Photo Graphing Success!
Photo Graphing Success!

If you believe that beautiful memories should be cherished, then Canon will show you how to perfect the art. At the fourth launch of Image Square,  Mr. Kensaku Konishi, President and CEO, Canon India  met Aadeetya Sriram where he shared the importance of such stores and the company’s future plans.

 

Aadeetya Sriram(AS):  This is your 4th Image square store after the one at Great India Place, Noida? Your preference for the location?

KK: We wanted a place which is in the centre of the city, and where the space available to us provides the opportunity for giving customers satisfaction and services.

 

AS: What is the purpose of bringing up these kinds of retail ventures?

KK: See, now the products are getting very complex and will continue  to do so in the future, so people have to try and understand that the photography element requires a lot of analyzing as well as they need to have expert recommendations to get in terms with the basics of photography. So we have set up these stores to make them understand the basics and technicalities in an elaborative manner.

 

AS: Is servicing of your products a part of this store facilities?

KK:  Well, these stores are there, more for the purpose of enabling customers to get see-through expertise as well as sales of our various products such as Printers, Cameras etc. For servicing, we already have a service centre that is on Barakhamba Road, where the services of our products are functioning.

 

AS:  The purpose of providing ample space inside the store?

Kk: People need personal space to work. Professional photographers require space where there is not too much of a distraction in sense that the place is not crowdedand doesn’t distarct their concentration as well our purpose to set-up stores with enough space for these people to get on with their work without too much of fuss.

 

AS: What sort of investment have these stores been set-up with?

KK: Each store is costing us around Rs 40 lakhs; the investment for the purpose of sale of stocks will be done by the franchise, we are providing the demo stocks, so that the customers can get hands-on experience of the products which they are willing to buy.    

 

AS: What are your future plans for the Image Square retail stores?

KK: We plan to set-up up to 100 stores by the end of the year all over India, out of which we plan to have 5 stores in Delhi region. We already have one in Noida; we have them in Lajpat Nagar, Nehru Place and we plan to have them in Gurgaon. We plan to have 300 stores within next 3 yrs covering all over India.

 

AS: Your expectations for the store?

KK: We plan to have 1 cr target for the store by the hectic duration of Diwali. Our 1/3rd of sales represents cameras; we have realized that due to the growth of exposure to photography people are willing to buy these cameras, so we have to make sure that their decision seems worthwhile. 

 

AS: People in India do not have the needed exposure and realize the importance to have printers and cameras in their homes, is it one of the reasons you have decided to set-up these kind of stores?

KK: There is a large no. of population who still do not feel the need to have these printers at homes, so to make them understand the importance of acquiring these printers, we see the opportunity of setting up these stores which will not only enable us to improve on our stock sales as well as expanding our consumer base.

 

AS: What sort of training do the employees of the store go through?

KK: The employees are given training to the extent of making them realize the nitty-gritty’s of photography to a broader level, so that when a customer enquires about the technicality of the products and the functions of various features, that will make him understand the kind of information the people are providing is of use to them.

 

AS: What are the future plans for Canon in India?

KK:  At the moment our focus is in expanding the retail networking of the stores throughout India, other strategies will be implemented when we see the need for further expansions related to our products as well as the kind of services we provide.

 

 

 

 

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