Third Wave Exim to foray into retailing

New Delhi-based dis­tributor, Third Wave Exim is plan­ning to make a foray
into the retail business shortly. This move is in tangent with its endea­vor to
popularize the Pana­sonic laptops, which its distributes.

So far, Third Wave Exim was targeting certain niche segments only for these
machines. These included government, defense, oil and gas, power industry,
manufac­turers, shop floor workers and other segments where a laptop had to
work under harsh environments. But now, it wants to take this product mainstream
for those custo­mers who might want to consider using it in their corporate
environment.

The retail shops that Third Wave Exim will partner with will be multi-brand
outlets. It is in talks with a few and plans to sign up two outlets in New Delhi
and Mumbai each, one in Bangalore, Pune and Ahmedabad. Gauging the success of
this initiative and the return on investment, the company will then sign on more
retail outlets in other regions as well.

Said Vijay Seth, Director, Third Wave Exim, “We have already set aside the
funding for this effort. We will also appoint a person in each of these outlets
to promote our brand and products.”

Currently, the distributor markets the Panasonic laptops though a channel
network of 11 partners. Each of these premium players has their own network of
authorized parents affiliated to them.

The distributor has been concentrating on the nor­thern and western market,
but will now enter the southern market within a few weeks. It will move into the
eastern market as well in the next four months.

Revealing this, Seth said, “We initially wanted to tap these two regions,
as a bulk of our customers were present in the North and South. Now that we are
well entren­ched here, we want to make inroads down South as well.”

Talking about channel expansion plans, Seth says that while the company is
open to working with any partner, it will focus on a few. It will add four more
pre­mium partners in the South once it enters that region. The company does not
want to have more partners in its fold, though.

This is because the tablet PC is a complex product and partners need to be
educa­ted on the applications that can be built on it and how it can be
positioned to diffe­rent customer verticals. This kind of interactivity is pos­sible
only with those part­ners who are really keen on selling a tablet on a regular
basis, rather on a case-basis.

Third Wave Exim started distributing the Panasonic tablets six months ago and
already the brand contri­buted almost 50 percent to its overall revenues of Rs
25 crore, last fiscal. This fiscal, the company expects busi­ness worth Rs 60
crore from Panasonic itself, with an overall turnover of Rs 80 crore.

It also sells office automa­tion and telecom products in the West. Till four
years ago, the company focused on the end-user segment for these products. It
entered into distribution with Dax Net­works in Gujarat and then started
distributing Wipro PCs as well.

Vinita Bhatia Mumbai, June 2