The Australian homeware brand has encountered both challenges and successes since its entry into the Indian market earlier this year. Pulkit Bansal, the Country Head of Anko India, highlighted the key challenges and consumer behavior differences between India and Australia, in an exclusive conversation with BW Retail World.
“Most of our challenges have been pertaining to how we communicate the Anko India proposition to the customer,” he said.
Bansal revealed the three most crucial challenges the brand has faced in India till now, “As of now we are reaching out to our customers only via the online route and in online it is particularly difficult to give the range experiences to the customers.”
The country head revealed that the second challenge they are having is online listings are not doing justice to the actual products, “We are in a unique situation where the actual physical products look and feel much better than the listing images.”
According to him, the company is continuously working on improving the catalogue quality to replicate the real product experience via 360-degree videos and much more to make it look exactly like it is in reality.
Bansal stated that another challenge is to get the customer to realise that all Anko products are certified by renowned international agencies for the claims that it makes on its listings.
“While these agencies are quite well known in Western countries their awareness in India is quite low,” he said.
When asked about the difference between consumer behaviour in India and Australia, Bansal said that this is one area where the company feels that its hypothesis has been proven right as fundamentally middle-class customer behaviour is largely the same across markets.
Customers from both countries value on-trend products with the right price-value equation, and Anko’s focus on quality, affordability, and appealing designs has resonated with consumers in both markets, he added.
The country head stressed that the company is “very serious” about its vision for the Indian market and is taking measures to achieve that vision.
Also, Having retail stores or an offline presence is certainly on the anvil, however, the brand is currently, focusing on developing a deeper understanding of the Indian customer about the brand by listening to their feedback and working towards that to improve the customer experience.
“With our ears close to the ground, we are continuously listening to the feedback from our customers and trying to address the need gaps that they are facing in their shopping experience in our categories,” Bansal said.
Anko has been present in India since April 2023 only and yet it has already observed significant traction in various categories.
Some of the categories where the brand witnessed immediate traction have been its Bath Sets, Artificial plants and Pots, Dinnerware and Serveware, Kitchen Jars and containers, and towels.
As a part of its global expansion strategy, Anko launched in Canada and India earlier this year and would be making its entry into Europe very soon.
