The Exchanges

Q And usually the vegetables are, you know, tightly packed in those, you know, plastic nets. And, ah, it is said that for every trend, there is a counter trend. So First Club is, ah, Trend or counter trend? How do you see it?

A Very clearly a counter trend. Uh, because everybody has been talking about price. You go and look at the one line tagline of all the platforms. At least now with the latest regulation and all of that, people cannot speak about 10 minutes. But otherwise, just try differentiating, right? If you take the color off, you cannot differentiate one app over the other. So everybody was so obsessed with, like, delivery in 10 minutes, last minute app, and I'm here for your urgency. So it was all about that. So we flipped it, and we said, like, yeah, we understand speed is important for the consumers, and it's changing. The world post-quick commerce versus the world peak-quick commerce are two different worlds that we are living in, uh, but that cannot be the reason why consumers should be shopping from you. So for us, uh, multiple things we question, by the way, right? So it's not just about the speed. I'll start with, uh, uh, uh, the selection itself. We don't have, like, 10,012 thousand products. We have 4000 to 5000 products on the platform, right? Number one. Uh, number two, in any product you take, there are maximum of two or three brands. You would not find, like, 20 options for the consumers to come and shop. We don't have reviews and ratings on the platform, uh, right? And, uh, ours is the only platform which tells the consumers that less than one 99, you cannot check out. You nee…

AI assessment note: “Very clearly a counter trend. Uh, because everybody has been talking about price.”

Q How it happened, like, across categories, is quality, when it comes to quality, is India, one India, or we have different layers? Quality.

A The understanding of quality, Would be very different for different sets of people. For somebody who has never used A cream biscuit, for example. I've just lived on the Parleji glucose biscuit. For that kid, you go and ask what is a better quality product, they'll say that Dark Fantasy Chocophils, or Milano, or something like that, right? For a consumer who is like, I've used all of this, but for me, a biscuit, which is without maida, without sugar, without artificial preservative, palm oil, this is what is good quality biscuit for me, right? The third one will say that, no, I have Experience like international products, local products, everything. The aftertaste needs to be very different. So the cohorts of quality understanding is going to be different. It will not be one size fit all sort of a philosophy. But when it comes to certain categories like fruits and vegetables, sweetness is sweetness for everybody. The quality parameter is exactly the same. Freshness of vegetables is the same. Dry fruit, when you have almond or cashew, it needs to be crunchy. It needs to be bigger. It is not going to change from, I will not say, oh, I need lesser crunchy. Uh, versus you telling her better crunchiness, right? So that I would put it as a commoditized categories. Quality is fairly homogeneous. With respect to other categories, the quality parameter is different basis the exposure tha…

AI assessment note: “The understanding of quality, Would be very different for different sets of people.”

Q And you're saying that you're building first club for twenty million customers. So are these twenty million customers educated or this is the job that you'll be doing as part of?

A It's part. I think there are two cohorts of consumers. One who are very well aware. They can teach us what are the right ingredients to have and not have, right? They're super, uh, highly involved and we learn a lot from the consumers when they speak about like, hey, you know what, these are the things. Uh, and you should not be looking at this, you should be looking at that. So we have learnt a lot as well from this customer cohort. But the bulk of the consumers, they don't know. They're not aware. So, and hence, the awareness creation is going to play a larger role with respect to how we create this base itself. But that is also changing by age group. Um, I'll give a very simple example and explain that.

AI assessment note: “the awareness creation is going to play a larger role”

Q You said Myntra is a, uh, Myntra is more powerful than Amazon when it comes to apparel category, right? How do you define a brand? Like, if it is successful, what are the characteristics?

A So, the, um, One line summary for me is if that brand doesn't exist tomorrow, will the consumer, like, cry or care about it, right? If that happens, then you've built a brand. If not, you're easily replaceable. So that's like one line summary for me, but from when it comes to the trades, if I'm opening multiple apps and then comparing something, the comparison could be on the price, the comparison could be on delivery time, the comparison could be on the ratings and reviews, right? Then I know that I am one of the multiple options, and I am not a brand. Um, so whichever platform has been able to build that, uh, they have been able to command, uh, a better brand ownership.

AI assessment note: “if that brand doesn't exist tomorrow, will the consumer, like, cry or care about it”

Q Maybe the Chakkiwala didn't put any effort. My grandparents were buying from that same Chakki shop, right?

A Yeah. Traditionally, I think, When a brand builds for trust, it's done through two ways. One is, I give something consistent over and over again, that I know that this is a repeatable pattern. I know that when I go for this brand, this is the same experience I'm going to get every single time. And then over a period of time, you build the trust. This is trust number one. Trust number two gets built when you keep seeing a celebrity, and the celebrity keeps coming and talking about it, because you probably trust the celebrity, right? We have seen in the recent times, the second lever is broken. You cannot say that, oh, I put a big celebrity, they will do the song and dance, and then people will start trusting your brand. I think those days are over in India, right? If any of the old consumer brands are doing it, I don't think they'll be able to build a massive business in the decades to come, right? So it's largely about the first point. Now the first point is, and hence I can come down, come down and say that I will take 2030 years, I want to keep giving a better experience and do it, or what is the way in which I can communicate to them that I am trustworthy than anybody else? That is where, uh, we took a very hard decision of saying that I will ban 200 ingredients on the platform. Right? Nobody has ever done that. Right? Sitting here, nobody would be able to say that I am buil…

AI assessment note: “Traditionally, I think, When a brand builds for trust, it's done through two ways.”

Q But going forward, do you see that as a challenge in monetization?

A We can do monetization in other ways. We can do sampling for consumers. You've bought one particular biscuit packet. I'm offering you another brand. That is also monetization. You come into my platform. I sell an insurance. That is also monetization, right? And if you are a brand, for example, Akshay Kalpa, right? You have launched a new buttermilk, uh, this one. You want to run a video ad saying that why I launched buttermilk on the platform. That is also monetization, but that is not product level ad. When a consumer trusts a platform and says that I am typing this, and an uninformed consumer will not even know. You are so informed, and you are so aware of the startups, everything, and the first thing you are thinking is most liked, right? Which is not the case, right? Scientifically, just go and look at it. You do any search, the top two will always be the ad products, right? Just goes on to show that over a period of time, you can build the trust, but you need to stay true to that trust to gain the trust from the consumers.

AI assessment note: “We can do monetization in other ways. We can do sampling for consumers.”