November 14, 2020 The

November 14, 2020

The DCS- CRD National Stock Exchange of India Ltd BSE Limited Exchange Plaza, C-1, Block G, Corporate Relationship Department Bandra Kurla Complex, 1st Floor, New Trading Ring, Bandra (East), Rotunda Building, P. J. Towers, Mumbai – 400 051 Dalal Street, Mumbai – 400 001 MUMBAI | 14 NOVEMBER 2020 TAKE TWO 11 . < New buyers in online sales up 69% Wholesale goes ‘retail’ from 2019: Christie’s India MD London-headquartered auction house Christie’s has found in the pandemic an opportunity to accelerate its and lectures alike. We have online sales and reach collectors across the globe. Till August 20 this year, it had held 115 auctions — 100 of them now held four Modern and online. More auctions have since followed. Christie’s India Managing Director SONAL SINGH tells Veenu Sandhu Contemporary South Asian that the digital progress made during this short period has been a game changer. Edited excerpts: Art auctions online since March, and this category How has the pandemic pushed our business forward. digital and livestreaming. continues to see approxi- NIVEDITA MOOKERJI impacted the art auction After our recent sale in mately 50 per cent of its New Delhi, 13 November scenario? London (October 22), my Where does India feature in buyers coming from India. This situation has affected colleague and our global terms of collectors, and how In my experience, collectors he story of India’s modern whole- everyone within the president Jussi Pylkkänen has the Indian collectors’ have used this time to further sale, which started in a big way wider global art said: “The market evolved in Christie’s learn and study their areas of T with American retail major community and vocabulary of experience? interest and it has only Walmart’s entry, is witnessing a transi- we must work auctioneering Our collectors in India have deepened their passion for tion that may change the face of the collaboratively to and the art market embraced the online experi- the category. business like never before. support one has changed ence and have been very The rush to open new stores, which another to shape SONAL SINGH fundamentally.” I active, both in our auctions In the online format, are there defined the industry’s interest in the organ- the future. Whilst Managing Director, agree. History also certain categories of collectib- ised wholesale sector till now, is receding. this has been a Christie’s India shows that the art les that do better than others? Online play is a priority now — so far tricky time and has market has a natural There were always depart- unthinkable in a business that’s all about a had an effect on many resilience. There is a persistent ments whose objects best meaningful interface with kirana, or mom- business revenues in the short appetite and our experience in suited the online format, and-pop stores. Real estate acquisition is verted to fulfillment centres or warehouse term, we should all look at the the long term and across the including luxury goods such mostly for inventories and fulfillment cen- for any of the group’s business, including its opportunities, especially the last months is that collectors as wine, watches, jewellery tres, or perhaps smaller physical stores as mainstay e-commerce. accelerated digital innovation. want to collect. and handbags, Picasso against large 50,000-sq ft or more area to As we have had to adapt ceramics, prints and multiples play around with earlier. Now, for small stores: Germany’s Metro, What have been the challenges and disrupt the traditional and photographs. However, Also, the boundaries are disappear- meanwhile, has started following an omni- and opportunities for major sales calendar and the the most significant shift ing between B2B and B2C, e-commerce channel strategy. With 28 stores in its kitty, auction houses such as Chri- “rhythm” of the art market, came over the lockdown and traditional cash and carry, prompt- it’s moving in a newer direction. Managing stie’s in this exceptional time? it is very hard to be sure when we began to offer ing businesses to take a leap. The shift Director and Chief Executive Arvind Online has been a huge until the end of the year. higher-value art online. was being planned, but the pandemic Mediratta told Business Standard that it’s support and allowed us, along We have done much to Previously it was felt hastened the process. the customers who are deciding whether to with private sales, to continue mitigate against a short- clients need to see the buy offline or online. The hybrid behaviour the business remotely. But fall by scaling online works in person, but even The journey: The start of modern whole- is picking up, but online is still an incre- then online has been an auctions and using the on high-value lots, sale in India was iffy but gradually the busi- mental business compared with store pur- important contributor to our lockdown period to pictures and sculpture, ness began drawing eyeballs and footfalls, chases, he said. “We are getting 15 to 20 per business since sales started push private sales. the data allowed us to have too. It was 2007 when Walmart entered cent extra business because of online,” he online in 2011. The game It is also true that confidence to offer higher India in a tie-up with Sunil Mittal-led Bharti pointed out, adding that’s not bad at all. changer is the digital progress different regions were value objects online. Group. While waiting for India to relax the Even so, Mediratta describes online whole- made over this very short affected at different Compared to 2019, the multi-brand rules so that it could open its sale as a “top-up tool for kiranas”. The num- period of time (augmented times. This will all help, number of new buyers in big box stores, the $524-billion Bentonville- ber of baskets or articles in a physical trans- reality / enhanced photo- but we are expecting to be online sales is up 69 per cent based group decided to set up a wholesale action by a retailer/kirana is at least double graphy / viewing rooms /360- down around 30 per cent by (globally), with growth from business instead, surprising industry the online buy. Currently, the average basket degree imagery for sculpture / auction channel sales by year all three regions: the watchers as that was not exactly what the value is around ~10,000 to ~20,000 in online videos / artists interviews end, as a result of the Americas, EMEA (Europe, US retailer was known for. The idea was to transactions at Metro, Mediratta said. etcetera). This has been necessary pause in live sales Middle East/West Asia, supply to its joint venture partner Bharti’s What changed: Cut to 2020 and wholesale The Metro India chief also pointed at a embraced by the majority of during our first half. We have Africa) and Asia Pacific. retail stores till it could fulfil its original business has lost its punch though the shift to smaller towns. Usually focused on our clients, across all age adapted the business and So far this year, we have plan of becoming a B2C operator. The 50-50 industry insists that it has not lost its rele- big cities, Metro recently opened up in groups. Covid-19 has been a savings in print materials held 91 more sales online Bharti-Walmart venture launched its first vance. For example, Best Price — Walmart’s Tumkur (renamed Tumakuru), an indus- catalyst here and has really have also been re-invested in than in 2019. cash-and-carry store in India in 2009. cash-and-carry chain of 29 stores — is now trial town in Karnataka. As for real estate, Germany’s Metro Cash and Carry was integrated with Flipkart Wholesale, a new the idea is to spend less on retail including already in India since 2003 with a cash- digital B2B marketplace. This is part of the wholesale, analysts said. Mediratta agreed and-carry model, but the group started merger exercise after Walmart acquired a that his company would go for smaller competing aggressively after Walmart’s majority in Bengaluru-based Flipkart in stores from now on — maybe 20,000-sq ft entry. French major Carrefour, too, 2018 at around $16 billion. The integration or so against 40,000 to 50,000-sq ft earlier. picked up a slice of this business, though provides an opportunity to leverage If foreign majors are low key on the keeping its multi-brand retail ambition Flipkart’s expertise, technology, knowledge expansion of physical stores — at least the intact like Walmart. After opening its first and market insights combined with the big ones with which cash-and-carry was store in India in 2010, Carrefour man- merchandising knowledge of Walmart’s associated — Reliance Market is following a aged to open only five stores, subse- B2B business, said Rajneesh Kumar, chief similar path. For a long time, there has been quently exiting the country in 2014. corporate affairs officer, Flipkart Group. no announcement of a store addition for Walmart stayed on despite its breakup Kumar said the aim was to “transform the Reliance Market. About four quarters or so with Bharti in 2013. So did Metro, which kirana retail ecosystem and bring small ago, 45-plus was the number given by the was clear all along that it would not enter and medium enterprises to the market company. Now the B2B business is through the multi-brand B2C segment unlike the by leveraging cutting-edge and locally kiranas onboarded on JioMart. Also, fulfill- other two foreign majors. developed technology”. ment centres are catering to the kirana The wholesale business, typically asso- Sources close to the integrated operation orders, people in the know pointed out. ciated with crowded markets and gunny of Walmart and Flipkart wholesale pointed The way kiranas order has also changed. bags filled with grain, suddenly became out that with this the long process of store “They order through JioPOS, which allows trendy in India with marquee interna- openings and scouting for real estate would them to take the online mode,” a person tional names making their presence felt. be cut down substantially. Even so, the last tracking the process said. The transaction Not surprisingly, Mukesh Ambani’s Walmart wholesale store was opened two can come through the company’s ware- Reliance Industries, too, entered the busi- weeks ago in Tirupati. While the planned house or distribution centre or the existing ness, opening the first Reliance Market stores are being opened, the future strategy Reliance Market stores, he said. (wholesale store) in 2011 and then expand- would be different, people in the know said. Wholesale is clearly not the same ing at a fast pace. Some of the wholesale stores could be con- anymore.

NEWSMAKER / DIPANKAR BHATTACHARYA / GENERAL SECRETARY, COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST) LIBERATION Revolutionary statistician

ARCHIS MOHAN

Dipankar Bhattacharya is seen as one of the most rooted among the top communist leaders in the country. He lives out of his party’s offices, and is more likely to explain his political position in accessi- ble Hindi, English or Bengali than utter inscrutable phrases about dialectical materialism. Bhattacharya is the general secretary, or the chief, of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation — pop- ularly known simply as Bhakapa Maalay, or just Maalay. Curiosity about him, and his party, has increased after the “ML” won 12 of the 19 members who are under 30 and 15 who are tell us, ‘this boy is bright’. Unlike many of seats it contested in the Bihar Assembly under 40 years. After the “ML” came “over- us who loved our addas, he was introvert polls, and lost another three by narrow ground” in 1992, it was mainly when and studious sorts. We expected he would margins — the best strike rate among all “comrade Dipankar” was at the helm that one day be a top-notch statistician. It came big contesting parties. the party focused on mass movements. as a surprise when I discovered a decade More than its wins, the ML set the Bhattacharya was born in Guwahati, later that he was a political activist,” rem- “agenda” for the Bihar Assembly polls, according to his educational certificates, inisces filmmaker Joydeep Ghosh. focusing the political discourse on issues on January 5, 1961. He was actually born in Public perception aside, the ML insists of livelihood. Its cadre contributed signif- December 1960, but no one in his family that in what is known as its “violent icantly towards making public meetings of could remember the exact date. His father phase”, it faced more violence than it met- Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader was a ticketing clerk in the Indian ed out, particularly at the hands of the Tejashwi Yadav the social media success Railways. feudal armies of Bihar like Ranveer Sena, that they turned out to be. The leader’s associates say none in his Sunlight Sena, and so on. At 59, Bhattacharya is the youngest immediate family was associated with Those who have long memories have among the leaders of the Left movement Left politics. His father made progressive found the ML’s alliance with the RJD in India. The success of the ML in Bihar literature available to a young Bhatta- incongruous. Mohammad Shahabuddin, has revived the imagination of charya, which seems to have a former RJD MP from Siwan, is serving a leftists across the country of a influenced him greatly. Later life sentence for killing at least 15 of the return to the glorious past when when Bhattacharya joined ML’s cadres, including former JNU stu- the Left parties, particularly the the ML after completing his dents’ union leader Chandrashekhar Communist Party of India (CPI), MStat from Kolkata’s Indian Prasad. What the party’s struggle has were an important electoral play- Statistical Institute, his father achieved in Bihar, as its leader Kavita er in the Hindi-speaking states. goodnaturedly told him that Krishnan puts it, was not only fight for Bhattacharya was elected he might not have provided social and economic justice but to give its chief of his party in 1998, at age 38, him such literature had he poorest the “khaansne ki azaadi” in a succeeding Vinod Mishra (“com- known his son would end up deeply entrenched feudal setup. rade VM”) after his death. in a Communist party. Under Bhattacharya, and a band of He would sit in district com- In his early teens, second-rung leaders, the party has mittee meetings of the party from a young Bhattacharya moved to Kolkata and planned to use the success of Bihar to age, and in turn has groomed a generation enrolled in Ramakrishna Mission invest in mass movements against the of younger leaders to do the same, helping Vidyalaya, Narendrapur. He topped Bharatiya Janata Party-led government ML to grow on university campuses when the higher secondary board exams in at the Centre. “The Bihar result has not other Left parties have struggled to attract the state. only proven those writing obituaries of and retain talented young people. “We were probably in sixth or seventh the Left movement in India wrong, but Currently, the 75-member central com- standard when one day our teacher, Abdul also underlined the immense appeal of mittee of the party has at least half a dozen Ghani, got Bhattacharya to our class to movement-based politics,” says Krishnan. � � � ��