Wednesday 30 December 2015

Current industry efforts as well as government initiatives like Digital India are expanding the reach of Internet connectivity beyond urban and suburban centres.

 
 Considered revolutionary in India just a few years ago, e-commerce is now a regular part of the life of the digital consumer. The increasing penetration of smart devices, broadband and 3G/4G has led to an ever-increasing consumer base that enjoys the convenience of on-demand services at their fingertips. In fact, according to global research firm eMarketer, India is expected to overtake the US as the second largest market for smartphones in 2016, with over 200 million devices.
Relative to its large population, India’s Internet penetration is low (19% in 2014), but also very fast growing. Current industry efforts as well as government initiatives like Digital India are expanding the reach of Internet connectivity
beyond urban and suburban centres to include the Indian rural population, which offers its own market potential. In addition, three quarters of this demographic is of prime shopping age—between 15 to 34 years especially when combined with rising disposable incomes in India. All this paints a very bright picture for the Indian e-commerce scene.
Leading e-tailers are gearing up to take advantage of the enormous market potential indicated by these numbers in order to grow and consolidate their market shares, while the newer players are trying to use innovation and technology to make their mark.
Sources peg the e-commerce market at $22 billion for the fiscal year 2016, and this is expected to grow tenfold by the year 2030. Naturally, the competition is stiff for such a lucrative market, and the companies that leverage technology to the maximum are the ones that will come out ahead.
E-tailers are coming out with more and more sophisticated and customised apps designed to maximise the customer experience, which is the most compelling way to attract and retain the mobile customer. To support and sustain these apps, and the traffic they drive, e-tailers need an extremely robust and versatile IT platform that is
capable of handling varying degrees of load.
For example, during the holiday seasons, festive offers bring in large numbers of online shoppers looking for deep discounts. The e-commerce platform has to be able to support this load which taxes each link of the workflow. But soon after the holidays, the load is likely to drop steeply to a fraction of the peak time traffic.
In addition to the quantity of traffic, the platform also has to be able to support a variety of mobile end points and technologies. Companies like Flipkart are actively pushing their customer base to move to the app model by
offering app-only deals and discounts. And there are innovative gadgets being developed all the time, which could be leverage by e-commerce. For example,Google Glass could instantly convert someone on the street into a customer by identifying and locating an outfit that they spot on a passer-by. Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin) are also gaining acceptance and e-tailers have to be prepared to be able to support this form of commerce.
Understanding, adopting and maintaining constantly changing technology is a mammoth task for even tech companies. For e-tailers, it makes sense to partner with companies that offer comprehensive solution stacks that are developed to handle all aspects of commerce and technology.
The more successful and established e-commerce players are benefitting from leveraging cloud computing services. It allows them just-in-time capacity management to address surges in load without capex investments, specifically with pay-per-use plans that accommodate unpredictable workloads.
In addition to managing traffic in real time to ensure customers have a smooth purchasing experience, e-tailers must leverage and mine data so they can customise and target each customer’s shopping experience. Data analytics allows them to target electronic campaigns, search engine optimisation and marketing (SEO and SEM), and customise landing pages based on the profile provided by their business analytics. Data has to be aggregated and analysed across all business functions: sales, customer enquiries and support, customer search patterns, and post-sales.
This only underlines the importance of picking the right technology partner—one that can provide nose-to-tail solutions starting with infrastructure all the way up to business analytics for the best customer experience. A flexible and sustainable platform lowers ROI and costs and allows companies to focus on their business goals
without worrying about the supporting technology.

2015: When ecommerece grew, despite the bumpy ride





With a big push from smartphone-driven Internet growth, 2015 was the year in which e-commerce in India came on its own. Apparels and electronics slowly started overpowering, till now the dominant travel segment. As per Mary Meeker’s State of Internet report, 41 per cent of traffic for these sites comes from mobile, the highest for any country.
India also saw a growth of tech-startups around food, hyper-local services and digital payments as well, but the focus for most of these was firmly around mobile. So what were the trends for tech and commerce space in India in 2015 ? Here’s a quick recap.

App-only vs rest
  The ‘app-only’ debate occupied a central space in India’s e-commerce discussion in 2015. Flipkart-owned Myntra shut-down the desktop and mobile sites and went app-only in May. It was reported that Flipkart would follow soon; even its Big Billion Day sale in October was an app-only affair.
Many questioned whether it was wise for Myntra to deny users an option of using desktop, but most agreed that it was a bold move.
But in November, we saw a u-turn of sorts, with Flipkart re-launching its mobile website restricted to Chrome on Android. In December, Myntra’s mobile website was also back, but only for some sections, with actual purchase option still limited to the app. Rival platforms like Snapdeal said that for them it would never be a case of app vs the rest.
While Flipkart’s desktop website is still very much here as 2016 begins, the app-only debate is likely to continue. After all, many of India’s first time Internet users will be mobile only.

Smartphone exclusives
  Online smartphone sales grew in a big way in 2015 and along with this came exclusive tie-ups between e-commerce portals and smartphone manufacturers. The flash sale model, first introduced in India in 2014, gained ground with limited stocks helping build hype around these products. 

Fashion retailers
   Even as Amazon became the most visited e-commerce site in India for October 2015, comScore numbers showed that Jabong, a fashion-only retailer, was also in top four, along with the big boys like Flipkart, Snapdeal. A Google report in March 2015 said that online fashion retail will be worth $35 billion in India by 2020, and of course nobody wants to miss out on a share of this pie. While Myntra and Jabong have become the biggest names for only fashion portals in India, others like Limeroad, YepMe, Zovi have also managed to carve a space for themselves. Investors also backed these portals: Limeroad raised $30 million in series C funding, while YepMe got $75 million from investors in Malaysia. Most noticeably, the Aditya Birla Group entered the space by launching its own fashion online portal called abof.com. Abof said it won’t focus on just offering discounts and will keep the number of brands restricted.

Discounts, discounts 
   Big Billion Day sale, Dil ki deal, Great Indian Freedom sale; discounts are what reigned supreme in India and e-tailers are happy to make these the focus. Fashion portals in particular specialise on giving alerts, notifications to highlight the deals of the day and for the customers, this is mostly a win-win situation. Most of us know, if Flipkart is hosting a big sale, be assured that the rest (read Snapdeal and Amazon) will follow. Discounts and sales also mean a big boost for these business. Flipkart claimed that its Big Billion Day sale hit a target of $300 million GMV, while Amazon claimed that its Great Indian Festive Sale saw a 400 per cent increase in traffic with over 65 per cent of orders coming in from tier-II and tier-III cities. For most e-commerce portals, the next level of growth is definitely in these towns and discounts are the way to acquire more customers. Even online food-delivery start-ups focused on discounts. FoodPanda gained popularity through discount coupons, deals on orders and even Zomato offered discounts as it entered the online food-ordering space. Bubble fears, spate of firings But it wasn’t all good for the tech start-up and e-commerce scene in India. Flipkart reportedly transferred around 300 lower level employees to BPO firm Serco, in a bid to restructure, which sparked resignations from those affected. Zomato laid off around 300 employees in November. Then there was Housing.com’s CEO Rahul Yadav, who decided to feed journalists two different sets of information to have some fun and sparked a serious debate in media about how start-ups were being valued. Yadav also had a very public tussle with his investors, which eventually led to his sacking. TinyOwl became a case study of how not to handle firings at start-ups, as angry sacked employees held one of co-founders hostage for nearly two days. LiveMint published a devastating report on FoodPanda, showcasing a lot of what was wrong at start-ups with very little accountability. The story alleged that company’s own employees had been manipulating accounts, along with charges of fake orders and fake restaurants. Just this week, FoodPanda laid off 300 people. While most reports say that e-commerce will be big for India in the coming years, the spate of firings have raised concerns that they are all sitting on a bubble. No doubt India has seen a mushrooming of these new age companies with many offering exactly the same services, and some being modelled on the bigger ones prevalent abroad. For consumers, the number of options have increased but the question remains: which ones are actually useful and will be around, say even five years from now. But given that investor funding has continued and big players announcing support for start-ups, for upcoming tech entrepreneurs the party is likely to continue well into 2016. 

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Sebi eyes e-tail for mutual funds

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is set to hold a board meeting in the first half of January 2016. This would be a break from the tradition of one meeting every quarter (90 days), as this meeting has been scheduled within 45 days of the last.

According to people in the know, this meeting would go heavy on reforms for the mutual fund sector and would include electronic Know Your Client (e-KYC) on a priority basis.

An e-mail to the regulator did not get a response till the time of press.

According to sources, the chairman has scheduled this meeting to clear all the uncompleted tasks before his term comes to an end. The five-year tenure of current chairman U K Sinha ends on February 17, 2016.

The government is close to finalising a replacement for Sinha, who had joined Sebi in 2010, after taking over from C B Bhave.

“There is a considerable push from the regulator to clear impediments around the sale of mutual funds through e-commerce platforms,” said a source.

The regulator has held five meetings with a panel headed by Nandan Nilekani on digitisation and streamlining distribution of mutual fund products. The last meeting was on December 15.

The committee has been tasked with making it easy to invest in mutual funds and digitise all securities market transactions.

According to sources, the committee has decided against the move to have a third net asset value for now. But, the model has not been scrapped.

The e-commerce platforms could be asked to follow a distribution model and an advisory model.

Under the distribution model, the platforms would be entitled to a commission from the fund house, but cannot charge anything to the customer. Platforms such as Snapdeal and Flipkart will be allowed to sell only direct plans. But, the platforms cannot advise on any mutual fund scheme.

In the last meeting, a leading e-commerce firm reportedly raised a demand for 40 basis points as commission — half of it to be shared with the customer. However, this cannot be eased under the current regulatory framework.

“It seems the targeted intermediaries, the e-commerce platforms, do not understand the framework and requisite stipulations while selling a regulated product such as mutual funds. The regulator would need to decide that whether it wants proper channels to increase mutual fund penetration or wants more peddlers on the street,” said Manoj Nagpal, chief executive, Outlook Asia Capital.

Also, there could be norms for making the credit-rating process more streamlined. It is learnt that the rating agencies have filed their reports to the regulator, with suggestions on changes.

The issue of norms for rating agencies gained importance in the wake of the recent crisis owing to the downgrade of debt paper of Amtek Auto. The downgrade led to two debt schemes of JPMorgan facing a settlement crisis.

According to a source, there could be changes in the investment guidelines for debt mutual funds.

Couponing attracts 13.5% of the total e-commerce in India: CouponDunia Report 2015

CouponDunia has released its report on the shopping trends using coupons in 2015.  The study witnessed distinct shopping insights gathered from the e-commerce websites/ platforms on how consumers extensively used coupons to save money. The study on the buying behavior of consumers was conducted across India. Recent years have seen a remarkable transformation in the way India shops and trades. According to the report, the Indian e-commerce market is set to reach US$ 16.3 billion by the end of 2015. The couponing business achieved 13.5% of the total e-commerce audience of India.
 Key highlights of the report
·    95% of buyers search for deals online & 75% among them search coupons via couponing portals
·   Age group of 25 years to 34 years represented massive chunk of coupon audience.
·   62.9% growth in couponing with 7.6million unique users per month
·  64% male & 36% female shopped through coupons
·   60% buyers shopped using mobile & 40% buyers shopped via desktop
·   61% increase in Coupon users between the age group  45years-65years
·   Mobile recharge and taxi aggregator Ola were the most searched terms.
·   Renting a car is one of the emerging couponing category of 2016
After the boom of e-commerce industry, couponing business in India has gained traction from the consumers.  According to the report, the scope of couponing business in India will continue to witness an upward trend as consumers are increasingly discovering the added value of using coupons to land a better deal.

Monday 28 December 2015

In world of coupons, find mega deals and discounts

A thriving e-commerce business with a potential to grow further has attracted international discount coupon companies to set up shop in India. Besides, a host of Indian companies like couponzguru.com, CouponRaja.in and others have come up and they aggregate and curate deals offered by restaurants, hotels, retailers, etc.
The increasing competition between the more than 40 sites that offer deals and discount coupons on a host of products and services spells good news for Indian customers who can end up with savings of 10 to 40%. On a lucky day, you can even save as much as 75%. Thanks to the discounts and deals offered, even luxury products and holidays are now quite affordable.   
With the third largest internet population and fast growing e-commerce, the potential market for discount coupons is huge in India. At present only 15% of the population is online and not everyone is comfortable with online purchases as of now. These numbers are set to grow. "E-commerce will grow by 50% over the next 5-10 years,'' points out Rohit Chugh, CEO, CouponRaja.in & CompareRaja.in.
Riding high on the e-commerce wave, today's discount coupons play a significant role in attracting customers. "Discount coupons help to give a nudge to the customer, thus helping companies get new users," says Prafulla Mathur, founder and CEO, Wudstay, an online budget accommodation company. "Generally, about 15% of the business is driven by discounts,'' says Mathur.
While deals and discounts have always been an integral part of shopping, the scope and extent of discounts offered in recent times has never been witnessed before. Wudstay offers special deals like the 'Rs 99/- only' deal for Goa and Srinagar launched in August, where people could book their holiday stay at a Wudstay property till 31st December if they made a booking by 23rd August.
Mydala.com, Coupondunia.in, FreekaaMaal.com, DesiDime, CouponRaja, CouponRani, GrabOn, CouponzGuru, PriceBurp are some of the 40-plus companies in the discount coupon space in India.
Besides, international players like Flipit.com and Groupon too have set up base in India. Several Indian start-ups in this space have even attracted venture funding.
"There are actually more than 40 coupon sites in India and this is not unique to India. This is the same scenario world over. Healthy competition is always good as it pushes you hard to innovate and excel in your domain," says Vikash Khetan, founder and director, CouponzGuru.com.
In a market cluttered with competition, the customer does end up as a winner. Apart from competitive pricing, companies have been offering an easy and hassle-free shopping experience to lure customers. The coupon companies curate the deals offered so as to check for the veracity and accuracy of information. "We make sure each and every coupon / deal posted at our website has correct and detailed information which provides hassle-free online shopping experience for our users as they don't have to try coupons randomly. This experience helps us in retaining customers,'' says Khetan.
Incidentally, the various coupon companies follow different business models. Thus, while a Groupon offers 'deep discounts' as high as 50-75%, other companies offer 'cash back' where a part of the commission is returned to the customer a few days after the purchase, or the plain discount coupon. "We offer a mix of discounts on products plus cash back to our customers. We also offer our customers offline coupons that can be used at the local beauty parlour or pizza shop," says Chugh.
While customers love huge discounts, Chugh feels that a "sustainable model is one that keeps both the retailer and the customer happy."
The discounts offered today are quite high as companies are in a race to build market share, but the discounts are expected to stabilise over the next couple of years. "Going forward, the discount percentages may decrease once the industry stabilises as e-commerce firms start focusing on profitability," says Khetan.
But as long as discount coupon companies offer a good deal to customers, their tribe is likely to increase. The bargain-loving Indians will surely agree that it is criminal to pay the full price when it is available at a discount.
 

Snapdeal to invest in logistics, tech to tackle Flipkart, Amazon

Online marketplace Snapdeal, backed by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp and others, will spend more on logistics and technology to tackle Flipkart and Amazon's Indian unit, its co-founder said on Monday.
Shopping online is becoming more popular in India due to the rising use of cheaper smartphones, and e-commerce firms are struggling to cope with the growing demand and make faster deliveries in different parts of the country.
The e-commerce market in India is expected to grow to $220 billion in the value of goods sold by 2025, up from an expected $11 billion this year, Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a recent report.
Flush with $500 million from a funding round in August, led by China's Alibaba, SoftBank and Foxconn, Snapdeal is now looking to expand its services.
One area Snapdeal will focus on is to cut delivery times by investing in better data analytics and demand forecasting, co-founder Rohit Bansal told Reuters.
"We have done over 10 acquisitions and investments in the last one year, almost all of them in the field of technology or supply chain and payments," he said. "With all these investments we have been able to reduce our delivery times by 70% in the last one year."
Quick and cheap delivery is important to be able to win over customers in a competitive industry in which companies are burning through substantial cash to grow.
Snapdeal, which had $4.5 billion in Gross Merchandise Volumes (GMV), a measure of value of goods and services sold, by August, bought mobile wallet company FreeCharge in April for around $400 million.
It has also spent around $35 million to buy about 50% stake in logistics services company GoJavas.
Bansal said that Snapdeal had received interest in part of its stake in FreeCharge to raise funds for the mobile wallet company, but declined to comment further.
"Our view is that in five years from today, 10% of India's consumption will happen online, not just products, but all consumption, and we want to build a technology ecosystem for that," Bansal said. 
 

With support from e-commerce, Nestlé eyes double digit growth

In the aftermath of the Maggi crisis, Nestle India is aggressively trying to increase the consumption of its flagship instant noodles brand eyeing double digit growth, a top company executive said. It is also sharpening focus on digital media and pushing other products so that all categories contribute almost equally to the company’s overall revenue.

“Results for the last two quarters of 2015 have been impacted by the Maggi Noodles issue. However, we are committed towards double digit (growth) that is triggered by actual volume consumption increase,” Suresh Narayanan, chairman and managing director, Nestle India told PTI.
The Swiss major had taken a hit of Rs 450 crore including destroying over 30,000 tonnes of the instant noodles since June when it was banned because of alleged excessive lead content. Maggi, which was relaunched in November after a 5-month ban, is currently available in over 700 towns and sold by 3 lakh small and large shopkeepers, the company said.
“We are investing significantly in the re-launch, and we will be ensuring that the consumer is aware that Maggi Noodles are safe to consume,” Narayanan said. The company is now simultaneously pushing growth in other categories such as milk products and chocolates, along with the relaunch of Maggi.
“We want to grow our business so that each category and brand contributes in more or less equal measure to the overall revenues of the firm. We are aggressively pushing growth in other categories such as milk products and chocolates,” he said.
The company is engaging actively in social media, and is building a strong digital presence to strengthen the Maggi brand. Along with TV and print campaigns the company is engaging with customers via Facebook and Twitter. “Digital and social media is central to our brand-building process. We believe that big things happen for brands when these two are in synergy,” he said.
The company is leveraging all the sales channels and had tied up with e-commerce player Snapdeal to push online pre-orders, which saw an offtake of 60,000 units in the first five minutes. Nestle India sold 3.3 crore units of Maggi in the first 10 days of its relaunch.
The company has a digital acceleration team, which was responsible for the ‘We Miss You Too’ Maggi campaign and has also set up 24×7 toll-free consumer services in order to address consumer concerns. “For us, the concept is not just digital media, but of competing in a digitally-connected age,” he said.

Sunday 27 December 2015

Amazon India emerges as the largest e-commerce platform in India

Online market space Amazon has emerged as the largest online store in India in 2015, adding over 55,000 new products to its inventory per day, a company statement said on Thursday.
Amazon.in was also listed as the most visited e-commerce site this year by comScore with 70 percent of their traffic coming from mobiles.

“The year 2015 has been another great year for us and we are humbled by the response received from both, the customers as well as sellers. We saw 250 percent percent growth in our seller base and emerged as the most visited site twice this year,” said Amit Agarwal, vice president and country manager of Amazon India.
“We also received 65 percent orders from Tier 2 cities and below and 70 percent of our traffic came from mobile. We believe our focus on working backwards from customer needs and innovating on the three things that matter to customers — selection, low prices and convenience — is paying us rich dividends,” Agarwal added.
The company has also increased its fulfilment centres (FCs) capacity by three times compared with last year. Numerous innovations such as adding Sunday and morning delivery to the existing delivery services, the service partner program, global selling programs for sellers and rural distribution centers also played a significant role in strengthening Amazon’s position in India this year.
In 2015, Amazon India continued to invest and lead India-specific innovations like Kirana Now, Project Udaan and Amazonbusiness.in. KiranaNow was launched on a pilot basis in Bengaluru with the aim to provide maximum convenience to customers when shopping for their everyday needs. The pilot will be a key focus and investment area for the company next year.
Project Udaan saw Amazon.in expanding its reach, especially to the digitally underserved.  Udaan integrates skill development and self-employment with assisted shopping and Amazon Pickup, thus enabling the digitally underserved to benefit from the emerging digital commerce opportunity.
AmazonBusiness.in was started early this year as a member-only website, offering frequently purchased business supplies and products in bulk quantities at wholesale prices to small and medium businesses. It is currently running in the pilot stage in Bengaluru and Mangaluru.

The ecommerce boom: A reality check


Till recently, the Indian ecommerce sector could do no wrong. New-age entrepreneurs with business ideas were being wooed by venture capitalists and private equity investors from abroad who wanted a share of this exciting new economy in the making in India. If Silicon Valley had spawned startups which are the toast of the world today, India was ready to witness its own boom in the e-economy. The result was a massive spurt in valuations—think Flipkart, Snapdeal and a host of smaller but significant ecommerce firms across various verticals. Online retail and allied services became the next big thing, and quite a few attracted staggering valuations which made the older, listed brick-and-mortar companies look jaded in comparison.

Cut to the present and, much like the debate currently raging across the world, the Indian startup and funding ecosystem is also wondering whether it is sitting on a ticking time-bomb of overvalued ecommerce companies which may show you massive growth, but have no profitability path in sight. Are the valuations, therefore, unreal? Are they creating a bubble waiting to burst? It is time to take a long, hard look at the sector and ask the uncomfortable questions. 

It is against this background that our Ecommerce Special issue has been put together. Led by Editor (Enterprise) Deepti Chaudhary, Senior Assistant Editors Salil Panchal, Debojyoti Ghosh and Shutapa Paul and Assistant Editor Anshul Dhamija decided to deep-dive into the great ecommerce debate. Whether it is the niggling issue of a potential bubble, or examining interesting trends (like the emergence of app-only offerings and the online furniture space) or understanding the new Snapdeal strategy of spawning its own supporting ecosystem, Forbes India’s editors bring you a comprehensive look at the ecommerce space in India.

There are no clear answers yet. However, experts suggest there are pockets of overvaluation, and investors are moving away from merely investing in growth. Ecommerce firms are also recalibrating their strategies and ensuring that profitability, together with growth, is the new game in town. One thing is clear: Investors are asking companies to show them the money. As Ashish Shah, co-founder of online furniture firm Pepperfry, puts it: “One cannot say that today I will grow and tomorrow I will make money. Both growth and making money have to happen simultaneously.” And that will be the ecommerce mantra of tomorrow.


Darwin’s theory at work in e-commerce space in India

From abroad, international brands such as Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Gap and Aeropostale kicked off their India journey

As a year of David vs Goliath in retail market draws to a close, the newbies’ gang of Flipkarts and Snapdeals are forcing Ambanis and Birlas of supermarket chains to join the burgeoning e-commerce landscape.
At the same time, a knockout round is at play in the online as well as offline retail worlds where ‘survival of the fittest theory’ is forcing weaker and smaller players to either close the shop or get merged with stronger rivals — a trend that is likely to consolidate further in 2016.
The year passing-by has also seen overseas players joining the ranks on both the sides — be it the likes of Amazons with online marts with brick-and-mortar shops bolstered by a liberalised FDI policy.
This was also the year which saw major mergers involving home grown supermarket chains, including the one between Future Group and Bharti Enterprises. Besides, Aditya Birla Group also consolidated its operations. From abroad, foreign brands such as Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), Gap and Aeropostale kicked off their India journey while German sportswear major Adidas Group geared up to open its own stores from next year after getting nod for 100 per cent single-brand operations.
Yet, the multi-brand retail remained a no-go zone for foreign retailers.
The retail sector, which is pegged to grow to $1.3 trillion by 2020, clocked a growth of 13 per cent in the year from last year’s $560 billion despite factors such as availability of good retail space remaining a major challenge.
Looking back at the year, Retailers Association of India (RAI) CEO, Kumar Rajagopalan, said: “Year 2015 was a year of challenges and opportunities. Biggest challenge for retailers was unavailability of good retail space due to fall in number of new malls.”
The challenges notwithstanding, retailers are bullish about the sector doing well in future as Mr.Rajagopalan said that out of the estimated size of $1.3 trillion, only about 20 per cent is estimated to be modern retail.
“This also means that traditional retailers will continue to be important part of retail in India,” he said.
For the next year, he said factors such as GST, expansion of mobile-based electronic payment systems and infrastructure development will be the key drivers for the retail sector.
“The other main expectation in 2016 is the announcement of retail policy by various states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and Gujarat,” Mr. Rajagopalan said.
As for the opportunities during the year, he said the retailers experimented with technology and focused on operational efficiency to increase margins.
“E-commerce was also a big opportunity. Most retailers either began selling their product themselves or through a tie-up with a e-commerce players,” he said.
More than 60 per cent of the brick and mortar retailers have developed their e-commerce capabilities and the trend is definitely redefining the shopping experience for customers.
This was exemplified by the likes of retail chain, Shoppers Stop, tying up with Snapdeal and Amazon besides ramping up its own website to increase its online sales.
Mahindra Retail, which acquired Babyoye.com in February this year, integrated its entire e-commerce business into Babyoye.com and later re-branded its offline retail network from Mom & Me to Babyoye by Mahindra.
Likewise, Aditya Birla Group launched its e-commerce portal for apparel, abof.com, as a one-stop fashion portal for apparel, footwear and accessories for men and women.
“The e-commerce sector is a sunrise sector from an investment point of view.. We plan to stay focussed on seeding and growing specific businesses in areas where we have specific strengths which we can play on extensively. We see fashion e-commerce as one such space,” said Aditya Birla Group Chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla.
Not to be left behind, Spencer’s Retail acquired online grocery firm Omnipresent Retail India which operates Meragrocer.com, to venture into fast growing e-commerce space.
The government had given a further boost to the e-commerce sector by opening up FDI in the business to customer (B2C) segment in a calibrated manner.
At the same time, questions are already being asked about the business model of various e-commerce players, especially the huge discounts and cash back offers being doled out by them. Former Infosys director and an investor in some startups, TV Mohandas Pai, said the industry may see a shakeout in the next two years, or “even earlier”.
He faulted the business model adopted by e-tailers which, he said, promotes growth without building customer loyalty and the players while Flipkart and Snapdeal are just trying “to grow fast by giving subsidies, which is wrong because there is no customer loyalty”. While preparing for the e-commerce challenge, the brick and mortar operators also went on to fortify their traditional stronghold through consolidation.
Aditya Birla Group merged all its apparel businesses from Aditya Birla Nuvo and Madura Garments Lifestyle Retail into one entity — Pantaloons Fashion & Retail, which was later renamed as Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd.
Aditya Birla Retail also acquired Jubilant Industries’ hypermarket business in a slump sale deal. The merger of the year, however, was between Kishore Biyani-led Future Group and Bharti Enterprises’ retail arm, Bharti Retail, which runs stores under ‘Easy Day’ brand.
Through this deal, Future Group took control of Bharti Retail by merging its retail business with the latter in a stock deal worth Rs.750 crore to create a Rs.15,000-crore entity with one of the largest networks in the country. As for new entrants, Swedish fashion retailer, Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), became a hit with its first store in Delhi.
Initially, it planned to open just three stores although it had received approval in November, 2013 to open 50 stores.
The U.S.-based fashion brands such as Gap and Aeropostale also entered the country through franchise agreements with Arvind Brands.
Another Swedish firm IKEA moved closer to its plan of setting up stores in India by purchasing its first land parcel in the country in Hyderabad in July. The company plans to open 25 stores at an investment of Rs.10,500 crore over the next decade. It also signed an MoU with the Uttar Pradesh Government to set up its stores in cities such as Lucknow, Agra and Noida.

Wednesday 23 December 2015

Government opening up e-commerce sector for FDI in a calibrated way

NEW DELHI: Foreign investment in business to customer (B2C) e-commerce activities has been opened in a calibrated manner, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

Commerce and industry minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply to Rajya Sabha said that an entity is permitted to undertake retail trading through e-commerce under certain circumstances.

Mentioning the circumstances, she said a manufacturer is permitted to sell its product manufactured domestically through e-commerce retail.

Also, a single brand retail trading firm operating through brick and mortar stores, is permitted to undertake e-retailing.

"Foreign investment in business to customer (B2C) e-commerce activities has been opened in a calibrated manner and an entity is permitted to undertake retail trading through e-commerce under the (certain) circumstances," she said.

As per the policy, FDI up to 100% is permitted in B2B e-commerce.

Replying to a separate question on tobacco she said, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has confirmed that there is no restriction on manufacture of four items namely 'guthka', 'scented khaini', flavoured chewing tobacco and 'pan masala'.

She said there are 16 pan masala manufacturing units in Kandla SEZ, 5 units in Surat SEZ and 4 are engaged in manufacturing of tobacco related products in Noida SEZ.

A proposal for establishment of a new unit for manufacturing of the said four items in Kandla SEZ was referred by the SEZ to the commerce ministry.

India's e-commerce space may see a shake-up in 2 years: T V Mohandas Pai

Slamming huge discounts and cashback offers from e-commerce players as "subsidies", Chairman of Manipal Global Education T V Mohandas Pai has said the industry may see a shakeout in the next two years, or "even earlier".He faulted the business model adopted by e-tailers, which he said promotes growth without building customer loyalty. Biggies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal are just trying "to grow fast by giving subsidies, which is wrong because there is no customer loyalty".
Mohandas-Pai_twitter_380"And in the last quarter we have seen... Amazon has overtaken them because it has superior technology and better processes. Snapdeal has fallen back," Pai, the former director of Infosys, told PTI here.
"I think, a very good shakeout... may come, maybe, in the next one or two years. Some of the weaker players will fall." On the start-up growth scenario, Pai said: "Many of them will die because they are not competitive. They are being kept alive by dollars of money."
According to him, the country currently has 18,000 start-ups creating a value of USD 75 billion, with three lakh people being employed in the space.
He projected 1,00,000 start-ups with USD 500 billion of value and generating 3.5 million jobs in 10 years. "Those who copy successful start-ups will die and many others would fall by the wayside. Top 10-20 per cent (of the start-ups) will rise and become major companies", he predicted.
On the Indian IT sector, Pai said the challenge is to change the business model to boost the digital economy and the market.
"They (Indian IT companies) have to go to the new digital era. Some of them are struggling. That's the
challenge. They should be doing more digital," he suggested. Pai played down suggestions from some quarters that India's IT employees are "overworked and exploited". "When you have 18-20 per cent attrition (rate), where is the exploitation? It (suggestion) is ridiculous", he added.

Tuesday 22 December 2015

Shopmatic, the e-commerce company that wants to help India’s SMEs go digital

Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) will certainly be one of the big drivers of India’s growth in the coming years. As campaigns by Google and GoDaddy have shown over the years, it is not an easy job to get these smaller entities to go online, especially if those running it are not well-versed with the Internet.
Singapore-based e-commerce suite Shopmatic hopes to make the process a little easier for India’s SMEs by offering an entire ecosystem for a small business that wishes to go online. From logistics of setting up a website or online payment gateway to listing on other platforms and handling deliveries, the company does it all for an SME.

“Shopmatic provides the entire ecosystem for someone who wants to take their business online. Even payment acceptance is auto-integrated. We give our customers data insights, let them even track their shipments to customers,” says Anurag Avula, CEO and founder of the Singapore-based firm.
While the company is going a limited release version of their services till end of 2015, it plans to target 40 cities in India in 2016. The Shopmatic suite costs around $20 or Rs 1,300 per month and the company hopes to get small-scale businesses and home entrepreneurs on board.
“If you have a business, we want to create an online category, market for that,” says Avula. Shopmatic will also handle delivery for its business and has signed up Delhivery. The company will also help businesses that want to sell abroad by managing international delivery and logistics.
Avula is confident that more SMBs will sign up for a service like Shopmatic. “During our research we spoke to 400-500 home business owners. And most were interested in what we have to offer. Not a single person said ‘we’re not interested’. They want something like this,” says Shopmatic’s CEO. The initial plan is to roll out in metros and also target tier II, tier III cities like Chandigarh, Mysore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Coimbatore, etc.

Avula admits that it won’t be an entirely Do-It-Yourself process with most business and that there will be some hand-holding from their part. “We will have e-commerce consultants who will walk these home business owners through the process. We have to make them understand how easy it is to go online, but educating them about it will also be a part of the process,” add Avula.
For Indian SMBs, not going digital is no longer an option. This July, a Google and Deloitte report had said that in India a massive 36 per cent small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are still offline with just about 10 per cent of them near an “Advanced Digital” adoption stage. The report said going digital could help these businesses increase revenue and will also help create new jobs in the economy. Deloitte and Google found that businesses that operate totally offline saw an annual 8 per cent fall in revenue.
Even Google has stepped up its enterprise game in India and recently announced free cloud credits for $20,000 worth free credits in Cloud Services for the period of one year to 1000 startups.
Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) will certainly be one of the big drivers of India’s growth in the coming years. As campaigns by Google and GoDaddy have shown over the years, it is not an easy job to get these smaller entities to go online, especially if those running it are not well-versed with the Internet.
Singapore-based e-commerce suite Shopmatic hopes to make the process a little easier for India’s SMEs by offering an entire ecosystem for a small business that wishes to go online. From logistics of setting up a website or online payment gateway to listing on other platforms and handling deliveries, the company does it all for an SME.
ALSO READ: Hiree, the job portal that puts focus on speed hiring
“Shopmatic provides the entire ecosystem for someone who wants to take their business online. Even payment acceptance is auto-integrated. We give our customers data insights, let them even track their shipments to customers,” says Anurag Avula, CEO and founder of the Singapore-based firm.
While the company is going a limited release version of their services till end of 2015, it plans to target 40 cities in India in 2016. The Shopmatic suite costs around $20 or Rs 1,300 per month and the company hopes to get small-scale businesses and home entrepreneurs on board.
“If you have a business, we want to create an online category, market for that,” says Avula. Shopmatic will also handle delivery for its business and has signed up Delhivery. The company will also help businesses that want to sell abroad by managing international delivery and logistics.
Avula is confident that more SMBs will sign up for a service like Shopmatic. “During our research we spoke to 400-500 home business owners. And most were interested in what we have to offer. Not a single person said ‘we’re not interested’. They want something like this,” says Shopmatic’s CEO. The initial plan is to roll out in metros and also target tier II, tier III cities like Chandigarh, Mysore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Coimbatore, etc.
MUST READ: Mobile app payments: Paytm to MobiKwik, the digital wallet is expanding
Avula admits that it won’t be an entirely Do-It-Yourself process with most business and that there will be some hand-holding from their part. “We will have e-commerce consultants who will walk these home business owners through the process. We have to make them understand how easy it is to go online, but educating them about it will also be a part of the process,” add Avula.
For Indian SMBs, not going digital is no longer an option. This July, a Google and Deloitte report had said that in India a massive 36 per cent small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are still offline with just about 10 per cent of them near an “Advanced Digital” adoption stage. The report said going digital could help these businesses increase revenue and will also help create new jobs in the economy. Deloitte and Google found that businesses that operate totally offline saw an annual 8 per cent fall in revenue.
Even Google has stepped up its enterprise game in India and recently announced free cloud credits for $20,000 worth free credits in Cloud Services for the period of one year to 1000 startups.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/shopmatic-the-e-commerce-company-that-wants-to-help-indias-smes-go-digital/#sthash.IiBx3fC0.dpuf
Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) will certainly be one of the big drivers of India’s growth in the coming years. As campaigns by Google and GoDaddy have shown over the years, it is not an easy job to get these smaller entities to go online, especially if those running it are not well-versed with the Internet.
Singapore-based e-commerce suite Shopmatic hopes to make the process a little easier for India’s SMEs by offering an entire ecosystem for a small business that wishes to go online. From logistics of setting up a website or online payment gateway to listing on other platforms and handling deliveries, the company does it all for an SME.
ALSO READ: Hiree, the job portal that puts focus on speed hiring
“Shopmatic provides the entire ecosystem for someone who wants to take their business online. Even payment acceptance is auto-integrated. We give our customers data insights, let them even track their shipments to customers,” says Anurag Avula, CEO and founder of the Singapore-based firm.
While the company is going a limited release version of their services till end of 2015, it plans to target 40 cities in India in 2016. The Shopmatic suite costs around $20 or Rs 1,300 per month and the company hopes to get small-scale businesses and home entrepreneurs on board.
“If you have a business, we want to create an online category, market for that,” says Avula. Shopmatic will also handle delivery for its business and has signed up Delhivery. The company will also help businesses that want to sell abroad by managing international delivery and logistics.
Avula is confident that more SMBs will sign up for a service like Shopmatic. “During our research we spoke to 400-500 home business owners. And most were interested in what we have to offer. Not a single person said ‘we’re not interested’. They want something like this,” says Shopmatic’s CEO. The initial plan is to roll out in metros and also target tier II, tier III cities like Chandigarh, Mysore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Coimbatore, etc.
MUST READ: Mobile app payments: Paytm to MobiKwik, the digital wallet is expanding
Avula admits that it won’t be an entirely Do-It-Yourself process with most business and that there will be some hand-holding from their part. “We will have e-commerce consultants who will walk these home business owners through the process. We have to make them understand how easy it is to go online, but educating them about it will also be a part of the process,” add Avula.
For Indian SMBs, not going digital is no longer an option. This July, a Google and Deloitte report had said that in India a massive 36 per cent small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are still offline with just about 10 per cent of them near an “Advanced Digital” adoption stage. The report said going digital could help these businesses increase revenue and will also help create new jobs in the economy. Deloitte and Google found that businesses that operate totally offline saw an annual 8 per cent fall in revenue.
Even Google has stepped up its enterprise game in India and recently announced free cloud credits for $20,000 worth free credits in Cloud Services for the period of one year to 1000 startups.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/shopmatic-the-e-commerce-company-that-wants-to-help-indias-smes-go-digital/#sthash.IiBx3fC0.dpuf
Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) will certainly be one of the big drivers of India’s growth in the coming years. As campaigns by Google and GoDaddy have shown over the years, it is not an easy job to get these smaller entities to go online, especially if those running it are not well-versed with the Internet.
Singapore-based e-commerce suite Shopmatic hopes to make the process a little easier for India’s SMEs by offering an entire ecosystem for a small business that wishes to go online. From logistics of setting up a website or online payment gateway to listing on other platforms and handling deliveries, the company does it all for an SME.
ALSO READ: Hiree, the job portal that puts focus on speed hiring
“Shopmatic provides the entire ecosystem for someone who wants to take their business online. Even payment acceptance is auto-integrated. We give our customers data insights, let them even track their shipments to customers,” says Anurag Avula, CEO and founder of the Singapore-based firm.
While the company is going a limited release version of their services till end of 2015, it plans to target 40 cities in India in 2016. The Shopmatic suite costs around $20 or Rs 1,300 per month and the company hopes to get small-scale businesses and home entrepreneurs on board.
“If you have a business, we want to create an online category, market for that,” says Avula. Shopmatic will also handle delivery for its business and has signed up Delhivery. The company will also help businesses that want to sell abroad by managing international delivery and logistics.
Avula is confident that more SMBs will sign up for a service like Shopmatic. “During our research we spoke to 400-500 home business owners. And most were interested in what we have to offer. Not a single person said ‘we’re not interested’. They want something like this,” says Shopmatic’s CEO. The initial plan is to roll out in metros and also target tier II, tier III cities like Chandigarh, Mysore, Jaipur, Lucknow, Coimbatore, etc.
MUST READ: Mobile app payments: Paytm to MobiKwik, the digital wallet is expanding
Avula admits that it won’t be an entirely Do-It-Yourself process with most business and that there will be some hand-holding from their part. “We will have e-commerce consultants who will walk these home business owners through the process. We have to make them understand how easy it is to go online, but educating them about it will also be a part of the process,” add Avula.
For Indian SMBs, not going digital is no longer an option. This July, a Google and Deloitte report had said that in India a massive 36 per cent small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India are still offline with just about 10 per cent of them near an “Advanced Digital” adoption stage. The report said going digital could help these businesses increase revenue and will also help create new jobs in the economy. Deloitte and Google found that businesses that operate totally offline saw an annual 8 per cent fall in revenue.
Even Google has stepped up its enterprise game in India and recently announced free cloud credits for $20,000 worth free credits in Cloud Services for the period of one year to 1000 startups.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/shopmatic-the-e-commerce-company-that-wants-to-help-indias-smes-go-digital/#sthash.IiBx3fC0.dpuf