Raymond, India’s largest textile & global conglomerate, will foray into B2B e-commerce to connect retailers and dealers in the clothing and textile space.
According to sources in textile and apparel circles, Raymond had already enrolled 2,500 retailers across India and has been running pilot tests for more than four months, including in Ahmedabad and Surat, which are one of the largest cloth/ textile traders’ hubs.
Responding to ET’s emailed queries, Sudhanshu Pokhriyal, president textile-lifestyle business, Raymond, said: “Applicate Technology, a SaaS-based Artificial Intelligence startup, is implementing the B2B e-commerce technology for Raymond.”
Pokhriyal said Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be extensively used by Raymond to optimise its sales processes, for lead generation and to enable the sales team to direct their focus in right places.
“It will also assist in integrating sales and marketing to provide a comprehensive view of each retailer/dealer, and a more unified multichannel experience,” he told ET.
B2B e-commerce will allow cloth merchants/retailers to automate repeating transactions like order taking and allows much larger focus on business development, collection and merchandising, the company said.
“Applicate’s SaaS-based AI-powered platform ‘Channel KART’ is specially designed for connecting with retailers and dealers for large organizations,” said Ranjeet Kumar, cofounder, Applicate. It provides real-time sales order and gives the latest updates on new product arrivals.
It can also do promotions & catalog, provide visibility of prices, schemes, claims, and escalation of unresolved issues for retailers & dealers. It also has ‘Sellina’ who can assist, train and engage with millions of retailers simultaneously. Sellina is an AI BOT trained in sales.
Sellina can understand the sales related conversations and assist the sales team and channel partners with data, information, and content based on a natural language conversation in voice and text. “It can even take purchase orders from retailers/dealers in the absence of sales representative,” said Kumar.
Incepted in 1925, Raymond turned from textile to global conglomerate and currently has business interests in textile & apparel, FMCG, engineering, and prophylactics in the national and international market. Raymond owns brands such as Raymond RTW, Park Avenue, ColorPlus, Parx, KamaSutra, and Raymond Home, among others.
As per a market source, Raymond has retail shops selling fabrics, apparel, and fashion brands. Its apparel and textiles business network has 20,000 touch points in 600 cities and towns reaching consumers through 160 wholesalers, 3,300 MBOs, 800 large format stores and a chain of over 1,000 exclusive stores. In 2014, Raymond entered into B2C e-commerce.
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