Puducherry: While the whole nation is on the drive towards cashless economy, cash transactions dominated in the IT-Expo organized for the 15th year by the Information technology association of Puducherry. The event was titled ‘COMPEX- 2017’
The IT expo has always been the flagship event for the association in the UT is much appreciated and most expected by the local and customers from the vicinity. Sridhar M, chairman of the expo tells that the trending sales of the expo were segments like Laptops, networking products and security solutions. “We had bookings for most stalls 20 days before the event and the response for this is always receptive. With our 20 years of excellence, our expo is always expected as many customers think that the expo will get them maximum price discounts.”, he said. He also added that the customers might not get the touch-and-feel concept even in retail outlets and goodies were additional advantage for those who buy.
One Vendor One Stall:
There were close to 70 stalls comprising of laptops, desktops, networking, security, CCTV, printers and copiers, accessories/peripheras and more. To avoid killing of price by the stall owners within the expo, the expo had a concept, ‘one vendor one stall’. The association has three layers of stalls. Other than the bottom layer has multi branded stalls, every other stalls will stick on to any one vendor. “That way, when you see one product at one stall, no other stall in the venue will have the same. This will mainly kill the filthy competition in the expo venue and putting an end to the under-cutting of the product price”, says Sridhar who also stalled his products in the expo.
Participation from Government:
On the day two of the inauguration of the expo, the organizers organized a meeting, calling all the key officers in various government officers in Puducherry government. The members explained the activities of the association, thei
r strength within the union territory and their network in Tamil Nadu IT association. The team also stressed for local procurement within the members of the association. The government also had assured making use of the association in terms of the projects like e-governance and e-waste management by appointing members as their authorized collection agents. The government also had a stall for the e-recycling stressing the importance of e-cycling.
An expo of cash transactions:
Post-demotization, many associations were gearing up for a cash-less transactions. Similarly, the stalls in the expo were also predicting that customers might buy cashless. Anticipating such situation, almost all the stalls were decorated with point-of-sale swipe machines for debit and credit cards. However, to their surprise more cash-payments were happening in the expo. Aravindan S of Shamrock systems, one of the exhibitor told that people came with high-denomination notes of value INR Two Thousands and pre-booking were happening with cash and in a day it was only full of cash transactions and no plastic money. Another trend which Aravindan recalls is the reduce in the discussions on price comparisons with their online counterparts. “We find people coming back to retail. Customers who use to check online on prices has reduced. It is very evident that it is a level-playing field for everyone who is in the business.” He also adds that many companies brought price-parity among the sellers and there is no need for the physical stores to worry. Also, many products are now available only with retailers which are not supposed to be sold in a market place.
V Vaithialingam former Chief Minister and the present speaker of the Puducherry state assembly inaugurated the expo.