With over 5 decades of experience in offline retail, GST Corporation goes the omni channel way, launches Healthgenie

Healthcare e-commerce is becoming the fastest growing segment to cater to a growing demand, especially from tier II and III cities.

To capture the market share of burgeoning healthcare e-commerce, Manu Grover founded Healthgenie in 2012. It’s an etailing platform that offers myriad of healthcare and wellness products and services to online users in India with a philosophy of ‘nurturing wellness’.

Manu is a MBA from Amity University and has over two decades of experience in imports, exports, manufacturing and trading of healthcare products. Healthgenie brings its expertise from the parent company of GST Corporation which is a renowned exporter and manufacturer of surgical, medical and scientific equipment since 1959.

With the 55-year-old lineage and knowledge of manufacturing and selling health and wellness products, Healthgenie has resolved to translate this wealth of knowledge and propel the brand/ sales to greater heights in the industry which is poised to grow to $280 billion by 2020.

Omni channel is a need of hour for offline retailers

Omni-channel retailing is the future of retail. It is about providing ‘anytime, anywhere’ shopping, and is therefore, fast becoming a norm in the evolving retail industry, wherein online and offline channels are leveraging the advantages of each channel of distribution.

“Retailers are rapidly realizing the need to establish a connection with their customers through various separate touch points. Thus the model where a customer wants to view an item online, purchase it using their phone, and replace it / return it by dropping it to a store, is the most efficient and effective retail model, and hence has become a core part of retail strategy,” says Manu.

Traction and plans for scaling up

“We are a subscription based catalog company with a high repeat business, like diabetes, elder care, nutrition supplements, and women health care etc. We have been able to get our marketing online cost down by 90%, allowing us to achieve operational break even and also to propel ourselves through inorganic paid campaigns,” says Manu.

Road ahead

The company is planning to establish a hybrid marketplace delivery mechanism system, the next level of omni channel retailing. Going forward it also plans to set up offline specialty stores that will help expand its reach.

Website: Healthgenie.in