefitting from it?
Customers get access to deals in the offline space from their favorite brands and they can get that information from the stores nearby them. Merchants get a cost effective platform to promote their offers to a large number of users leading to more footfalls to their stores.

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