Retail market stabilising slowly, says Takas.lk CEO
After many challenges the retail market has been facing in Sri Lanka since August this year, the industry is stabilising slowly, says Takas.lk CEO Lahiru Pathmalal.
He said this while speaking to the Business Times on the sidelines of the launch of Takas.lk’s flagship store in Bambalapitiya on Wednesday.
Last month at the Sunday Times Business Club meeting titled, “Managing a Business during Turbulent Times,” Mr. Pathmalal stressed that the problem can only get worse if no (face-saving) measures are taken where 20-25 per cent of Sri Lanka’s GDP is coming from the retail sector.
Elaborating on the essence of a flagship store, Mr. Pathmalal stated that it is to improve customer experience and bring the marketing cost down. “By bringing the marketing cost down people will trust the brand a lot and it will also build trust between the consumer and the e-commerce website. If consumers are not ready to buy products online, the store becomes an intermediary,” he said while adding that only one per cent of Sri Lanka’s population buys products online and around 30 per cent have accessed or used online resources.
“We see a lot of attraction on purchasing products online outside the Western Province primarily because they don’t have access to prod- ucts. In Sri Lanka you have linear growth across roads and all the main players are on the road lines, essentially they have those impact points. Uva Province has been great for us where 6 per cent of our top line comes from there in the last two years. Monaragala is one of the poorest districts in Uva Province where no big players have set up outlets. So people are forced to buy products online,” Mr. Pathmalal explained.
At the event, Mr. Pathmalal noted, “Omni-channel experience has been a huge success in India. And we have been looking and learning from India for some time and when possible we have adapted and deployed innovations we think will work in Sri Lanka. We did this with cash on delivery, which has proven to be a great success for Takas.lk.”
“Following the launch of Takas.lk’s store in Colombo there will be similar stores in all major towns across Sri Lanka. Any town has the potential to be very successful so we are looking at all locations,” revealed Mr. Pathmalal.