Man orders mobile phone-worth Rs 9,000 from online site, gets brick instead

A man here in Maharashtra has filed a complaint against a leading online retailer for allegedly sending him a piece of brick instead of a mobile handset that he ordered, police said Wednesday.

Gajanan Kharat, a resident of HUDCO area here, told the police that on October 9, he placed an order for a mobile phone on the shopping site and also paid Rs 9,134 for it, Harsul police station inspector Manish Kalyankar said.

Kharat subsequently received a message from the e-commerce company that the product would be delivered in a week's time.

The man received a packet from the retailer last Sunday. However, when he opened it, he allegedly found a piece of brick inside it instead of the mobile handset, Kalyankar said.

The man then called up the courier delivery man, who told him that their responsibility was only to deliver the parcel and not to see what was inside it, he said.

Kharat lodged a complaint Tuesday against the e-commerce company at the Harsul police station here.

The police official said they have registered a case under IPC sections pertaining to cheating and are probing it.

28 hours a week: Indians spend 7X more time on smartphones than on TV

Indian  consumers spend as much as 28 hours a week on their smartphones, seven fold more than the time they end up spending in watching programmes on television as more users access internet on their mobile phone.

According to the Mary Meeker report, released on Wednesday night, the delivery of  entertainment, education, healthcare and marketplaces is being reimagined in India with the mobile phone emerging as the primary device for access to consumers.

In education sector, the report said education technology firm Byju’s has shown 15 per cent improvement in the quality of learning by accessing content on smartphones. In the healthcare sector, prices of laboratory tests have dropped by 50 per cent due to the aggregate inventory maintained by startups such as 1Mg and Portea. Customers made savings of around 20-30 per cent due to drug comparison on these platforms.

As far as payments are concerned, the unified payment interface (UPI) and use of Aadhaar is yielding results in areas such as the direct benefit transfer and instant money transfer schemes.

Users spend nearly half their time in watching entertainment content, while around 4 per cent of the time is invested on social networks and search engine sites such as Facebook and Google. News and media content remained low on priority at 2 per cent.

Around 4 per cent of the time is spent on online shopping from marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart.

This could potentially help Indian consumers take a gaint leap away from traditional formats as users stream content on their smartphones, aided by the massive rollout of 4G services by Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio.

Launch of Jio in India has accelerated internet adoption by bringing down data prices to 17 cents per GB of data in March, from $2.7 in September last year.

People spend just two hours on print, a primary vehicle for consumption across India for decades, as multimedia content on smartphones account for a majority of their lives. Most of the content they consume is shared on platforms such as ShareIt and WhatsApp.

According to the report, there are around 355 million internet users in India, which is second only to China. Nearly 80 per cent of the useer access internet through their phones.
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Flipkart raises $1.4 bn at $11.6 bn valuation, acquires eBay India

India’s largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has closed a $1.4 billion funding round with backing from Chinese Internet giant Tencent and participation from Microsoft and eBay Inc, at a valuation of $ 11.6 billion, the company said on Monday..

This latest round of funding brings down the valuation from a previous high of $15 billion, but it underlies the fact that Flipkart, which was written off, has made a rebound to attract investors in the company. Flipkart’s earlier investors Tiger Global Management, Naspers Group, Accel Partners and DST Global participated in the round. Flipkart will acquire the India unit of eBay Inc which will continue to be independent.

“We are delighted that Tencent, eBay and Microsoft — all innovation powerhouses — have chosen to partner with us on their India journey. We have chosen these partners based on their long histories of pioneering industries, and the unique expertise and insights each of them bring to Flipkart. This deal reaffirms our resolve to hasten the transformation of commerce in India through technology,” Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Founders of Flipkart, said in a statement. (READ MORE)

Amid 600 job cuts, Snapdeal founders take 100% salary cut

Latest Business News - Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal have taken a 100 per cent salary cut, while many others at the firm have "proactively" offered significant reduction in compensation.

The SoftBank-backed firm, which has been struggling to raise fresh funding, is also laying off hundreds employees and eliminating non-core projects to focus on "profitable growth".



In an e-mail to employees, Bahl conceded that over the last 2-3 years, with all the capital coming into this market, the company and the entire industry "started making mistakes".

"We started growing our business much before the right economic model and market fit was figured out. We also started diversifying and starting new projects while we still hadn't perfected the first or made it profitable. We started building our team and capabilities for a much larger size of business than what was required with the present scale," he said.

Bahl cited examples of global companies like Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Netflix, Lego and Spicejet that "painted themselves into a corner many times over" before they became successful.(Read More)

Baby steps for Flipkart: Invests $2 million in parenting network TinyStep

Latest Business News - Bengaluru-based social network for parenting, TinyStep has raised $2 million in funding from India's largest e-commerce marketplace Flipkart.

The firm which received a seed investment from Flipkart in January 2016 said it will utilise the fresh funding to build its product, bring young or soon-to-be parents on board and expand its service offering.

"We've grown as a product, as a team and have learnt to now focus our energies on the new revenue model. Flipkart has been a great partner and supportive of us in all our endeavours," said Suhail Abidi, founder of TinyStep.

Flipkart made the investment in an effort to boost sales of baby care products on its platform, tapping the estimated $50 billion baby and mother car market in India. Moreover, the e-commerce company is looking at building a network of influencers.

"Tinystep has a great team which has built strong community-focused features, including chat with trusted parents on the platform, one stop location to store and share all baby pictures etc, which are driving user adoption," said Ram Papatla, Vice-president at Flipkart and TinyStep's board member.(Read More)

Behave yourself Amazon, Shaktikanta Das lashes out at the e-com giant

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das today asked Amazon to desist from being flippant about Indian symbols and icons, cautioning it that "indifference will be at your own peril".

"Amazon, better behave. Desist from being flippant about Indian symbols & icons. Indifference will be at your own peril," Das said in a tweet.

In another tweet however he added: "Comment on Amazon was as a citizen of India as I felt strongly about it. Nothing more should be read into it."

Last week, after a strong protest by India over Amazon selling doormats depicting Indian flag, the e-retail giant removed the offensive article from its Canadian website.

A spokesman for Amazon based at its headquarters in Seattle had told The Washington Post that the doormat was no longer for sale on its website.

After the Indian flag incident, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had received several complaints of Amazon selling flip-flops with Mahatma Gandhi's image.(Read More)

Online shopping zoomed 83% in 2016: Report

Latest Bussiness News - The e-commerce revolution has led to the rise of online shopping by 83 per cent in 2016, said a report by leading digital payments firm PayPal and global market research firm Ipsos on Thursday.

"Indian online shoppers spent Rs 58,370 crore online shopping from other countries last year," revealed the third Annual Global Cross-Border Consumer Research 2016 report.

Shopping on dedicated websites accounted for 53 per cent of online spending, 29 per cent through its application and 10 per cent through social media sites.

The report also estimated that cross-border online spending by Indian shoppers would grow a whopping 85 per cent in 2017.

"Online spends from domestic and cross border shopping is projected to touch Rs 875,600 crore in 2018, registering 31 per cent year-on-year growth in 2017," it said.

The research report is an evaluation of online and cross-border shopping by 28,000 consumers across 32 nations, including 800 from India.

"The internet has democratised cross border trade. The freelance economy has grown in India," said PayPal India Managing Director Anupam Pahuja in a statement, released along with the research report.(Read More)

Flipkart rejig: 3 top-level exits as Kalyan Krishnamurthy takes over as CEO

 A day after Flipkart appointed Kalyan Krishnamurthy as its new chief executive officer, three top-level executives have left the country's largest e-commerce marketplace.

Saikiran Krishnamurthy, the head of Ekart; Surojit Chatterjee, SVP of Product Management; and Samardeep Subandh, chief marketing officer, have all left the company according to persons in the know of the situation.

The exits are part of Kalyan Krishnamurthy cleanup operation at Flipkart which began under the reign of co-founder and former CEO Binny Bansal last year. He has been mandated to cut losses while still growing the overall business in order to fend off an attack from global rival Amazon.

Flipkart spokesperson declined to comment on the developments. 

All three executives had joined Flipkart in 2015, a time when the company was focused on hiring top talent offering them hefty compensation packages. Since the start of last year, several of these executives have left the company as investors began putting pressure on rationalising costs and the company missed goals.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy's elevation to the position of CEO is itself seen as a move forced by investors, particularly Tiger Global, where he was employed before returning to Flipkart in June last year. It is expected that there could be more senior level exits in the months to come as Krishnamurthy puts together a leadership team of his choice.(Read More)

Online shoppers expected to cross 100 million mark in 2017

Latest Business News - With the rise of digital natives, better logistics, broadband and internet-ready devices, the number of consumers shopping online is going to cross 100 million this year from 69 million in 2016, a joint study said here on Monday.

"In 2016, about 69 million consumers purchased online and the number is expected to cross 100 million by 2017 with the rise of digital natives, better infrastructure in terms of logistics, broadband and Internet-ready devices to fuel the demand in e-commerce," according to an Assocham-Resurgent India study.

As per the findings of the joint study, Bengaluru has left behind all other cities in India shopping online in the year 2016. While Mumbai ranks second, Delhi ranks third in their preference for online shopping.

The joint study revealed that Indian e-retail looks even more promising which is up from $3.59 billion in 2013 to $5.30 billion in 2014 (an increase of 48 per cent), by the end of 2018, it is expected to touch $17.52 billion (with growth of 65 per cent).

In 2017, mobile commerce will become more important as most of the companies are shifting to m-commerce. Mobile already accounts for 30-35 per cent of e-commerce sales, and its share will jump to 45-50 per cent by 2017," added the report.(Read More)

Amazon.In sees 160% growth in seller base in 2016

Latest Business News - Global marketplace Amazon Thursday said that the seller base on Amazon.In grew by 160 per cent in 2016 from the previous year.

In line with its vision "to transform the way India buys and sells through its innovations, technology support and seller-centric services", Amazon.In till date has attracted over 140,000 sellers (160 per cent year-on-year growth) across India to the marketplace, Amazon said in a statement here.

"2016 was a monumental year for Amazon India... Expansion of our seller services offerings and focus on seller enablement and seller capability building initiatives to enable more and more sellers to benefit from the digital economy and succeed online, was our core focus in 2016," Gopal Pillai, Director & GM, Seller Services Amazon India said.

"We will continue to strive to make selling on Amazon synonymous to selling in India," he added.

With over 50 per cent of the seller base residing in tier II and III towns across India, 90 per cent of the sellers on the platform use Amazon.In's logistics and fulfilment services, the statement said.

Amazon's Global Selling program also witnessed tremendous success in 2016 by empowering over 18,000 Indian sellers to offer over 25 million 'Made in India' products to Amazon's worldwide customers.

Several homegrown brands such as Amul, Liberty, Biba, Fab India & Manyavar, Himalaya, 24 Organic Mantra, Fit & Glow were sold on Amazon's global platforms.(Read More)

Myntra aims to double sales, turn profitable by March'18

Breaking News - Flipkart-owned Myntra is aiming to become profitable by March 2018, helped by a combination of rationalising costs, cutting discounts and introducing more private labels.

The online fashion retailer, which has crossed a revenue run rate of $1 billion, also expects to double the number to over $2 billion during this financial year.

"...We crossed a billion dollar run rate this year, we want to cross a $2 billion run rate by 2018 March...We want to be not just unit economic positive but overall profitability. We want to exit the next year with EBIDTA zero January-March 2018," Myntra Chief Executive Officer Ananth Narayanan told PTI.

He added that another focus area for the company this year will be to provide more personalised services to customers.

"We are focusing on four things -- continue to reduce discounting, continue to ramp up private labels, reduce supply chain costs and increase consumer engagement. These are things that will help us achieve our targets," he said.(Read More)