Flipkart, the largest e-commerce marketplace, has introduced India’s first-ever online exchange program for watches. This first-of-its-kind initiative is in partnership with leading watch brand Fossil & Goonj. The watches that are received through this exchange program will be contributed to Goonj-an award winning voluntary organization in India. Once the sale is over, the watches will be distributed by Goonj in the areas where they currently offer humanitarian services.
Customers can avail upto Rs. 1500 off on watches under Fossil brand [Skagen, Emporio Armani, DKNY & Michael Korrs] in exchange of old watches till end of May 2016. The program is aimed at offering customers’ value for their old watches as well as a chance to upgrade to premium styles, designs and technology.
Commenting on the latest exchange program, Rishi Vasudev, VP – Fashion, Flipkart, said
Flipkart Watch Exchange, is the first-ever online exchange offer on watches in India which will help customers make a difference. With this new initiative, our focus is to offer customers an easy way to exchange and upgrade to premium models that they desired to buy next. Additionally, our partnership with Goonj will also help customers with the right channel to donate their watches. Last year, we launched our exchange programs for mobiles and appliances which has been a great success. Introduction of exchange program for watches is a first-of-its-kind effort that the Indian watch industry will see.
Customers are increasingly browsing and shopping for watches online. Flipkart has witnessed tremendous growth in demand across budget and premium watch brands. With close to two lakh watches from across 50 brands, this is one of the fastest growing category under Flipkart lifestyle.
About Flipkart
Flipkart is India’s largest e-commerce marketplace with over with over 60% market share of mobile commerce. With a registered customer base of 50 million, Flipkart offers more than 30 million products across 70+ categories including Smart Phones, Books, Media, Consumer Electronics, Furniture, Fashion and Lifestyle.
Launched in October 2007, Flipkart is known for its path-breaking services like Cash on Delivery, experience zones and a 30-day replacement policy. Flipkart was the pioneer in offering services like In-a-Day Guarantee [50 cities] and Same-Day-Guarantee [13 cities] at scale. With over 85,000 registered sellers, Flipkart has redefined the way brands and MSME’s do business online. For more information, please visit Flipkart
Delhi-based VISIT, an on-demand healthcare service provider, has a raised a seed funding from MapmyIndia, a marquee Technology Company based out of New Delhi. The startup plans on channeling this investment to further develop the technology being used in the app.
With the new funding, we plan on investing heavily in improving our technology. We are also aiming at increasing the number of doctors on the app to 500 over the next 3 months. The vision is to bring m-Health to a billion Indians over the next 5 years. No matter where you are you should have access to quality healthcare at just a tap.
We have been in search of supporting a team whose mission was to make quality healthcare easily available to everyone and who had the capability to execute on this mission. In VISIT we found both and are extremely excited to support them achieve their mission.
The idea for the healthcare app was conceived when four graduates from BITS Pilani – Anurag Prasad, Vaibhav Singh, Chetan Anand and Shashvat Tripathi felt the need for such a service on the BITS Pilani campus, which is located in a remote area and accessing quality healthcare was inconvenient.
VISIT aims to avoid various frictions in the delivery of healthcare today like booking an OPD appointment, in-clinic waiting and inability to get in-house doctor visits. They do so by connecting patients with practitioners across multiple disciplines anytime, anywhere through smartphone or computer. It aims to put convenience back into the hands of patients and physicians with their salient feature ‘Q’, free text-a-doctor service.
This allows the patients to ask all health related questions to doctors with just a text message. VISIT also follows up with patients for any further information they require. If the patient requires a treatment, ‘Q’ helps connect the patient with a specialist who can send prescriptions and order lab tests.
‘Q’ is designed to be a health-based Q&A platform that works with a personal conversation between you and your physician. It’s an easy way to get a first opinion from a doctor, especially for mothers with children’s health questions.
Patients can also request a “visit” from their smartphone; therapists can connect over video within 30 minutes and are able to diagnose and treat with nothing more than a smartphone/PC and their expertise. VISIT also has specialists like therapists, general physicians, dermatologists and nutritionists.
Talking about the specialists associated with VISIT, Chetan Anand, Co-founder, VISIT said
We make sure that the empanelment of doctors is carried out through a strict verification process thereby providing a reliable service to our customers. On an average only 1 out of 5 doctors make it through our stringent quality checks.
About VISIT
VISIT was founded by four BITS Pilani students Anurag Prasad, Vaibhav Singh, Chetan Anand and Shashvat Tripathi to reinvent the traditional practitioner-client relationship, by founding an on-demand tele-medicine app called VISIT. It aims to put convenience back into the hands of patients and therapists with an On-demand Health Care platform. VISIT therapist and physician mobile applications enable the modern house call: patients can push a button and request a “visit” from their smartphone; therapists connect over Video within 30 minutes and are able to diagnose and treat with nothing more than a smartphone/PC and their expertise. For more information please visit GetVisitApp
As part of its TechNgage initiative The NASSCOM IT Services Council [NITSC] organized a two-day hackathon [21st and 22nd May] in Bengaluru to offer working professionals and students an opportunity to create solutions that provide citizens an intelligent and connected infrastructure to cater to various social needs to citizens in education, health and safety. With the theme Your CITY – SMART & SECURE, the hackathon will also be held in Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Delhi-NCR and Kolkata.
Aimed at helping India become the hub of innovation and to enthuse technologists to continuously evolve and become ‘World Class Techies’, the Council has identified several initiatives and TechNgage, is part of one of the key initiatives – Celebrating Technology & Technologists. The hackathon has witnessed over 14226 registrations already and top submissions focus on issues like – Citizen services, Education and Healthcare.
The selected winners along with cash prize of up to USD 15,000 will also get be conferred with a NASSCOM fellowship which will provide blanket passes to all major forums hosted by NASSCOM and access to all member-only research reports and material for 1 year. To help them hone their skills further, the winners will also be felicitated with an all-expenses paid trip to Silicon Valley where they will get the opportunity to visit top technology companies for one week.
Talking about the innovative idea, Sushma Rajagopalan, Chair, NASSCOM IT Services Council said
With TechNgage, we aimed to provide highly skilled people in the country a platform to support their budding innovations; which will play a massive role in the growth of the sector and development of the country. This hackathon is one step closer to that vision and looking at the number of registrations, we are confident that we are going to get ideas that are going to help us build a stronger technology enabled ecosystem.
Samir Dhir, Member, NASSCOM IT Services Council stated that
It’s heartening to see level of participation, quality of ideas and enthusiasm of talent in our country during Bangalore TechNgage. We believe TechNgage provides the right platform for technologists in India to showcase their ideas and innovations and with help of NASSCOM transform lives of fellow citizens, demonstrate to world power of innovation from India & pave way for future technologists to build further.
The hackathon will support the IT sector in building an ecosystem that will enable emerging skills become mainstream. Since its inception, NITSC has become a crucial part of NASSCOM, and is focused on building a sustainable and profitable growth path for the Indian IT industry and help IT companies take advantage of the impending IT revolution.
The other key initiatives identified by the Council include:
Creating an eco-system of IT services companies and start-ups
Building India into a digital hub
Policy advocacy with focus set aside for smaller businesses
Converged world and how it is going to impact IT Services
Build next generation leadership in the wake of digital disruption
Enhancing Quality of employee base
Changing the market perception of Indian IT services/solutions
About NASSCOM
NASSCOM is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPM industry in India. NASSCOM is a global trade body with more than 1800 members, which includes both Indian and multinational companies that have a presence in India. NASSCOM’s member and associate member companies are broadly in the business of software development, software services, software products, consulting services, BPM, e-commerce and web services, engineering services and animation and gaming. NASSCOM’s membership base constitutes over 95% of the industry revenues in India and employs about 3.5 million professionals.
IBM have announced that online fashion portal abof.com is working with IBM to provide an enhanced personalized shopping experience tailored to millennial shoppers. IBM solutions offer abof.com a scalable platform, seamless order fulfilment options and innovative customer engagement features.
According to a recent study by ASSOCHAM and PwC almost 55 million consumers made online purchases in 2015 and the number is expected to grow to 80 million this year. abof.com, a part of Aditya Birla Group, is an online one-stop fashion portal for apparel, footwear and accessories for men and women. The retailer targets millennials, with an aim to offer the latest style tips, fashion content and trends. The company needed a well-integrated e-commerce solution that would help it create a dynamic and interactive online platform that could better target consumers and increase brand loyalty. IBM delivered abof.com customer engagement and order fulfillment capabilities that allow it to constantly refresh the e-commerce experience and seamlessly add new content catering to the dynamic demands of millennials.
For instance, to enrich the shopping experience, abof.com has added a 3D virtual trial room to the store front. Powered by IBM and integrated technology from business partner Metail, the feature enables customers to input their body measurement and virtually try any apparel before placing an order. The average return rate in the apparel industry is 20 percent with the most common reason being unsatisfactory fit. Since launching the virtual trial room, abof.com has reduced the product return rate to nearly zero. In addition, the conversion rates for products available with 3D trial is 400 percent higher than the industry norm.
Another set of interactive capabilities that differentiate abof.com is the superior search and curated fashion content it offers to shoppers. For instance, a shopper looking for a particular shirt can upload an image using visual search and seamlessly be led to a similar looking item. In addition, a shopper looking for a fashion trend inspired by a celebrity will be seamlessly led to their desired products with an intuitive search. By leveraging IBM’s content management solution, abof.com is able to offer fresh, targeted and relevant fashion content to its customers. The fashion portal now reaches out to over 7,000 pin codes and across more than 500 cities in India.
In order to tap and increase the market share in a highly competitive industry, it is imperative to differentiate ourselves from already established players. We aim to grow our market share by offering a curated range of merchandise that goes beyond conventional boundaries to deliver quality service to our customers. IBM helped us to set up our online business in a record time of five months. With IBM’s global expertise and local experience in eCommerce space, we are optimistic that the company will emerge as the most admired player in online fashion segment.
One a customer has made a purchase, abof.com is leveraging IBM’s Order Management and Supply Chain solution to provide customers with an accurate view of order status and real time inventory. This capability has helped streamline warehouse processes for an on time and convenient delivery.
Harriet Green, General Manager, Watson IoT, Commerce and Education, IBM said
Many online retailers struggle to engage millennials in meaningful, thoughtful ways, all based on their behavior and preferences. Through this collaboration with IBM, abof.com will create truly unique buying moments and ensure prompt delivery of each item, exactly the type of experience that builds brand loyalty.
About IBM Commerce for Practitioners
IBM helps clients IBM helps practitioners – marketers, merchandiser & e-commerce professionals – understand customer behavior and use insights to help deliver highly personalized and relevant experiences at every touch point. For more information, please click here and follow on Twitter at #ibmamplify
Few weeks back, we had come up with an article on How zeroing on a good-home loan is a daunting task. Once you have shortlisted the Apartment, Loan Service provider; the next big task would be find an “Ideal interior decorator” 🙂 When we shifted to our new flat in Whitefield, we had recommended our interior decorator to couple of friends since he was reliable, easily accessible and most of all his work was more louder than his words !!! In fact, we always try to find people (who matter in our day to day needs) in the vicinity since ‘accessibility’ plays a very important role.
With the rise of the ‘marketplace model’, lot of startups have evolved that want to simplify your search for the right architects, interior decorators etc. Just like the marketplace model for e-commerce companies, these sites act as a bridge to make sure that your requirements are met. One of the latest entrants in this category is Berlin based Homify that was recommended by one of my colleague’s who was able to find good interior decorator for this house from Homify.
Homify is a Berlin headquartered bootstrapped company [founded in 2013] that is present in 15 countries namely Germany, Italy, UK, France, Spain, Portugal and it is recently launched in Brasil, India, Mexico, Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Singapore and Turkey. It is a collaborative platform that has been created by professionals from various fields like architecture, engineering, interior decoration etc and aims to simplify the search for interior design & engineering related needs. Homify (portmanteau of the words Home & Modify ) true to it’s name wants to simplify the ‘herculean task’ of interior decoration easier with the help of professionals signed up on their platform.
From idea to final product, they connect creative professionals in the field of interior decoration with apartment owners so that they can hire the right people for cultivating their ‘Dream Home’ into ‘Reality’ 🙂 Being a Collaborative Platform, artists present on their platform can also learn from each other, thus Homify also acts as a Catalyst in their careers 🙂
Homify : For Users & Professionals
Homify is a free platform for creative professionals who can register free of charge and present their work by uploading their portfolio on Homify. Similar to ‘Seller’s on e-commerce sites who are new to the online-medium but still want to taste the waters, ‘Experienced Architects’ who are new to online medium can expand their customer base via Homify which would have otherwise been difficult in the offline-format !!
Every personal user who is present on Homify can review the work of professionals (based on their uploaded work) who are present on the platform before they are even hired. This transparent review format ensures that professionals on Homify are able to serve their existing customers in the best-possible way since that increases their chances of attracting potential customers.
Users can collect the work of different professionals in the form of an ‘Ideabooks’ and can ask direct questions to professionals about their work. The overall concept of an ‘Ideabook’ is intriguing since smaller (but lesser known) architects can showcase their impressive work on Homify and set-up their website for free !!! It would have even better if it could have been presented in a 3D styled format (just like a ‘Portfolio Book’ which we are addicted to see when we visit any new architect).
Homify : What we liked & Improvement Areas
As mentioned in the beginning of the review, when we had to search for an architect for my flat; we looked for someone in the vicinity.
One stop-shop for your architecture related needs : Homify solves this pain-point in a very effective manner since it brings ‘architects, interior decorators, home buyers etc. and customers under one umbrella. However, it would have been much better if the ‘Exact location and Approximate distance‘ (between the concerned parties) could have been listed in the form of Map i.e. adding a Hyper-local angle to fix apartment owner’s architecture woes.
The Commercial market segment : With the rise of B2B startups (in Real Estate sector), it becomes critical to serve that market segment. Along with retail customers (normal home buyers), Homify serves the ‘Commercial Customer’ segment; a segment that can no longer be ignored !!!
Pleasant UX : Being a blogger & avid-reader, I am very comfortable with websites that follow magazine-styled formats 🙂 Homify also has a blog style format of it’s home-page which makes navigating & fetching required
Discussions : As getting the right architect/interior decorator is a common problem, it becomes critical that users on the platform get engaged in a discussion. The ‘Discussions’ section ensures that customers get right tips/feedback from other users/professionals present on Homify and the best part of the discussion is that the comments are not moderated & you are even free to share your email-id with the initiator of the discussion !!!
So, what are you waiting for ? If you have found your dream home than leave the rest to Homify which can connect you with Design experts who can turn your ‘Dream Home’ into ‘Real Home’ 🙂
If you have given Homify a spin, please leave your feedback/experience in the comments section…
In an effort to nurture micro-entrepreneurship, Ola, India’s most popular app for transportation, is organizing one of the largest event of its kind under the banner of Grand Driver Mela in Bengaluru, with leading car manufacturers and financiers. The week-long Mela, starting from May 18th, will provide drivers the opportunity to join Ola, by buying cabs at a discounted price and avail attractive finance schemes – all under one roof.
To help aspirants take the first step towards entrepreneurship, Ola is creating a one-stop solution, by bringing leading auto manufacturers, lenders as well as car service and car accessories providers together. Additionally, Ola will also provide a single window support system to help drivers with formalities around permits, license conversion and conversion of private [white board] vehicles to commercial [yellow board] vehicles.
Leased cars are available at an attractive down payment, as low as Rs. 15,000. Early bird incentives like a joining bonus worth Rs. 3,000 and business opportunity worth over Rs. 100,000 per month, makes this Driver Mela a great platform for aspiring driver-entrepreneurs.
Driving is growing as a lucrative career choice of hundreds of thousands across the country. We take immense pride in making mobility possible by bringing together driver partners and customers using technology. Through a Driver Mela of such scale, we are enabling aspiring driver entrepreneurs to choose from a wide range of options across purchase, lending, financing and other support systems, all under one-roof.
Through the Ola platform, we provide continued access to revenue opportunities, as well as freedom and flexibility of being one’s own boss. Our driver-partners are key enablers in our mission of building mobility for billion billion Indians and we are confident of helping them achieve new heights as entrepreneurs.
Driver partners on the Ola platform have grown as entrepreneurs, benefiting from access to increased scale and revenue. They have seen their revenue increase by 40% after joining the Ola platform. ‘Ola Pragati’, a tailor-made program enables its drivers to take loans at lower rates and pay a part their EMI’s on a daily basis thus providing an option of earning a livelihood.
About Ola
Founded in January 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola is India’s most popular mobile app for personal transportation. Ola integrates city transportation for customers and driver partners onto a mobile technology platform ensuring convenient, transparent and quick service fulfillment. Ola is committed to its mission of building mobility for a billion people. Ola has also introduced a range of shared mobility services on its platform like Ola Shuttle and Ola Share for commute and ride-sharing respectively. The app is available on Windows, Android and iOS platforms. Please visit Ola for more information.
DigitalOcean, the 2nd largest cloud hosting provider in the world, has announced its partnership with NASSCOM 10,000 startups initiative, a program developed by NASSCOM to incubate, fund and assist 10,000 Indian technology startups by 2020. The announcement comes shortly after DigitalOcean appointed Prabhakar Jayakumar as it’s country manager, as the company gets ready to launch its first data-center in Bengaluru this summer. DigitalOcean has joined a select group of sponsors supporting the 10,000 startups initiative.
The main aim of this collaboration is to grow and support the startup ecosystem in India, through this association, DigitalOcean plans to assist startups on both technical and non-technical aspects through one-on-one interactions, workshops, boot camps and mentorship programs. DigitalOcean has created a special cloud credit program as an incentive to the startups associated with the NASSCOM 10K startup initiative. As part of this program, eligible startups can apply up to $10,000 in cloud credits to their DigitalOcean account.
The purpose of the NASSCOM 10K startups initiative is to nurture the budding startups into full-fledged technology dedicated companies, by giving them support via access to startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, startup support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. The association has received over 13,800 startup applications, out of which 2,276 were shortlisted and 1350 have been impacted by way of funding, acceleration and mentoring.
The technology startup sector in India has exploded in the past few years and our agenda is to fuel this growth and support the innovation landscape in India. We consider ourselves “the startup for startups”. Having been through the process ourselves, we know exactly what the needs are for scaling companies.
This collaboration is a proud moment for us as it gives us an opportunity to enable entrepreneurs in India to create companies and chase their dreams, by lowering the barrier of entry through simplifying the complexities of cloud infrastructure.
We are happy to partner with DigitalOcean to build an inclusive ecosystem for start-ups in the country. Today, India is on the precipice of new ideas which need the right guidance and funding to be scalable for the market. I am sure that through this partnership, we will be able to achieve our targets for the sector and help entrepreneurs realize their dreams.
With the rapidly expanding startup ecosystem in India, such collaborations will not only ensure that selected startups have access to mentorship and guidance from relevant industry leaders, but also give them much needed support through DigitalOcean’s cloud credit program, making it easier than ever before for startups and teams of software developers to deploy and scale their applications.
About NASSCOM
NASSCOM is the premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-BPM industry in India. NASSCOM is a global trade body with more than 1800 members, which include both Indian and multinational companies that have a presence in India. NASSCOM’s member and associate member companies are broadly in the business of software services, software products, consulting services, BPM, e-commerce & web services, engineering services & animation and gaming. NASSCOM’s membership base constitutes over 95% of the industry revenues in India and employs about 3.5 million professionals. For more information, visit NASSCOM
About DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is a cloud infrastructure provider focused on simplifying web infrastructure for software developers. The company is headquartered in New York City with data-centers throughout the world. For more information, please visit DigitalOcean
Industrybuying, a leading B2B E-commerce platform selling a wide range of business and industrial products to SMEs as well as large businesses, has launched its own mobile app for Android users. The iOS version of the app is due for launch later this month.
The latest development is in line with Industrybuying’s strategy to enhance the customer experience and provide a seamless procurement process in every possible way. The app allows its B2B customers to explore more than 1 million industrial utility products from over 40+ categories and more than 3000 brands !!!
Swati Gupta, Co-founder & CEO, Industrybuying said
Mobile is a key growth driver for us. In last quarter alone our mobile visits have grown 25%. More than 6,00,000 users visit our online platform every month via mobile. Businesses need that on-the-go flexibility and ease of use to search, select and order goods whenever they find time in their busy schedule. With the launch of our mobile app, we aim to provide just that.
Currently, with more than 1.5 million monthly visits, Industrybuying boasts of a wide range of brands and OEM’s including major players like 3M, Wuerth, Grainger, Honeywell & others.
Industrybuying app is available for android users to download on Google Play and will soon be launched on the iOS store as well. Industrybuying Android app can be downloaded from here
About Industrybuying
Industrybuying is a leading Business e-commerce platform, selling a wide range of business and industrial products to SMEs as well as large businesses. It has over 4,000 registered sellers and more than 60,000 registered businesses – SMEs & large corporates that are procuring online from Industrybuying. Industrybuying offers over 1 million products across 45+ categories ranging from Safety and Security, Electrical and Lighting, Power and Solar, to MRO supplies and many more categories.
Industrybuying is backed by some of the leading Indian and global investors. Based out of Delhi NCR, the company has a Pan-India footprint with fulfillment centres in Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad & Bangalore. For more information, please visit IndustryBuying.com
