Traders' Body CAIT Demands Govt to Launch E-Marketplace to Help Small Traders

Traders' body for for small traders and businesses in India, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), has urged the government to launch an e-commerce marketplace portal in partnership with trade associations where small traders, artisans and women entrepreneurs can sell their products in a 'fair and transparent manner'.

CAIT has also sent a letter to India's Union Minister of Commerce Suresh Prabhu alleging "that the e-commerce business in India is highly vitiated and has been gripped by a few big online companies who are indulging into predatory pricing, deep discounting and loss funding" against the FDI (foreign direct investment) guidelines of the government.

"The government in association with trade associations should launch an e-commerce marketplace portal where small traders, artisans, women entrepreneur and others can sell their products in a fair & transparent manner," CAIT said to Prabhu.

In the letter to Prabhu, the traders' body also demanded early announcement of an e-commerce policy and formation of a Regulatory Authority to monitor the e-commerce business in India.

In September too, CAIT had written to the Commerce Minister urging him to take serious action against e-commerce firms including Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal etc. for disregarding FDI norms listed for such players by engaging in retail trading activities. In the official complaint, CAIT has claimed that the e-commerce companies are indulging in a "blatant violation" of the FDI (policy).

It is to be noted in order to promote small traders in India amid uprise of big e-commerce players, CAIT -- back in November 2015 -- had also launched its own e-commerce portal named as "e-Lala" and back then, the portal was inaugurated by the then Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu. However, the portal did not worked as expected and tanked eventually, unable bring considerable businesses for small traders in India.

Source - Firstpost

4 Ways Technology Can Revolutionize E-Commerce Space in India

The impact that tech-savvy customers are having on the e-commerce world these days is not just stronger than ever, it's faster than ever. Gone are the days when customers would wander online trying to determine if an online order was worth the risk. Instead, technology today is helping customers keep track of their purchases, and fluctuating the ways in which those consumers interact with online retailers.

These trends, in turn, are affecting the big picture. As technology changes business-to-consumer transactions, new opportunities for both sides of the sphere are budding. Consumers now have access to a range of tools that help them gauge prices, find alternatives, locate stores and receive coupons. Retailers are seeing benefits as well, as technology helps them make stronger connections with consumers and build their brands faster.

Altogether, the picture of business-to-customer is changing as new technology is evolving continually in the e- commerce industry. Some retailers are planning to create and sustain customer value by providing sophisticated digital experiences that deliver orders more quickly, blend physical and digital capabilities, and simplify ordering procedures.

Qtrove was started by Vinamra Pandiya and Prashanth Nagarajan with a mission to empower local entrepreneurs who produce cruelty-free and environment-friendly products. Qtrove aims to be a curated marketplace that exhibits and sells such products from small entrepreneurs across the country. At Qtrove.com they aim to achieve customer satisfaction by providing them with natural and sustainable products that are non-mass manufactured and which can be replaced with their mass produced counterparts in their households. For Qtrove, Content and community comes first followed by commerce.

"Our approach is diametrically opposite to that of big e-commerce giants which are selling brands and are focusing purely on transactions whereas Qtrove wants to create a seller-focused, democratic, self-sustaining marketplace," concludes Pandiya," says Vinamra Pandiya, CEO and Founder, Qtrove.com.

While interaction Pandiya highlighted few points which define how technology will bring revolution e-commerce space?

Here's How:

Mobile Apps Are Changing Consumer/Retailer Relationships

Apps are now providing retailers with an opportunity to connect with consumers that go beyond the boundaries of a brick-and-mortar business. Brands no longer have to wait for consumers to walk into their shop or spot an ad that prompts them to engage with the business. "Now, businesses can reach consumers everywhere. Even when customers aren't shopping, retailers can still be on their minds. The constant presence of a brand’s app on a customer's phone reminds him or her that that brand is out there, as an option. Location-enabled interactions, which deliver messages to customers who enter shops, are getting customers back into actual stores," says Pandiya.

Retailers Are More On Consumers' Minds

"Yesteryear’s email notifications are swiftly being crowded out by marketers in favour of smartphone push notifications. These features and their apps allow marketing teams to command consumer attention as never before,' says Pandiya. Promotions that once got filtered out by spam detectors or were scrolled over by consumers can now grab a user's attention right at his or her home screen. Retailers are harnessing these updates to keep customers updated and informed about new promotions.

Personalised Customer Experience Is Growing

The fact that consumers want personally relevant shopping experiences is nothing new. What is new? It's the fact that technology is making personalization standard. These marketing techniques are becoming a popular method for those looking to build a loyal customer base. "With the advent of mobile personal assistants, e-commerce sites are realizing that automated services no longer cut it. To better serve customers, e-commerce sites are finding that they must adapt to the new customer service standards set by technological improvements. This means servicing customers on the various channels they have access to." says Pandiya. Brand websites, email, Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram are all being used by customers to connect with brands. Today’s e-commerce sites have to use these platforms to connect with customers.

Consumers Like The Convenience Of Faster Delivery And Lower Prices

Convenience has been the number one driving force behind e-commerce sites’ success. With the increasing demand for convenience, however, same-day delivery features are posing new challenges. Online stores, for example, may encounter the need for higher price tags: Putting a driver behind a wheel for same-day delivery is far from cheap. But technological help is on the way. "In the near future, solutions to the delivery obstacle, at least, will come in the form of automated vehicles and drones. E-commerce behemoths like Amazon are already looking to pave the way with such technology. For now, sites aiming to gain a competitive edge are offering consumers faster deliveries with lower prices, says Pandiya.

With the near arrival and growing popularity of these technological advances, the e-commerce industry will likely adjust to leverage new capabilities for faster delivery rates and customer satisfaction.

SundayKart Allows You To Shop From Your Local Grocery Store 'Online'

SundayKart is an online e-commerce platform, which connects both customers and local store owners. Different from other online grocery shops Sundaykart allows you to connect with your local grocery store, order and shop from them only. Moreover customers doesn't need to pay to place an order, he/she can pay the ordered amount after getting his/her delivery by the favorite store.

SundayKart is providing the convenience to the customers to buy from his local trusted and favorite store. And allowing store owners to be online and serve their loyal customers without building or maintaining their own websites.

SundayKart provides an online catalogue in different languages as per user preferences for grocery stores, restaurants, sweets shops, food courts, bakeries etc. where shop owners can register in SundayKart.com and sell their goods/items to their local customers. The shop owner will deliver the order depends up on customer convenient time. Customers can buy all types of food items, groceries, sweets, bakery items etc. from stores through SundayKart.com.

Currently SundayKart exists in AndharaPradesh, Telangana, Chattisgarh, and Tamilnadu ony.




SundayKart developed by A L Technologies Private Ltd., a self-funded startup which has started on August'2013, and took 8 months time to develop this project. The startup launched SundayKart.com on August'2014. The startup based out of Narasaraopet, Andhra Pradesh, has been founded by Satya Ponnuru, who have worked in various companies like Cisco, Qualcom, Intel, Intuit and Fusion IO. Satya co-founded Sundaykart with Sai Kalyan.

SundayKart.com is also developing mobile application for smart phone users to make shopping easy. Mobile app will be available from the month of January 2015. Customers can download this mobile app from their play stores.

IRCTC To Launch Open E-Commerce Platform & A Co-Branded Marketplace

IRCTC has released a new tender which invites bidders for selection for a co-branded marketplace solution provider. This tender has been released just a few weeks after IRCTC had put its ecommerce marketplace on the back burner.

IRCTC floats this tender to call upon Online Retail Marketplace companies or similar to offer a Co-Branded platform to showcase retail, deals, and other services that will be offered from third parties/ retailers, online retailers, Affiliates, brands and service providers or their own inventory or combination thereof to the IRCTC customers to buy online services.

The tender document can be purchased by the bidders for a non-refundable sum of Rs.1000. The document then needs to be submitted along with a demand draft of Rs. 2 Lakhs.

The contract will be valid for a period of 2 years where the IRCTC will be having full rights to change the basis of or procedures.

The bidder will have to meet certain eligibility criteria in order to become a successful bidder.

• The bidder needs to be an established Information Technology or ecommerce company. The company should further have a successful and functioning online marketplace for a minimum of 2 years. It should also have at least one warehouse in India.


• The company needs to have annual turnover of Rs. 50 Crores from its B2C ecommerce business in the year 2012-2013.


• The company must successfully aggregate over five hundred in retail and one lakh SKUs. It should also be able to process 1-20 orders every month in any location on the earth. It must also have past records of managing traffic of 5 million visits in a month.


• It must cater to a broad spectrum of categories.


• The company which is bidding should be able to give expedited shipping options which include guaranteed 1 day or 2 day delivery option.


• The company should not have been blacklisted with any PSU in the past.

 

The Bidder will have to carry out a list of activities. Some of them are as follows:

• The company will have to power a co-branded marketplace for IRCTC. The marketplace will have end to end deliveries which will be taken care by the company by providing: open commerce, assisted commerce service and marketplace solution.


• The bidder will have to provide the IRCTC users with a Seamless, personalized and differentiated shopping experience for deals, retail and services.


• The bidder will be needed to provide IRCTC with Commission management module, sales dashboard, banner utilizations, traffic conversions reports in reference to each and every category of services and products being made available at the marketplace.


• The bidder needs to enable co-branded solution with ten categories but with a minimum of one lakh SKUs and five hundred sellers at the time of launch.


• The bidder will be required to manage social media-Twitter, Facebook, Email, end of season sales, bank campaigns, CRM, Google online shopping festival and other promotions.


• The bidder will also have to provide technical help for the ecommerce platform. It will have to manage the solution hosted on a cloud or self owned S/W, H/W networks of security components.


• The bidder will also have to monitor the stocked, booked and delivered products.


• The bidder will have to provide the users with a secure payment gateway interface.


• Conformance to B2C supply chain should be made available by integrating with logistics partners.


• The marketplace should facilitate tax collection between its customers and merchants. Service Tax and VAT linked at the delivery end should be facilitated by the bidder company.

 

The bids will be evaluated by IRCTC in two stages.  The first stage will be technical and the second will be financial bid. Only the bidders who will pass the first stage will progress to the second stage.

IRCTC To Launch Open E-Commerce Platform & A Co-Branded Marketplace

IRCTC has released a new tender which invites bidders for selection for a co-branded marketplace solution provider. This tender has been released just a few weeks after IRCTC had put its ecommerce marketplace on the back burner.

IRCTC floats this tender to call upon Online Retail Marketplace companies or similar to offer a Co-Branded platform to showcase retail, deals, and other services that will be offered from third parties/ retailers, online retailers, Affiliates, brands and service providers or their own inventory or combination thereof to the IRCTC customers to buy online services.

The tender document can be purchased by the bidders for a non-refundable sum of Rs.1000. The document then needs to be submitted along with a demand draft of Rs. 2 Lakhs.

The contract will be valid for a period of 2 years where the IRCTC will be having full rights to change the basis of or procedures.

The bidder will have to meet certain eligibility criteria in order to become a successful bidder.

• The bidder needs to be an established Information Technology or ecommerce company. The company should further have a successful and functioning online marketplace for a minimum of 2 years. It should also have at least one warehouse in India.


• The company needs to have annual turnover of Rs. 50 Crores from its B2C ecommerce business in the year 2012-2013.


• The company must successfully aggregate over five hundred in retail and one lakh SKUs. It should also be able to process 1-20 orders every month in any location on the earth. It must also have past records of managing traffic of 5 million visits in a month.


• It must cater to a broad spectrum of categories.


• The company which is bidding should be able to give expedited shipping options which include guaranteed 1 day or 2 day delivery option.


• The company should not have been blacklisted with any PSU in the past.

 

The Bidder will have to carry out a list of activities. Some of them are as follows:

• The company will have to power a co-branded marketplace for IRCTC. The marketplace will have end to end deliveries which will be taken care by the company by providing: open commerce, assisted commerce service and marketplace solution.


• The bidder will have to provide the IRCTC users with a Seamless, personalized and differentiated shopping experience for deals, retail and services.


• The bidder will be needed to provide IRCTC with Commission management module, sales dashboard, banner utilizations, traffic conversions reports in reference to each and every category of services and products being made available at the marketplace.


• The bidder needs to enable co-branded solution with ten categories but with a minimum of one lakh SKUs and five hundred sellers at the time of launch.


• The bidder will be required to manage social media-Twitter, Facebook, Email, end of season sales, bank campaigns, CRM, Google online shopping festival and other promotions.


• The bidder will also have to provide technical help for the ecommerce platform. It will have to manage the solution hosted on a cloud or self owned S/W, H/W networks of security components.


• The bidder will also have to monitor the stocked, booked and delivered products.


• The bidder will have to provide the users with a secure payment gateway interface.


• Conformance to B2C supply chain should be made available by integrating with logistics partners.


• The marketplace should facilitate tax collection between its customers and merchants. Service Tax and VAT linked at the delivery end should be facilitated by the bidder company.

 

The bids will be evaluated by IRCTC in two stages.  The first stage will be technical and the second will be financial bid. Only the bidders who will pass the first stage will progress to the second stage.

Flipkart's Big Billion Day Sale Or A Big Pricing Scam?

Yesterday, on 6th October 2014, Flipkart announced The Big Billion Day sale as one of the biggest on Flipkart ever since it was launched as full fledged e-commerce portal and Flipkart claimed that it was the giant sale ever in the history of eCommerce in India. However, people found it rather strange and smells rat in it.

People eagerly waited for the sale, however on D-day a lot of customers found that the prices of most of the products were suddenly raised substantially from its regular price and then discounted which may be higher than the regular prices.

Flipkart might have underrated and underestimated its customers of their intelligence and shopping techniques as lot of people who use to buy things online uses tools and plugins to track the prices for x days and can also compare the prices of particular commodity available on difference e-commerce stores. Online tools such as Pricify and Chrome extensions like BuyHatke provide users to monitor/track prices of any product for n-number of days and compare prices of same brand products on different e-stores.



A lot of customers complaint that Flipkart raised 60-70% costs on all products few days before the sale, so on the D day they can claim to have offered supreme deals which they felt as a cheating to consumers.

Cherry Parekh, one of a Flipkart customer bought a dress worth Rs 899 this week (see shipment details in image below) and today she was shocked to see the rate which was increased to Rs 1899, which on the sale day might again be Rs 899.



 

The Compare Hatke chrome extension gives a comparison of price items for a period of time. This extension's results have quite been what could be termed the worst imaginable. The prices of many items have been shot up (deliberately or not) within 24-50 hours of starting of Big Billion Day.

A Flipkart user on Reddit.com commented - "Swayam Doublesheet which has been consistent at around Rs.1124 for over a month now, has suddenly shot up to Rs.1500. Tomorrow they might show a 30% discount and reduce it to original price."

Another user told on related thread on Reddit - "Van Heusen Slim Fit Men’s trousers which were hovering between Rs.1200 to Rs.1700 in the last 1 month have suddenly shot up to Rs.2200 in just 1 day! Cool technique to show people a huge Rs.500 discount on their favorite trousers on 6th October."



But the shocking fact was the above image of a Soch sari which is exorbitantly priced on Flipkart site when the same can be bought for less than half the price on Soch website itself.

There was this Big Billion Day offer by flipkart where they aimed to do business of more than 1 billion in a single day. The offer opened at 8 am in the morning of 6 Oct 2014 where discounts of up to 80% percent were offered across various categories.

Flipkart has been advertising this offer since quite some days and in the initial opening time on the morning of 6th Oct, many phones went out of stock. In fact, in an attempt to achieve their target, it has been reported that they have dedicated a strength of 10,000 staff for dispatching goods.

It is important for us as consumers to be aware about such marketing gimmicks and take purchasing decision wisely after considering all the factors.





These are some of  the examples of Flipkart's bigflop sale  and there are many such examples where products are quoted/listed at much higher prices than its regular prices and then discounted so as to make them look as for sale on huge discounts. If you have found something miserable in Big Billion Sale of Flipkart do mention them in comments below.

Sachin Bansal, however claimed the #BigBillionDay was a unprecedented successful online event for the company, with the site registering a billion hits and Flipkart touched $100 million in gross merchandising value in just 10 hours on 6th October 2014.

VC Investment In Indian E-Commerce Crosses $1bn in 2014

The Indian ecommerce scene is growing like never before and everyone is trying their level best to reap in as much profits as possible. This rapid growth in the Indian ecommerce market has already pushed the early stage venture capital investment above $1 billion in 2014. Both the US based and domestic funds are hoping that the local startups will be able to replicate China’s technology businesses rapid growth.

All the enthusiasm of the investors has been drawn by the ongoing and growing battle between the United States big online retailer Amazon and local biggies such as Flipkart. The US retailer is currently in plans of investing around $2 billion the third largest economy in Asia. On the other hand, Flipkart is currently valued at around $7 billion, all thanks to a $1 billion funding round earlier this year.

According to figures released from Ernst and Young, the consultancy, a number of smaller deals in areas ranging from mobile application development to consumer ecommerce have also contributed in pushing the early stage VC above the $1 billion mark in just first nine months of this year. This is the first time since 2007 that India has been successful in crossing the $1 billion mark. The figure was a mere $634m last year.

According to data collected from other sources like Thomson Reuters Datastream, venture investment into Indian software, which is a category that does not include sectors such as retail or biotechnology, reaching $810m so far in 2014. This figure is a marked improvement from the 2013 $100m figure.

According to Shailendra Singh’s statement to the Financial Times, there is an unprecedented growth in the ecommerce sector. Singh is the Managing director at Silicon Valley fund Sequoia Capital, which is one of the high profile investors in Indian Startups. He also added, "There is a lot of money flooding in…but it is also coinciding with some dramatic usage statistics as adoption of technology increases, not just by consumers but also by businesses".

India has as a reputation of being the world's technology hub, mostly because of the prominence of companies such as Wipro and Infosys. Many top notch multinationals of the world also make use of the country for software development and research.

Internet usage also supports the investment boom to a large extent. By 2020, India is projected to have more than 500 million Smartphones users, which is a great sign.

VC Investment In Indian E-Commerce Crosses $1bn in 2014

The Indian ecommerce scene is growing like never before and everyone is trying their level best to reap in as much profits as possible. This rapid growth in the Indian ecommerce market has already pushed the early stage venture capital investment above $1 billion in 2014. Both the US based and domestic funds are hoping that the local startups will be able to replicate China’s technology businesses rapid growth.

All the enthusiasm of the investors has been drawn by the ongoing and growing battle between the United States big online retailer Amazon and local biggies such as Flipkart. The US retailer is currently in plans of investing around $2 billion the third largest economy in Asia. On the other hand, Flipkart is currently valued at around $7 billion, all thanks to a $1 billion funding round earlier this year.

According to figures released from Ernst and Young, the consultancy, a number of smaller deals in areas ranging from mobile application development to consumer ecommerce have also contributed in pushing the early stage VC above the $1 billion mark in just first nine months of this year. This is the first time since 2007 that India has been successful in crossing the $1 billion mark. The figure was a mere $634m last year.

According to data collected from other sources like Thomson Reuters Datastream, venture investment into Indian software, which is a category that does not include sectors such as retail or biotechnology, reaching $810m so far in 2014. This figure is a marked improvement from the 2013 $100m figure.

According to Shailendra Singh’s statement to the Financial Times, there is an unprecedented growth in the ecommerce sector. Singh is the Managing director at Silicon Valley fund Sequoia Capital, which is one of the high profile investors in Indian Startups. He also added, "There is a lot of money flooding in…but it is also coinciding with some dramatic usage statistics as adoption of technology increases, not just by consumers but also by businesses".

India has as a reputation of being the world's technology hub, mostly because of the prominence of companies such as Wipro and Infosys. Many top notch multinationals of the world also make use of the country for software development and research.

Internet usage also supports the investment boom to a large extent. By 2020, India is projected to have more than 500 million Smartphones users, which is a great sign.

Big News - Alibaba in funding talks with Snapdeal

If sources are to be believed, China’s Alibaba has finally decided enter India's ever growing online retail industry and is already in talks with Snapdeal regarding the same. The Chinese company is apparently considering investing in Snapdeal if and even it decides to enter the online consumer market scene in India.

The company will most probably enter the business to consumer space in India and has initiated the talks regarding the same. Alibaba is currently worth over $165 billion at the end of its initial public offer. According to sources, both Alibaba and Snapdeal haven’t reached a conclusion yet.

Until now, the Chinese Company has only been connecting Indian merchants with overseas sellers and buyers. Alibaba will directly compete with market heavy weights like Amazon and Flipkart if it decides to enter the Indian online retail scene by aligning with Snapdeal. Though the Chinese firm might be considered a late entrant in the Indian market scene, it still has the advantage of cash (the company is expected to raise upto $ 25 billion this week in the IPO) and size- going by sales, Alibaba is hands down bigger than eBay and Amazon combined.

Snapdeal has been successful in raising a total of around $233 million in two rounds of investments this year and according to latest rumors, it could raise another $ 300 million in a potential round of fund raising. The Delhi based firm is currently valued at $1 billion.

Earlier, last month news came out that India's business tycoon Ratan wants to invest in SnapDeal.

According to sources from the investment banking sector, the Delhi based firm, which is also one of India’s largest growing online marketplace, has also caught the attention of some other Asian conglomerates which include communications provider SoftBank and Rakuten, Japan’s largest ecommerce company. Rakuten does emerge as one of the prime contenders in the investment race for Indian Internet Commerce scene going by its aggressive track record of acquisitions this year.

Alibaba recently launched a portal for the United States consumers in its home market which has resulted in a direct fight with Amazon and this fight will only intensify when Alibaba enters the consumer space in India after a period of about four years in growing business to business commerce.

 

Big News - Alibaba in funding talks with Snapdeal

If sources are to be believed, China’s Alibaba has finally decided enter India's ever growing online retail industry and is already in talks with Snapdeal regarding the same. The Chinese company is apparently considering investing in Snapdeal if and even it decides to enter the online consumer market scene in India.

The company will most probably enter the business to consumer space in India and has initiated the talks regarding the same. Alibaba is currently worth over $165 billion at the end of its initial public offer. According to sources, both Alibaba and Snapdeal haven’t reached a conclusion yet.

Until now, the Chinese Company has only been connecting Indian merchants with overseas sellers and buyers. Alibaba will directly compete with market heavy weights like Amazon and Flipkart if it decides to enter the Indian online retail scene by aligning with Snapdeal. Though the Chinese firm might be considered a late entrant in the Indian market scene, it still has the advantage of cash (the company is expected to raise upto $ 25 billion this week in the IPO) and size- going by sales, Alibaba is hands down bigger than eBay and Amazon combined.

Snapdeal has been successful in raising a total of around $233 million in two rounds of investments this year and according to latest rumors, it could raise another $ 300 million in a potential round of fund raising. The Delhi based firm is currently valued at $1 billion.

Earlier, last month news came out that India's business tycoon Ratan wants to invest in SnapDeal.

According to sources from the investment banking sector, the Delhi based firm, which is also one of India’s largest growing online marketplace, has also caught the attention of some other Asian conglomerates which include communications provider SoftBank and Rakuten, Japan’s largest ecommerce company. Rakuten does emerge as one of the prime contenders in the investment race for Indian Internet Commerce scene going by its aggressive track record of acquisitions this year.

Alibaba recently launched a portal for the United States consumers in its home market which has resulted in a direct fight with Amazon and this fight will only intensify when Alibaba enters the consumer space in India after a period of about four years in growing business to business commerce.

 

Gurgaon based TownEShop enables the local shops to go online free of cost

Gurgaon based Towneshop is a new product that enables the local shops to go online free of cost. The Beta Version of this free online shops platform Towneshop.com has been launched today at Gurgaon headquarters by CEO Mr. Manish Gupta. This online portal will host all the local shops free of cost on its platform and will allow shopkeepers and customers to connect with each other through internet. It will reduce the hassles of a customer and will increase the business for the local shops.

The actual though behind this innovative and crucial venture was to bring all the local shops online. Nowadays many online shopping portals have come up, and they have drastically affected the local business opportunities with the local shops and stores. The ease to buy online and a hassle free delivery has shifted the customer focus from the local shops to the convenient online portals. Hence, a need to fill this urgent and significant gap was felt by the research and analysis team at Plant Future Software Services, yet another venture by Mr. Manish Gupta.

The only difficulty that a shop faces to go online is heavy monetary requirements for software technology development and regular enhancements, besides hiring hi-tech human resource for regular operations. This is where our role comes into play, we at Plant Future have made things very simple, we have developed most user-friendly free online platform for every local shop, and we provide 24*7 technical assistance to our valued members. Therefore, we have empowered every local shop to go online with us with in a few seconds, that too without any monetary investment.

With Towneshop, it will take simple steps for Local Shops to go online, all you have to do is - visit Towneshop.com, Fill the Sign-up form, Add inventory items and their prices, Share the towneshop.com link with every local customer,receive online orders, deliver the products, and get cash on delivery. Currently, the service is available for local shops in Gurgaon city only.

Every shop will take the orders online and deliver the products at the same local rates with no extra charges. Therefore, the local shops will be able to effectively beat the competition with the online shopping portals, and that’s the goal that we wish to accomplish.

Towneshop has been developed under the aegis of Plant Future Software Services Pvt. Ltd. An effective team of web developers, market experts, and customer care executives is working dedicatedly 24*7 for monitoring the daily operations and keeping the portal glitch free. The team is headed by CEO Mr. Manish Gupta, an entrepreneur, social media expert, and software development engineer.

Snapdeal to launch TV channel, forms joint venture with Den Cable Network

India's E-commerce company Snapdeal has formed a joint-venture with Den Netowrks- a Cable distribution firm, to launch a market oriented TV channel. Jasper Infotech, the holding company of e-retailing firm Snapdeal.com has entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Den Networks.

Den Networks is India's largest cable TV distribution company that serves 13 million homes in more than 200 cities in India.

The TV channel would be "used as a market place platform for facilitating the sale of branded and unbranded merchandise and services, including vouchers offered by third party sellers subject to necessary approvals," Den said.

The venture will leverage the robust distribution network of Den Networks and Snapdeal's will extend its reach to television home shopping audiences with its wide product range and more than 30,000 vendors.

Snapdeal would be first e-commerce company in India to have entered into television shopping market arena. TV shopping in India however is exist in India for years and HomeShop18 and StarCJ are key players of this market and both have witnessed sharp growth.

Recently, Snapdeal had also partnered with Tata Value Homes to start the real estate vertical of the eCommerce company to offer homes with INR 30,000 booking fee.

Snapdeal has raised $100 million in May this year and now recenlty news broke that Rata Tata is planning on making a personal investment in the e-commerce firm Snapdeal.

Finding Hard Time, Yebhi.com turns into Shopping aggregator

Although e-commerce is flourishing rapidly in India, in contrast to it, Yebhi.com, one of India's leading online shopping E-commerce portal has changed its business model from pure e-commerce store to online shopping aggregator and a coupon website this means that now Yebhi.com will not sell annything directly but will showcase product from other e-commerce website such as Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, Zovi etc.

Gurgaon based Yebhi.com began as BigShoeBazaar.com in 2009 but changed its model in 2011 to sell fashion and apparels and then became a marketplace after itsun competitors such as Flipkart, Myntra and Snapdeal changed their respective models. However, Yebhi was unable to scale up its business after being unable to scale up and raise funds. This clearly hint that startup ecosystem is concentrated in south of India and e-commerce startup from north such as Yebhi.com find it hard to raise funds, investment oppurtunity and allround atmosphere for tech-startup in particular.

Yebhi reportedly has a registered user base of about 1.5 million people, of whom about half a million have transacted on the site. In 2011, Nexus Venture Partners and N. R. Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures invested Rs 40 crore in Yebhi.com and since its inception Yebhi has raised $40 million (around ₹240 crore) from 4 rounds of funding.

Danish Ahmed, CEO of Yebhi.com told a news website that the company has tied up with nine leading portals and plans to rope in 40 more online and local offline stores on its platform by end of this month. "We are bringing them variety from all the online and local stores, showing them prices with discounts and offers across these stores, and guiding them to products that would most suit their tastes, social circles and body structure," he added. With the new model, the company is targeting about $50-60 million revenues by end of this fiscal.

"E-Commerce is a very capital intensive industry and companies will continue to burn a lot of capital to acquire more customers. We decided to move out of that space, and leverage our learning and brand value to build a business that’s highly profitable and scalable. We are building a business which is capital efficient" said Danish. The new site will now list products from scores of online fashion stores, and help customers to find the most relevant products, through personalized recommendation to help them make informed purchase decision online.

Exact reason as why Yebhi.com has change its business model so drastically is unclear. Although, the e-commerce startup has been giving hints for changes in its facebook official page and later on thursday it announced that new Yebhi.com has been launched as shopping aggregator and with coupons from across all the stores in India.

Till Date, Yebhi had managed to raise 4 rounds of funding, it raised Rs. 10 Crore ($2 Mn) Series A funding by Nexus Venture Partners followed by a second round of funding of Rs. 40 Crore ($8 Mn) in 2011 led by Catamaran Ventures. In 2012, they raised series C funding of Rs. 100 Cr ($20 Mn) and lastly in Aril 2013 they raised Rs. 150 Cr ($12 Mn) from their existing investors. Howver more than year Yebhi.com was unable to raise funds nor its ganing large customer base like its competitors.

In contrast, companies such as Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong, Fashionandyou and Snapdeal have been able to attract new investors every year. The new model of Yebhi is less capital intensive and does not require any investment in inventory, fulfilment centres, logistics, support and supply chain.

Jabong to launch instant refunds for cash-on-delivery returns

Cash on delivery (COD), sometimes called collect on delivery, is the sale of goods by mail order where payment is made on delivery rather than in advance. COD has become popular in India with emerging online retailers as many Indians prefer to pay in cash traditionally since there is no risk of not receiving the product from the online retailer when the payment is done beforehand.

Top Indian e-commerce companies such as Flipkart, Myntra, Amazon, Snapdeal are pioneering this COD concept to attract more customers. Jabong however going one steap ahead of it by launching instant refunds for cash-on-delivery returns. Jobaong delivery person will come with bundle of currency notes to instantly pay back customers whenever they want to return a packet.

Starting this week, Jabong will begin giving Cash-On-Delivery customers in Delhi instant cash at their doorstep even as the delivery guys pick up return packets. In the coming months, Jabong plans to take this initiative across the country. It was the COD system that helped ecommerce companies gain major traction in a country dominated by traditional retailing values.

E-commerce portal's customers in India are usually find COD as convenient way purchase online, but they also complain that whenever they wanted to return a product, it often took them long to get their money back. Jabong is solving this problem and its definitely give Jabong edge over its competitors.

The company which will be managing the cash payments for Jabong is - Gojavas. Gojavas has been testing its instant cash payment system — called GoRupiah — in Delhi for four months and now says it is ready to actually roll it out starting in the Capital. The company has already formed a reverse-logistics team of around 250. Gojavas says Jabong, after clearing a refund, will transfer money into a separate account of Gojavas and the delivery company will pay the consumer.

Refund Policies of different e-commerce sites in India

Amazon India takes 3-5 days for refunds via online trasnfer or COD and 10-15 days for refunds through cheques.

Flipkart takes around 7-10 days for refunds of payments on cancelled products purchased through its. Snapdeal also takes 7-10 days for refunds to bank accounts for COD csutomers.

Myntra however takes 15 days to refund to cusutomers.

State of E-Commerce in India - Flipkart-Myntra most visited sites with Total of 53.4million online shoppers

Comcast and ASSOCHAM's latest study conducted on the 'State of Ecommerce' in the country has thrown open some interesting facts about India’s internet usage and penetration of retail shopping using the digital medium in the country.

With more and more people becoming comfortable shopping online, the penetration of retail shopping using the digital medium has seen a massive increase of 65 percent in the country. According to Comcast and ASSOCHAM's report, the number of visitors on the shopping websites has increased to 53.4 million a month, which has resulted in an overall annual growth of 15 percent.

The report titled 'State of Ecommerce in India' also revealed that cosmetics, apparel, fragrances, health and home furnishings were the few categories which have had some growth in the past twelve years and out of these, apparel has seen the highest growth at 66 percent which is followed by cosmetics and fragrances at  12 percent.

According to the report, growth has come across in all retail categories and most of them show promising conversion rates and transactions along with increase in visitors.

The report also revealed one more interesting point, according to the report, the group of websites owned by Flipkart has taken the top position in the most visited retail sites of July 2014 with more than 26 million visitors in the month of July. Jabong acquired the second position with 23.5 million visitors and Amazon came in third at 16.9 million visitors.

The report also talked about the travel category and revealed that the category has seen an overall growth in all its sub categories which include online travel agents, car rental, airlines, and travel as well as hotel information websites.

According to the ‘State of Ecommerce in India’ report, the Indian Railways website with over 15 million unique visitors a month is among the most visited websites in the country. Cleartrip, Yatra and MakeMyTrip have an individual reach of 3.5, 7.6 and 8.9 % of the total online users respectively.

According to the report, India adds over seven million internet users among the BRIC nations and has the 3^rd fastest share in retail marketing.

 

State of E-Commerce in India - Flipkart-Myntra most visited sites with Total of 53.4million online shoppers

Comcast and ASSOCHAM's latest study conducted on the 'State of Ecommerce' in the country has thrown open some interesting facts about India’s internet usage and penetration of retail shopping using the digital medium in the country.

With more and more people becoming comfortable shopping online, the penetration of retail shopping using the digital medium has seen a massive increase of 65 percent in the country. According to Comcast and ASSOCHAM's report, the number of visitors on the shopping websites has increased to 53.4 million a month, which has resulted in an overall annual growth of 15 percent.

The report titled 'State of Ecommerce in India' also revealed that cosmetics, apparel, fragrances, health and home furnishings were the few categories which have had some growth in the past twelve years and out of these, apparel has seen the highest growth at 66 percent which is followed by cosmetics and fragrances at  12 percent.

According to the report, growth has come across in all retail categories and most of them show promising conversion rates and transactions along with increase in visitors.

The report also revealed one more interesting point, according to the report, the group of websites owned by Flipkart has taken the top position in the most visited retail sites of July 2014 with more than 26 million visitors in the month of July. Jabong acquired the second position with 23.5 million visitors and Amazon came in third at 16.9 million visitors.

The report also talked about the travel category and revealed that the category has seen an overall growth in all its sub categories which include online travel agents, car rental, airlines, and travel as well as hotel information websites.

According to the ‘State of Ecommerce in India’ report, the Indian Railways website with over 15 million unique visitors a month is among the most visited websites in the country. Cleartrip, Yatra and MakeMyTrip have an individual reach of 3.5, 7.6 and 8.9 % of the total online users respectively.

According to the report, India adds over seven million internet users among the BRIC nations and has the 3^rd fastest share in retail marketing.

 

Snapdeal introduces hotel and catering category

Indian e-commerce portal has launched hotel and catering supplies as new categories on its website and mark an entry into the hospitality segment in India, with this SnapDeal will target small enterprise customers.

The new hospitality categories is aimed at upcoming restaurateurs and individuals and groups who are handling hotel, restaurants and catering businesses in India. Customers can now do online purchases of products like baking and pizza supplies, bar accessories, heavy gauge cutlery glassware and professional knives.

Moreover, other than restaurans and categoring industry customers the products listed in new category can also bought by common users for household purposes as listed products also cater to the needs of households who are looking to use chef recommended cookware and utensils. The category includes products that are used in a restaurant kitchen, right from preparation to serving and buffet display.

"In future we also plan to integrate a whole range of hotel linen (mattresses, pillows, bed linen & bath linen) into the category and thereby meet all the needs of a hotel/restaurant", said Tony Navin, senior vice president (electronics & home) at Snapdeal. While primarily aimed at businesses, individual customers too can purchase the products.

Earlier in June this year SnapDeal has also introduced Hardware as new category in its online portal. The new hardware category listed products such as lighting, paints and sanitary fittings etc.

Snapdeal currently has close to 500 diverse categories listed on its website, including hardware, mobiles and tablets, fashion and lifestyle and automotive.

E-commerce companies in India giving stiff competition to each other by introducing and envisaging new innovative ideas and strategies. Earlier in June this year Flipkart has launched its flahship model called Flipkart Marketplace which provide SMEs in India to list their products, product pricing, payment automation, packaging, transportation and brand building.

The e-commerce competition got new dimension with Amazon entry in India with Flipkart and Snapdeal believed to be the primary competitors to ecommerce giant like Amazon. Recently, India's business tycoon Ratan Tata has showed interest to invest in Snapdeal.

Infibeam Introduces 'IGNITE' Programme for Merchants and Sellers

India's online retailer & e-commerce technology company Infibeam today introduced the IGNITE program for merchants and sellers. Through this programme merchants / sellers will gain access to millions of Infibeam.com customers and also leverage the expertise of Infibeam's team for their digital marketing needs at a very nominal cost.

IGNITE is a unique business offering that provides the merchants a powerful combo of marketing & distribution to drive higher traffic to their own branded store and grow sales,

One of the key features of the programme is the "Buy Button" link-off on Infibeam.com product detail page. . On clicking the Buy Button customer will be redirected from the Infibeam product detail page to the exact product on the merchants own online store. The merchants then control the user experience on their own website to close the transaction and can also up-sell other products to the customer. The customer identity of Infibeam can be used on merchant store (through “Login By Infibeam”) to complete purchase.

The programme also includes a comprehensives suite digital marketing tools & services for search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media optimization, Marketing & Engagement (SMO, SMM), campaign management, email marketing, , affiliate marketing, analytics, merchandising and promotions such as Magic Box. Infibeam will offer these services through the experienced digital marketing team @ ODIGMA, a company acquired recently to enhance merchants customer engagement and brand experience.

The programme also allows sellers to make their products available on other marketplaces.
All these services come bundled as a package and merchants or sellers can either upgrade from the existing Infibeam / Buildabazaar plan or opt directly for this programme to avail the benefits.

The offering will be limited to selected merchants in phase 1. Some of the leading merchants like The Vanca, Natural Mantra, Prerto, Gobiking have already applied for this programme and are already seeing the benefits .

On the occasion of this launch, Mr Prakhar Gupta, Head BuildaBazaar, Domestic Operation said "At Infibeam we always try to add more value to our merchants by introducing new initiatives and programmes which help the merchants' to grow their business . IGNITE will help a lot of merchants in establishing a brand of their own and will definitely fast track their growth; giving them an edge over the competition."

Mr Advit Sahdev, Head Digital Marketing, Infibeam said that “ We are extremely excited to open up our marketing expertise to help merchants build a successful online business.”

Baggout - A whole shopping experience contained on a single platform

Baggout is one of the largest social commerce/cashback websites in India. It is a one stop solution which solves the users’ problem of going to Search Engines, Product Aggregation Platforms, Coupon sites and Cashback Sites while shopping online. The company is based out of Delhi and was incorporated in October 2012. Deepak Jain and Prashant Mahajan are the co-founders of the company. Deepak looks at the business side while Prashant takes care of technical aspects of the company. The website lets you check out the latest products with best coupons and cashback deals available in the market.

"We feel that buying online is becoming increasingly difficult in India with the strong growth in the number of online portals. Thus, Baggout is an attempt to make online shopping a smooth experience," says Deepak.

Currently, the online shopping experience is inefficient as the user needs to first Google for the relevant websites; then browse through a number of portals and visit a cashback/coupon website before completing the purchase. "This takes fun out of the experience which perhaps is the most important aspect of shopping," adds Deepak. Baggout showcases products from all the portals at one place and the SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units) which are popular with user’s friends or Baggout users in general are showed at top. "Additionally, we also provide cashback on each purchase completed via Baggout which means that the whole shopping experience is contained on a single platform," says Prashant.



Their website was launched in May 2013 and have tie ups with over 300 e-commerce portals. They also partner with companies to distribute our deals to drive traffic to our website. Baggout is growing strongly with over 3 lakh monthly unique visitors in June which is growing at 40-50% MOM. This team of 10 people plans to increase the partner count to over 2000 by the end of this year. “We are also planning to expand our team to support this strong growth. In fact, we are planning to move to a new office next month to make space for the new hires,” adds Prashant.

Currently, they are self-funded (through savings and monthly income from the portal). "We plan to raise funding by the end of this year to take the company to next level which would require larger capital commitments. However, we are in no hurry to raise money,” says Deepak. They want to build a strong global business which is valued by the users. As a message for future entrepreneurs, he says, “If you believe that the product has a potential to solve a major problem and have the financial cushion then you should take the plunge. There is no way to predict success/failure."

Look no further ladies & gentleman, start saving money while shopping here.

Amazon answers to FlipKart, Pumps fresh $2bn in Amazon India services

Just a day after Flipkart announced raising of fresh $1 billion of funding from investors which become biggest fund raise ever by Indian e-commerce company, Global e-commerce giant Amazon also announced today that it will invest an additional $2 billion (double of what Flipkart got) to boost the growth of Amazon.in, its online marketplace in India.

"After our first year in business, the response from customers and small and medium-sized businesses in India has far surpassed our expectations," said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com said in a statement The Economics Times.

Ever since Amazon launched its online marketplace services in India in last year, there has been a lot of turmoil in e-commerce ecosystem in India. Flipkart ran a funding spree and last three rounds being exceptionally huge. Snapdeal also grabbed fundings from global investors. Thereafter, Flipkart acquired India biggest online fashion store Myntra.com.

This latest announcement clearly shows the business enmity between World's e-commerce giant Amazon and India's homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart. Amazon also flaunted how much deep pockets it has got and it required no outer funding for Amazon. It also showed how desperate is Amazon for for its India's operation.

"We see huge potential in the Indian economy and for the growth of e-commerce in India. With this additional investment of $2 billion, our team can continue to think big, innovate, and raise the bar for customers in India," Bezos said. "At current scale and growth rates, India is on track to be our fastest country ever to a billion dollars in gross sales. A big 'thank you' to our customers in India - we've never seen anything like this," - Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon

Amazon has ramped up very quickly in India since its launch in June last year. It now sells over 17 million products across 28 categories and hosts about 8,500 merchants on its marketplace. Both Amazon and Snapdeal have sold about $600 million (about Rs 3,600 crore) worth of products this year and are targeting $1 billion or Rs 6,000 crore sales this fiscal.

Flipkart on other hand has so far raised over $1.7 billion in risk capital and crossed US$1 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV), which is the value of items bought on the site, in February this year and became India's largest online retailer ahead of Amazon and Snapdeal.