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12/08/2015

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08/08/2015

Paytm to be the title sponsor for all BCCI matches for Four Years (till 2019)

08/08/2015

Amazon India opens third customer service facility in Pune

09/07/2015

It’s happening: Flipkart to be app-only from September!
Author Shweta Singh

IOS kept you posted about each phase of Myntra’s transition from desktop to app-only platform. We broke the news last December about Myntra’s resolution to go mobile-only in 2015, the false alarm, final leap of faith, drop in sales, technical glitches and customers’ reaction.

Now it’s time to trace Flipkart’s journey towards becoming app-only store. Yes, you heard it right! The biggest ecommerce giant, Flipkart is most likely to shut its desktop site for good by September.
The plan

There is no official word on this but sources close to the development have confirmed that the online marketplace will adopt mobile-only strategy in three months. This ETRetail news report states that Flipkart’s Chief Product Officer, Punit Soni informed its employees in a meeting that from September the company will operate only through the app.

Flipkart had made its intentions to focus on mobile platform known by phasing out desktop ads and acquiring mobile centric companies. But it still has managed to surprise everyone since Myntra’s app-only decision didn’t get a good response.
Believers

Apart from the marketplace team, some experts also believe that mobile-only strategy will offer better shopping experience. For instance Ravi Gururaj, Chairman- Nasscom Product Council revealed to ETRetail that apps allow companies to tailor customer’s shopping experience, secure authentication, instant payments and image search features besides many others.

He added, “All of these capabilities are simply not available or easy to implement on landlocked’ desktops. Large platform players will realize the benefits of adopting a less-is-more approach since ewer internal IT systems need to be built, tested, supported and maintained in the future.”
Non-believers

Flipkart shoppers aren’t happy at all with this announcement. Many have commented that if Flipkart turns an exclusive app store, they will stop buying from it and will instead shop from Amazon and Snapdeal. The reasons cited range from bad mobile internet connectivity, small user-interface, inability to read features & reviews properly, discomfort in comparing and opening multiple tabs on phone. Many also pointed out that apps are mere means to collect personal information and buying habits of consumers and make more money by cashing on it. Others expressed concern about this leading to monopoly since only few marketplaces will operate on desktops.
Wise move?

Definitely no! Let’s assume that Myntra is making more profit (although the figures state the opposite) after becoming app-only, which encouraged Flipkart to follow the same model. But let’s not forget that Myntra is a fashion portal whereas Flipkart is a marketplace that sells almost everything. While fashion purchases can be an impulse buy through mobile apps. Home appliances, tech products, electronics, home decor etc that the marketplace sells is always a planned need-based buying where customers compare, research and read a lot before buying. The same is convenient only on a desktop site, not on apps.

Sanjay Swamy, a partner of AngelPrime seed fund firm said, “Typing on a smartphone is sub-optimal. I think some experience would be lost, but e-commerce players believe app-only is the way forward.” This is exactly how etailers like Myntra and Flipkart think, which makes it even more disappointing. How can compromising a customer’s shopping experience and overlooking a sizeable percentage of people who prefer desktop site for reducing cost be a wise move?

Restricting users can never be a good idea. But the jury is still out on this one. We will know for sure when Flipkart takes the leap of faith too like Myntra.

07/07/2015

Amazon Catches up, Gets Past Flipkart on Site Visits

As e-commerce players battle it out for buyers’ attention, Amazon India has caught up with Flipkart and overtaken Snapdeal in terms of monthly unique visitors in May.

According to data from Internet analytics firm comScoreData, Amazon India had 23.6 million unique visitors in May, edging past Flipkart narrowly. While Flipkart saw 23.5 million unique visitors, Snapdeal had 17.9 million in May this year.

An annual comparison shows that Amazon has seen over a 142 per cent jump in the number of unique visitors since May 2014 while for Flipkart, it’s nearly 80 per cent surge. For the same period, Snapdeal saw a 90 per cent rise in unique visitors, the data revealed.

Interestingly, last year in May, Flipkart was leading by a mile, with more than 13 million unique visitors while both Amazon and Snapdeal were in a tight race with close to 10 million unique visitors to their sites.

When contacted, Amazon India declined to comment though it said the repeat rate of customers was “healthy”. Industry experts caution that unique visitors are just another metric for e-commerce companies, and the ‘loyalty and stickiness’ of customers are a more reliable measure to go by.

“While unique visitors is a metric to show the growing interest in e-commerce, a better metric to speak about a company’s performance would be the number of repeat customers an online retailer gets,” Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail consultancy Technopak, told PTI.

For a customer, online retail offers price comparison and available options by ‘just a click’, he said, and the market is still nascent to speak about customer loyalty, which is a significant aspect of offline retail.

Another popular parameter e-commerce companies quote is the gross merchandise value (GMV) to indicate the total sales value reflecting the volume of their business, Singhal said. Currently, Flipkart, the country’s highest valued

e-commerce company, has said it expects its GMV to touch Rs 76,000 crore in a year. Earlier, the company had said it expects to reach a GMV of USD 8 billion (over Rs 50,000 crore) by December.

Snapdeal is also reported to be targeting GMV sales of USD 10 billion (about Rs 63,000 crore) by the end of calendar year. While Amazon India does not share details of its sales, it’s offering more than 25 million products for sale through its online marketplace.

It reportedly crossed USD 1 billion (Rs 6,300 crore) in sales in September last year while Flipkart reported a GMV of USD 3 billion for FY15. Snapdeal reportedly crossed the USD3.5 billion mark by May.

“GMV is an important metric as far as size and scale of the company is concerned in e-commerce, but it is not the sole metric to gauge the health of business,” Singhal said. “In a marketplace model, the revenues for an e-retailer, which are a small margin of the sales, should also be taken into account,” he added.

07/07/2015

Flipkart introduces ‘Image Search’ feature on app
Author Pooja Vishant

http://www.flipkart.com/mobile-apps?otracker=hp_ch_vn_mobile_apps

As the competition in the ecommerce space heats up, etailers are looking at multiple ways to attract and appeal to customers. Although Myntra’s app-only transition has been looked on with much skepticism by most, no one is in doubt that mobile app and m-commerce is the way forward with customers.

To leverage more on the popularity of mobile app, Flipkart has introduced the ‘Image Search’ feature on its app, specifically designed for the fashion category. Using this feature, customers can search for a product visually similar to a particular one.

For example, if there is a certain dress a customer likes, she can click the picture of it, upload it on the app and then search for similar products. So it’s all about searching for similar products of same colour, pattern or style.

“Discovering a fashion product online varies from user to user and is more complex as compared to other categories. A lot of fashion purchase decisions are influenced by similar products seen by users. The image search feature provides a way to find similar products on Flipkart as well as reduces the search/ browsing time, making the overall product discovery and shopping experience simple,” said Flipkart’s Chief Product Officer Punit Soni.

Punit added that Flipkart wants to make the mobile experience accessible by everyone, whether they use text or visuals. Although the feature is still at the beta stage of development, it will be available to everyone on upgrading the app.

More than 75% of Flipkart users access the mobile app for their shopping, so it’s no wonder that the ecommerce giant would want to leverage on this popularity and roll out more innovative features to increase the number of users.

The No. 1 Shopping App. Join millions of delighted customers today .

07/07/2015

Alibaba looking to buy additional 20% stake in Paytm
Author Shweta Singh

Rumour has it that China’s Alibaba is negotiating a new deal with Paytm on the lines of picking up more stake in the Indian ecommerce company. The Chinese ecommerce giant will invest over $600 million (Rs 4,000 crore) in exchange of an additional 20% stake.
The Old and New Deal

In the beginning of 2015, Ant Financial that falls under Alibaba Group umbrella, had bought 25% stake in Paytm by investing $575 million in One97 Communications (that owns Paytm). According to this ET report, the initial investment was to be discharged in two installments. Out of the total $575 million, the first lot of funds that were given to Paytm was worth $200 million. The remaining was to be released later.

But as per the new deal that’s under discussion, instead of the outstanding tranche of $375 million, Alibaba will invest a total of $600 million which will get them additional 20% stake. And Ant Financial will reduce their stake by 5%, bringing it down to 20% from the earlier 25%. Making Alibaba’s total stake in Paytm 40%

If it materializes then Paytm’s valuation would jump from $1-billion to $3.7 billion (Rs 23,600 crore). This is a staggering 270% rise in valuation, that too within a year.
What Alibaba and Paytm stand to gain

Besides the obvious rise in valuation, Alibaba and Paytm both will be one step closer to their main goal with this fresh funding and stake rise.

Alibaba’s aim is to be a global ecommerce leader and India is a very lucrative market for the company. It is through Paytm that the Chinese ecommerce player is looking to gradually make inroads in India.

As for Paytm, the transition from being just an online recharge platform to a huge online marketplace was made possible largely if not completely through their association with Alibaba. Today the company is a threat to all the Indian ecommerce leaders like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon.

40% stake will make Alibaba the largest shareholder in Paytm, but the founder, Vijay Sharma’s individual share is still more than owners of Flipkart and Snapdeal share in their respective companies.

22/06/2014

We Brand your Brand. Corporate website design and E-Commerce capabilities often work hand-in-hand, whether your website sells directly to the consumer or to ...

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01/06/2014

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23/05/2014

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