Guest Editorial on Internet, Ecommerce, Mobile Businesses in India

Of Markets and Trends: Start Early – by Salil Sahu

May 14, 2013 By Salil Sahu Leave a Comment

The legendary former CEO of Tesco, Sir Terry Leahy, rose from modest beginnings to become the most respected retailer not only in the UK but across the globe. He made several path-breaking initiatives in Tesco which included amongst others the use of large scale data for consumer insighting. He was always keenly tuned into consumer trends and needs. I once had the opportunity of asking him how he was able to forecast future industry trends, to which his answer was simple but had immense … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Multichannel Retailing in India, Salil Sahu

The Swayamvara Shopping experience

May 2, 2013 By Bal Krishn Birla 1 Comment

Swayamvara (Sanskrit: स्वयं‍वर), in ancient India, was a practice of choosing a husband, from among a list of suitors, by a girl of marriageable age. Swayam in Sanskrit means self and vara means choice or desire (which also synonymous with bride-groom). - Wikipedia Times have changed or rather evolved. Retailers have become more sophisticated in their offerings and in turn the customers have become even more sophisticated in the way they select products or rather reject … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Bal Krishn Birla, eRetail, Product Selection and Rejection

The role of venture capital in growing Indian ecosystem

April 29, 2013 By Alok Mittal Leave a Comment

Indian business landscape has always been active with startup formation. While a couple of decades back, such startup activity was led by family business houses, many of the successes in the last ten years have come out of professionals and first-generation entrepreneurs. The same time period has seen an emergence of venture capital industry in India. The mutual reinforcement of these two developments is hard to miss – independent startup activity has created a space for venture capital, as … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Internet, Startups Tagged With: Alok Mittal, Venture Capitalist in India

The importance of product descriptions and cataloging for ecommerce

April 23, 2013 By Rajesh Nahar 2 Comments

Do you own a professional ecommerce website? Are you selling your own items and products to a worldwide audience? It is really amazing how far you can go once people begin to start purchasing your products and more people learn about your offers. But the biggest problem that most ecommerce businesses face is not knowing how to boost their conversion rates. Some entrepreneurs don't understand the importance of having an attractive and enticing product description for their items and a nice … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Cataloging for ecommerce, Product description

Decoding the Online Home Décor Market

April 3, 2013 By Salil Sahu 1 Comment

The fragmented and unorganized Indian home décor market is rapidly becoming organized as consumers turn to chain stores and the web for purchases. The online industry has the power of the net to reach consumers throughout the country while eliminating the high operational costs of physical stores. As per Technopak estimates, the Indian Home Décor market which stood at $13 billion in 2010 will touch $20 billion in 2015. Trends Customers are shifting from the old ways of shopping to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Salil Sahu

Looking beyond designing interfaces

March 28, 2013 By Techved Leave a Comment

Imagine yourself waking up to the chirping of birds and warm sunlight illuminating your face. What a lovely day it would be! Now, consider another case where you set an alarm on your phone and are woken up precisely at that time. In both cases, you are woken up at your desired time but was the experience same? Which one was better? We often concentrate on improving the usability of the website, the look and feel of the website; completely oblivious to the experience we are giving the user … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Technology Tagged With: Neha Modgil, Usability

Starting a New Company? Follow these tips for success

March 13, 2013 By iamwire Leave a Comment

Starting a new business is a risky and exciting venture. Whether you’re a serial entrepreneur who is constantly coming up with new ideas or trying to turn your skills and hobbies into an income generator, starting a small business is a big task. It’s a well-known fact that a majority of small businesses fail in the long term. Over 50% don’t make it past the first 5 years. In order to keep your business out of that 50% and to help you succeed, here are some of the Do’s and Don’ts for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Internet, Startups Tagged With: Entreprenuership, startup

Can E-Commerce evade the hurdles that derailed brick and mortar retail?

March 11, 2013 By Salil Sahu 8 Comments

India has also interestingly leapfrogged into the era of e-commerce even while it is stabilizing in organized offline retail The past decade saw the entry of large Indian conglomerates like Reliance, Tatas, Bharti Group, Birlas and Goenkas in the modern retail market. The big boys of global retail like Carrefour, Wal-Mart, and Metro etc have also started to establish their footprints in the Indian retail space. A recent study from Deloitte projects the Indian retail industry to increase to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Omnichannel retailing, Salil Sahu

Analyzing Customer Sentiment – Do you know how your customer is feeling today?

March 7, 2013 By Kaushik 4 Comments

The average cost of customer acquisition in e-Commerce today is around Rs 1,200. With the average ticket size for e-Commerce being relative low, most companies have realized that the current model as unsustainable in the long run. It is becoming more critical for companies to reduce the overall cost of customer acquisition and start utilizing other mechanisms for acquiring customers and increasing ticket size. Utilizing customer referrals to invite new members has been a proven model. One … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Marketing Tagged With: Customer sentiment, ecommerce, Referrals

5 rules for retailers on the core/non-core business functions

March 4, 2013 By Dietmer Jobst Leave a Comment

In the last 5 years Indian Retail is on the move, the demand is growing in population and desire; the Online E Commerce is booming with large scale investments; International players are bypassing FDI, enriching the opportunities and offerings; there is a hike for more Retail in the biggest populated country in the world. Positive for all participants: The end consumer, the retailer, the supplier, the national hero’s, the international challengers; the market is in a radical change process, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Core retail Compentencies, Dietmar Jobst

Going Beyond SEO: How to make sure your customers keep coming back for more

February 18, 2013 By Siddhesh 10 Comments

With over 10 million online shoppers (even though it’s already massive, it is just 8% of the population, leaving scope for further rapid growth), and the business expected to explode to 35 Billion USD by 2015, it is no wonder that eCommerce companies in India are mushrooming faster than the dotcoms of the early 2000 boom era. Then why is it that more than 100 eCommerce companies, out of the 200 odd that got founded last year, have gone bust? Is the eCommerce segment going the way most of our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Internet Tagged With: Customer Engagement, Siddhesh Bhobe

Brick by Brick to Brick and Click

January 26, 2013 By Reshma Nagpal Leave a Comment

The power and influence of the web is phenomenal and growing every single day. A recent ASSOCHAM and Comscore Report puts Retail visitation at an overall reach of nearly 72% worldwide, having grown over 13% Y-o-Y. Retail sites are visited by more than a billion people worldwide every month.The report states that in India, Retail has grown 43% and reaches 60% penetration among online users, but is still below world averages, showing the immense potential. With the ecosystem to support growth in … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: DVS, eBee, Reshman Nagpal

Opportunities in Clothing, accessories & footwear (CAF) in online

January 26, 2013 By Gobind Pahwa Leave a Comment

Internet growth has led to a host of new developments, such as decreased margins for companies as consumers turn more and more to the internet to buy goods and demand the best prices, as observed by C.K Prahalad. The internet means that traditional CAF businesses will change because ‘’incumbents (in markets) and large firms do not have the advantage‘’ just by virtue of being there first or by being of big. The implication of perfectly competitive market as the world will observe is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: CAF Industry Online, gobind pahwa, Shopnineteen.com

Optimizing direct cost for higher margins in etail

January 26, 2013 By Dietmer Jobst Leave a Comment

2013 is the year of efficiency improvement programs. Only those, who understand to improve direct cost management without service failure, will have the opportunity to survive, create an environment of leadership to foster markets and customers and will ultimately will lead growth in a business driven Indian Ecommerce value chain. What are the key different issues of the current players in the market ? Which can be the key direct cost initiatives for specific ecommerce players in the Indian … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Dietmer jobst, Logistics & Warehousing, online retail

Why it is important to think about Usability of your Web Store

January 9, 2013 By Neha Modgil Leave a Comment

Neha Modgil, Director, Techved Consulting

E-commerce is all over the place and people are enjoying this new shopping experience where unlike traditional shopping, people can purchase anything anywhere at their convenience, without strolling or physically struggling to select things they need to purchase. Also, one doesn't have to seek assistance to enquire about the price or size or stand in long queues. However, there are definitely some disadvantages of online shopping eg. one cannot physically feel & touch the material of the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editorial Column, Technology Tagged With: Neha Modgil, Usability, User Interface

Offline or Online – what would the future be?

January 3, 2013 By Bijou Kurien 4 Comments

Retail in India, though a very old industry, has seen rapid changes over the last 20 years. Circa 1992 - Shoppers Stop set up a modern department store with the intention of becoming a national retail chain. And over the last 20 years, many others have followed suit which has helped develop a modern retail industry which today contributes to approx 7% of India’s retail market. This does not take away from the many local retailers operating at a city level and many others who have progressed to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column, Marketing Tagged With: Bijou Kurien, Consumer Behaviour in India, Retail in India

Second wave of ecommerce; are retailers ready?

December 22, 2012 By Sathiyanarayanan Vijayaraghavan 2 Comments

The Indian eCommerce industry is experiencing massive growth. The online commerce market grew at 41%, the fastest among emerging nations. Current online penetration is close to 10% of population. Interestingly India has an almost gender neutral penetration of internet with 40% online usage among women. 75% of internet usage is from the 15-34 years category. This makes India as one of the youngest online user community. The age group of 15-24 years is the fastest growing segment within the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Amazon.com, flipkart.com, Sathiyanarayanan Vijayaraghavan, ThoughtWorks

Optimizing direct costs for online retail

December 18, 2012 By Dietmer Jobst 1 Comment

India is booming since nearly half a decade in Ecommerce ventures and is growing fast with extraordinary top line results for companies like Flipkart, Jabong or Myntra. There are multiple dozens to follow who are trying to achieve revenue growth in multi category retail, specialist retail or niche markets. Nearly all big and small E's are subsidized, having double or triple funding’s, running after an insourced service story for order baskets of INR1500 or less. The cost structures are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: online retail backend, Optimizing direct costs, warehousing

E-commerce in India – Present and Future

December 14, 2012 By Mukesh Bansal 16 Comments

Today, the market place is flooded with several e-commerce options for shoppers to choose from. A variety of innovative products and services are being offered spoiling customers for choice. Online shopping is no more a privilege enjoyed by your friends and family living in the US or UK. Today, it is a reality in India. In the last couple of years, the growth of e-commerce industry in India has been phenomenal as more shoppers have started discovering the benefits of using this platform. There … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: Ecommerce in India, Mukesh Bansal

The MUSTS of launching a successful Ecommerce venture

December 12, 2012 By Vijay Kumar Misra 4 Comments

The rules for successful commercial ventures are well documented and extensive. The rules for E commerce are not very different. To succeed you need to work wonders in every sphere – but make sure you get a devils grip on the 3 MUSTS: MUST1: Build a strong consumer proposition Think carefully about what you are going to sell. You may want to sell products that you manufacture yourself or products that you buy in and sell on. Crack the “why should the consumer buy our product/service … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Editorial Column Tagged With: DoneByNone, ecommerce, Internet Retail Expo 2013, VIjay Misra