September 21st, 2009
Online Retailer Amazon has introduced its own lineup of low-cost electronic accessories. The products would not be manufactured by Amazon and would just be sold under AmazonBasics label. The product line includes blank media (CDs, DVDs, BlueRay and others), cables and other electronic accessories. The products would be shipped in amazon’s ‘frustration-free packaging’ which is done using recycled cardboard.
“We think there’s an opportunity to provide really good quality and additional value in terms of lower prices than some other products we see in the market,” said Paul Ryder, Amazon’s vice president for consumer electronics and (more…)
Categories: Accessories, Tech Industry News |
Tags: Accessories, amazon, amazon accessories, ecommerce, eretail | No Comments
April 29th, 2009
We thought that the worst that can happen to you in case of online shopping is receiving the product wrapped in toilet paper and cigarette box, but here is a case where the buyer actually received a BRICK from Best Buy instead of a Apple Macbook PRO. Hope he is able to sort the mess soon 
Via Gizmodo
Categories: Apple, Humour, Weird or not? |
Tags: best buy, ecommerce, Humour, macbook, online shopping | No Comments
January 3rd, 2009
We have seen the best feedback someone can leave for an eBay seller. Here is another nice one from eBay India. Apparently an eBay buyer complains on the community boards that he received a battery ordered from eBay India wrapped in toilet paper and used cigrette case. Moreover the Battery didn’t work with his cellphone. Enough for the buyer to leave a -ve feedback for the seller and write the matter on the community boards.
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Categories: Humour, Weird or not? |
Tags: ebay, ebay india, ecommerce, Humour, online shopping | 1 Comment
October 25th, 2008
This is a guest post by Sachin Singhal – Business Manager CafeGadgets.in
Whenever someone reads the word “Retail” the only thing that comes to mind is huge investment required for starting a new chapter in this space. When you have big fishes like Tata’s & Ambani’s in the ocean how a small fish can earn its bread? Probably this is a valid question to ask. Does E-commerce and retail have any connection?
People who have vision are called visionaries. Let me share a story with you. 14 months ago a start up funded by some angel investor opened up an e-commerce superstore. Idea behind the store was to be a leader in Digital & lifestyle products space somewhat like www.newegg.com in US market. As Vertical online superstore was a new concept in Indian e-commerce space, they have own limitations due to various challenges hovering around this arena. Usually in India people starts with one category but due to pressure on margins they tend to diversify and include newer categories which can increase their bottom-line. Opening and running a vertical online superstore is just like walking on an edge of a cliff especially when the area of business is digital and lifestyle products. Gross margins in this category are only 5-6% and net of around 2-3%. But due to competition it can be further reduced to 1-2%. Somehow this start-up decided to walk on this difficult path.
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Categories: Concept / Educative |
Tags: cafegadgets, ecommerce, ecommerce india, guest post, sachin singhal | 3 Comments
June 26th, 2008
Things are heating up in the online ecommerce space. eBay India today announced a significantly revised fee structure to better compete with other ecomm sites. A estimated comparison is shown in the chart above.
The new pricing brings a huge discount for tech category sellers (who contribute majority of the sales online). The fee has been reduced to a mere 1% (add to that PaisaPay gateway charges of 4%), bringing the total cost of selling to 5%. Our estimated shows that eBay sellers can now offer the best rates for technology category (or at least match the competition equally). The new structure goes live on 9th July and 1st August in parts.
There are three major players in India who allow third-party vendors to register and sell online. Vendors pay a commission to these sites on successful sale of products. There has also been a significant reduction in listing fees by eBay.in (this is the cost of listing a product on eBay, regardless of its sale). See the discussion on the eBay forums for more.
“eBay realized after three long years (in India) that squeezing the sellers is not the right strategy.” – said Mahaveer Champawat, an eBay India PowerSeller.
Read the full announcement from eBay
Please note: The chart above shows estimated commission load on sellers for listing on the mentioned sites. We do not guarantee if these are 100% correct.
Categories: Tech Industry News |
Tags: ebay, ebay.in, ecommerce, ecommerce india | No Comments
April 13th, 2008
I have been a online shopper for over 6 years now. Its nothing new in India. But over the past few years the adoption of Online Shopping in India has increased considerably. And as we know – Growth is directly proportionate to Drawbacks. So here I would take this opportunity to highlight a key issue in buying goods online: Warranty!
“Difference between Seller’s Warranty & Manufacturer’s Warranty.”
Just to be competitive, the mantra for most of the online shopping portals in India is to sell products at lowest possible prices. Buyers often get fascinated by the offering of these online portals. But have you ever wondered how can someone sell a digital camera woth Rs 20000 at Rs 14000? Does that mean these companies are selling goods at losses? They are not making money out of it or giving these products at throw away prices just to boost their sales?
Answer is obviously “NO”. Most of the vendors on popular market places (I refrain myself from naming these portals, however I can take the questions offline) are selling these products for gray. They procure goods from gray market where prices are as much as 30% less. These goods are procured illegally without paying custom duties and sales Tax to the government. There is no manufacturer’s warranty and bill for all these products. But very cunning these products are posted online claiming to be genuine and give 6 months or even a year long of seller’s warranty. Seller’s warranty means these portals will be responsible if any mishap occurs with the product. This is similar to buy a camera from local gray markets like Gaffar market in New Delhi and Richie’s street in Chennai. This ‘sellers warranty‘ is a simple service warranty wherein they offer free servicing but will charge you for any new parts or components that has to be added / replaced. It doesn’t require a genius to guess that you are being tricked here!
Online forums are full of negative and bad buyer experience while shopping online. Yet the market continues to grow strong. Online ticketing has boomed, the next one certainly is Online Shopping in India, but are we ready for it? So next time you shop from any of these websites just see if they are offering seller’s warranty or manufacturer’s warranty. Save yourself from getting cheated.
Very few online portals offer every single product with genuine manufacturer’s warranty. One of them I noted is
CafeGadgets.in, Although they are rookie in this market but basic seems right. CG is looking for establish itself as a long term player in this niche market. Once the consumers are aware and educated enough, I hope they would start making a wise decision. Happy Shopping!
By: Sachin Singhal & Ankur Agarwal
Categories: Concept / Educative, Reviews |
Tags: ecommerce, ecommerce in india, eretail, india | No Comments
June 30th, 2007
Following is a Guest Post by Sachin Singhal, Business Manager IT, Cafegadgets.in
Yesterday I was listening to Avril Lavigne’s song “Tomorrow is a different day” and certainly believe it will true when it comes to e-commerce industry in India.
No Doubt, Travel portals are outperforming in India. Travel alone constitutes 50% of Rs 4800 crore online market in 2007-08. Recently MakeMyTrip has touched whopping Rs1000 crores of turnover. It around 20% of total e-commerce market. It’s expected that travel portals will grow 65% annually. We are experiencing an exponential growth in this vertical. Are these companies making profit or able to break even? How much is the average cost of acquisition? Well these questions still lingers me. The average cost of acquisition in E-commerce industry is around Rs 1100. If the average order size on these travel portals is Rs 4000 and typical net margins are 6-7% (That too on the higher side), these portals will make only Rs 300 on average. That’s far below the cost of acquisition.
But the big question arises how the Non-Travel Portals are performing in India? Largest market of non-travel industry is electronics, digital and lifestyle products. Major players in this are old pros Indiatimes, Rediff shopping, homeshop18, eBay & some new kids on the block like Cafegadgets.in, Gadgetsguru and numerous startups. Average margin is 7-8% in electronic and lifestyle product. If we assume 35% as the share of these portals, then it’s worth Rs 1680 Crores and a bottom-line of Rs 135 Crores. When it comes to bottom line are we all fighting for a piece of cake?
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Keeping in mind all these questions one must be forced to ask “Is E-Commerce Really Profitable in India??” Well that’s a million dollar question. And it’s surrounded by so many “Ifs and Buts”. Currently most of the e-commerce portals are striving to break even. Weak pc penetration, Low broadband usage, reluctant credit card users and high cost of acquisition are the major gray areas in this vertical. According to CLSA Internet Report 2007, India will have 55 million internet users by March 2008 growing at 30% over next three years. At this rate it will breach 100 million barriers in next two years. Similar growth trends are predicted for broadband subscribers. Considering the past this is quite optimistic. Majority of the online shoppers don’t hesitate in using credit cards online provided the transactions performed by them are safe. Internet security is also major concern in this arena. We can win the trust of the customer if we have certifications like Verisign, Hackers Safe or Thawte Seal. |
Internet advertising expenditure is increasing by leaps and bounce. Most of the advertisers prefer to spend pay per click, pay per action or through publishers in affiliate network. Not everyone can afford to burn money by spending on advertising. Internet advertising is pure overhead. It’s a Catch22 situation. One has to adopt “aggression with precaution” strategy. Most of the companies end up spending millions of Rupees just to reach potential customers in a flash without foreseeing the repercussions on balance sheet.
If I have advertising budget of Rs X per month then I would prefer to spend X/2 and save rest of the amount for contingencies. Main stress should be strategic tie-ups which will provide you visibility and foot falls without spending anything. Cost of Acquisition is an overhead that should be minimized. In long run the direct traffic and traffic from referring sites should constitute the major chunk of the pie. Google Adwords and other PPC campaigns share should not be more than 15-20%. We can’t rely on pure internet revenue in India as the market is still in nascent phase. One has to take alternate ways to keep up the pace and make business model profitable. Diversification in sales channel like corporate sales, print media sales can boost the sales to considerable amount. For that business need to invest in human resources and such type of investment is directly proportional to sales.
All this strategies can bring renaissance in e-commerce market in India and certainly we can hope for a new dawn.
More Guest Posts:
Ecommerce 1,2,3… e-Tailing in India
Online shopping in India, the unseen truth!
Tags: ecommerce ecommerce_india cafegadgets cg
Categories: Concept / Educative |
Tags: E-Commerce, E-commerce Industry, ecommerce, ecommerce in india | No Comments
