Samsung-Benow opens digital platform for local retail stores in India

Last week, the Ministry of Home Affairs announced the Lockdown 3.0 with relaxation for people movement and economic activities in orange and green zones.

As commercial activities start to limp back to normal, Samsung India, as part of the online to offline (O2O) strategy has collaborated with Benow to create a digital commerce platform. This will greatly benefit local brick-and-mortar mobile retail store owners to sell their products safely to the customers.

To enable a dealer to become part of the new digital platform, Samsung shares the details of the dealer with Benow. Following this, the dealer gets a link on his/her mobile number. The dealer then registers for the platform and downloads the Benow App.

Here's how the digital commerce platform works:
The retail shop owners just have to install the Benow app on their phones and create a catalogue of Samsung galaxy phones they have in their stock. Going forward, they can edit to add more models in the near future.

Once the catalogue is ready, the dealers can share the link with customers through email, SMS, and WhatsApp, even on his/her social media handles.
The consumer can browse the entire catalogue of Galaxy smartphones and place an order through the same online link.

Once the customer request to buy the phone, the dealer gets a notification. The latter then checks the Benow app to get customer details. Post contacting the customer and finalizing the deal, the dealer generates the payment link through Benow.

Consumers get multiple options to chose payment modes such as cash on delivery, credit card, debit card, easy EMI, etc.

Once the transaction is completed, both the customer and the dealer get digital charge slips. The dealer obliges to deliver the Galaxy smartphone to the customer's doorstep.

"At Samsung, the consumer is at the core of everything we do. Our partnership with Benow is part of our broader online to offline (O2O) strategy and is aimed to provide benefits of both offline and online platforms to the consumer. With this new platform, our consumers will be able to browse, select, order, pay and receive their Galaxy smartphone from the comfort of their homes. This will ensure that our consumers don’t have to step out to a physical store at a time when Social Distancing is the new normal. At the same time, the new platform enables thousands of physical retailers to connect with local customers online,” Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India, said in statement.

In a related development, Xiaomi too has opened similar platform Mi Commerce of the retail store owners in India.

Read more | Amid COVID-19 lockdown, Xiaomi brings Mi Commerce in India

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