Bharti consumer business head resigns to log in career at Snapdeal

In what can be seen as a growing trend of executives from mobile companies joining e-commerce ventures, chief marketing officer of consumer business at Bharti Airtel Govind Rajan has put in his papers and is reportedly joining Snapdeal. This would be the second major exit of a senior executive from the teleco to the second largest e-commerce firm in over a month. In May, Bharti Airtel’s chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran, who had joined the company in April last year from Yahoo!, resigned to join Snapdeal as a chief product officer.

Govind Rajan had joined Airtel from Unilever in 2013. He led consumer products and services at Airtel and was later given the additional responsibility for driving Airtel Money.

Airtel spokesperson declined to comment.

Last year in June, Vishal Jain, who was in-charge of new product development (usage and retention vertical) at Bharti, had quit to join Snapdeal as head of mobile marketing. Similarly, Rajnish Baweja, regional chief financial officer (Anglophone) at Bharti Airtel International (Netherland) BV, Nairobi, Africa, joined as finance controller at the country’s largest e-commerce firm Flipkart in July 2014.

Analyst say that since telcos and e-commerce firms have very similar requirement — essentially dealing with consumers, their spending patterns and offering them lifestyle status — the shifting of personnel from one to another is a seamless process and is bound to grow.

Jabong’s owner raises €150 million from existing investors

The company that runs online fashion store Jabong.com has raised €150 million (about Rs.1,060 crore) from its existing investors,Investment AB Kinnevik and Rocket Internet SE, valuing the German group at €3.1 billion.

Global Fashion Group (GFG), which houses the German e-commerce company’s fashion businesses from emerging countries, has also acquired two Brazilian online fashion businesses —Kanui and Tricae—in an all-stock deal, Kinnevik and Rocket Internet said in a joint statement on Wednesday.

The recent round of funding and acquisition will dilute Rocket Internet’s stake in the venture to 21.9% from 23.5%, while Kinnevik will own at least 25% in the joint venture.

Formed in 2011, GFG includes India’s fashion website Jabong, Latin America’s Dafiti, Russia’s Lamoda, Namshi of the Middle East and Zalora of South-East Asia and Australia.

The recent round of funds will help GFG solidify its position by investing towards strengthening of GFG’s fulfilment, marketing and product development.

GFG will also use this capital towards “building the infrastructure to capitalize on the synergies between GFG’s market-leading online fashion businesses in Latin America, Middle East, Russia and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), India, South-East Asia and Australia”, according to the statement.

“As Global Fashion Group’s largest shareholder, we’re proud to be leading the financing round to ensure its continued success as the leading emerging-markets fashion e-commerce company,” said Lorenzo Grabau, chief executive of Kinnevik and chairman of GFG.

“The additional capital will give us an exceptionally strong runway and allow us to capitalize on the massive growth opportunity of fashion e-commerce in emerging markets. In addition, the strategic acquisitions of Kanui and Tricae enable the integration of two great businesses that have a natural fit with our Latin American brand Dafiti and are acquired at attractive terms,” said Romain Voog, chief executive of GFG.

Founded in 2011, Kanui is a sports and outdoor e-commerce business in Brazil with focus on the surf-and-skate lifestyle verticals. It also sells regular fashion apparel as well as various sports equipment.

According to the statement, Kanui generated more than €30 million of net revenue in 2014 and is growing rapidly.

Tricae, founded in 2011, is a children and baby products e-commerce company that generated more than €20 million of net revenue in 2014. The two businesses will be integrated into Dafiti in Latin America.

GFG currently operates across four continents and 27 countries and employs over 9,500 people.

With a focus on emerging markets, GFG targets a €630 billion fashion market and over 2.5 billion people who rapidly continue to move online for making purchases.

Westland drags Flipkart to Delhi HC, alleges copyright violation in Amish Tripathi’s Amazon tie-up for ‘Scion of Ikshvaku’

Writer Amish Tripathi's latest novel, which retells the story of Ramayana and turns it into a gripping thriller, is now scripting the latest battle in the digital world, as a spat over its online selling rights between Amazon and Flipkart has reached the Delhi High Court.

Westland Ltd, the Tata Group-owned publisher of the `Scion of Ikshvaku', has dragged Flipkart.com to the Delhi High Court, alleging that the ecommerce company is violating copyrights and IT Act by selling the novel
on its platform.

Westland says it has signed a two-month exclusive deal with Amazon to sell the book through its online platform.

Flipkart, however, denied any violation. "Flipkart is a marketplace which helps sellers connect with customers across the country. The matter is sub judice before the Honourable Delhi High Court, which on 30 June 2015 declined to pass any restraint order against Flipkart India or any of the sellers on the sale of the said book," a company spokesperson told ET on Thursday.

That sounds just the same as what an Amazon spokesperson had said last year when the two ecommerce giants had a similar spat over Chetan Bhagat's novel `Half rights be Girlfriend', for which Flipkart had an exclusive deal with publisher Rupa to sell the book online.

Then Rupa had objected to Amazon selling the book on its platform. And a spokesperson of the ecommerce platform said: "We are an open marketplace and sellers on our form are free to choose the selection that they wish to offer their customers using our marketplace platform."

Now, the tables have turned.

An email sent to Amazon on the latest book controversy did not elicit any response as of press time Thursday. Gautam Padmanabhan, CEO at Westland, declined to comment because the matter is sub judice. 


A lawyer representing Westland, claimed that selling the book on Flipkart is in violation of copyright and the IT Act. "You cannot sell it and if any distributor is selling it through Flipkart, they are violating my copyrights," the person said. 

 Tripathi is one of the best-selling authours in the country, having gained international fame and acclamation for his Shiva trilogy.

Scion of Ikshvaku is the first book in `Ram Chandra series'.

Sensing the potential of the book, Amazon signed an exclusive deal with Westland and ran television commercial promoting the book during year's Indian Premier League t20 cricket tournament.


This is the latest in a series of spats between Flipkart and Amazon, a reminiscent of the early 2000s when beverages giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo feuded over something or the other almost every day. 

HUL to build e-commerce capabilities

Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), India’s largest consumer packaged goods company by revenue, has identified the e-commerce platform as an  opportunity ahead of the curve. The company has been working with e-tailers such as Amazon and Flipkart to sell its goods through their sites and has also reportedly formed a dedicated team to build e-commerce capabilities. 

In February, it moved the sales of some of its high value offerings from the direct-selling model to an online one.

Addressing HUL’s annual general meeting, Chairman Harish Manwani said,"Our company recognised this shift in consumer preference and will strengthen e-commerce efforts. We know that we have to create capabilities within our organisation to be able to use e-commerce as a channel."

Referring to the spillover effects from the Maggi debacle on the company's Knorr brand,  Manwani said Knorr met all requirements and only the brand's Chinese range of instant noodles has been withdrawn from the markets following a Food Safety and Standards Authority of India advisory of 9 June.

HUL ended last fiscal with a total revenue of Rs 30,896 crore on a net profit of Rs 4,315 crore.

Flipkart ties up with three major home retailers

Flipkart on Thursday entered into a strategic partnership with Home Town (Future group), HomeStop (Shoppers Stop) and @Home, India's largest home retail brands on Thursday.

The tie-ups will introduce a whole new range of products from these retail brands, adding to Flipkart's existing portfolio of over 1000 brands with seven lakh home products.

The association brings together best-in-class products from top home retailers backed by Flipkart's robust e-commerce capabilities to the end customer, the company said in a release.

From furnishing to DIY tools and homecare to décor, customers can now access an exhaustive range of products from these top-notch brands and their private labels, it said.

While the retailers have offline presence in key markets and a few online channels, the association helps them tap into Flipkart's expanding consumer base across the country.

The new partnerships also enrich Flipkart's product range, giving customers more variety to choose from and reach to some of Indian's leading brands, the release said.

To bring in a diverse range of products, Flipkart plans to partner with several other retailers across categories too, which will help offer an array of products on a single online platform, making it a one-stop-destination for every shopper, it said.

Ankit Nagori, Chief Business Officer of Flipkart, said the combination of the best-of-home-brands and the company's distribution and technology expertise "will surely be a bonus for our expanding customers, across India. We look forward to many more similar tie-ups across categories in the future."