All Posts in e-commerce

|In: Coupon|Last Updated:

With the growth of online-commerce in India, there are many businesses that have been built to cater to that explosive growth. With growing demand, there have been more startups emerging in the space of Customer Support, Last Mile Delivery/Logistics, Automation [e.g. Grey Orange Robotics]. This article in Economic Times points out that e-commerce firms are the new drivers for the BPO industry & with more startups emerging in that space, this number would surely see an upward-trend !!!

The following presentation from Accel Partners gives the complete outlook on “online commerce in India”

With the growth of e-commerce & “hefty” discounts being the major driver for sales, what if the consumer gets some more discount than what the e-commerce website is already offering. Yes, We are talking about “Coupon Websites” !!! Coupon/Deal websites are “by-products” of online-commerce.

In the past, we have reviewed multiple “Coupon Websites” but very few provide “Human Touch” to the overall “online shopping experience”. PriceBurp, an online coupon & deals website offers consumers with great deals across different categories [e.g. clothing, stationery etc.] on e-commerce sites like Flipkart, Amazon etc. & site that we recommend for another reason as well.

It has tied up with Akshay Patra Foundation & every time consumer shops with PriceBurp, the startup would contribute to “Akshaya Patra” [Read more about it here]. Definitely bring social angle to the overall shopping experience J

If you are looking for some great deals for your valentine, do give PriceBurp a shot !!!

With the increase of online frauds in India, it becomes necessary that “Shopper becomes Smart” & along with discounts also checks the authenticity of the e-commerce website. Some of the smart shopping tips are:

  1. Shop from “known” websites e.g. Flipkart, Jabong, Shopclues, High5Store etc.
  2. Ensure that “Digital Payment” happens over secure [SSL] channel
  3. Ensure “not to save” the Credit Card is not saved. Since, no matter how renowned, the website is; better to keep CC information to yourself !!!
  4. Compare prices of “existing products” on price-comparison engines
  5. Get additional discounts on products by grabbing coupons from coupon/deal websites
  6. Untrusted app stores will continue to be a major source of mobile malware. Traffic to these stores will be driven by “malvertising,” which has grown quickly on mobile platforms [Source – McAfee]

We hope that these tips help  not only make your online shopping more “secure”, “delightful” but also brings-in good “karma” 🙂

If you want to share any tips, please leave them in the comments section !!!

|In: Business|Last Updated:

IndiaMART, India’s leading online marketplace for businesses, announced the launch of its Mobile Application for Windows operating system. The Mobile App would assist the Windows users in finding the right business partners, even while on the move. Buyers could easily fulfil their requirements by searching for relevant suppliers, comparing prices, sending enquiries, posting requirements, etc., any-time and anywhere, by using a smart and intuitive, yet simple interface. The Mobile App is available for download on the Windows Store and has been designed for Windows 08 and above.

According to Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, IndiaMART

The industry has been evolving each day, to drive the customer experience a notch higher every time. As per statistics, India is the second biggest user of Windows phone in the world, with a user base of 7.5%. Having registered over 5 lakh App downloads on the Android & iOS platforms, we strongly felt that the launch of the Windows App was important and inevitable. We are extremely confident that our new initiative would open up an array of business opportunities for Windows users.

 

Mobile has proved to be an important medium for our business, with about 40% of the traffic on IndiaMART coming through mobile. Also, we have found that the average time being spent on IndiaMART Mobile App is more than the average time spent on our mobile site, clearly pointing towards a growing importance and usage of Apps. We are delighted to see a good response for our Windows App so far, with over 20,000 installations already witnessed within a few days of its launch. We expect this to grow further, and help more and more buyers and sellers grow their businesses.

The App also provides various benefits to the sellers, especially to the small and medium enterprises, by facilitating on-the-go business for them. IndiaMART Windows App supports exclusive features for individual seller accounts, as well as detailed product listing view as per categories and sub-categories, among many interesting aspects.

With this new App on Windows, IndiaMART is the only online marketplace, with its mobile application available on all major platforms, including Android, iOS, and Blackberry.

Do give IndiaMart Windows App a spin & share your feedback/comments.

|In: Bangalore|Last Updated:

Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce marketplace announced the launch of the ‘Flipkart Fashion Files’ – an exclusive lifestyle content page on its platform. Flipkart has joined hands with the Conde Nast Group to co-create high quality fashion content for its young & dynamic customers.

Targeted at fashion savvy Indian shoppers, the files will host ‘Flipkart Fashion Files’ will host a range of exclusive fashion diva/celebrity interviews, trend boards, brand and product stories along with lifestyle articles.

Ileana D’Cruz will be the face of ‘Flipkart Fashion Files’ for the month of November. Other contributors to the first edition include prominent fashion photographers like Rohan Shreshtha & Porus Vimadalal.

Commenting on the launch, Mukesh Bansal, Head – Fashion [Flipkart]

We are happy to announce the launch of ‘Flipkart Fashion Files’ in association with the Conde Nast Group. With this we aim to enhance the shopping experience of our style savvy shoppers by introducing fashion content curated by experts in this field. This is a true combination of high quality commerce and content which will add new dimension to our fashion category and make it the ultimate fashion destination for every shopper

Commenting on this association, Alex Kuruvilla, Managing Director of Conde Nast India

We are delighted to power Flipkart Fashion Files by creating cutting edge fashion & lifestyle digital content through our newly formed division Conde Nast Factory. Through our knowledge of latest trends, global and local and access to the finest talent, we are well positioned to create relevant and high quality content month on month for Flipkart’s fashion and beauty interested audience.

For more information, please check “Flipkart Fashion Files” Page

|In: acquisition|Last Updated:

UrbanLadderLogo

Urban Ladder, India’s leading online furniture company has acqui-hired the BuynBrag team. Prithvi Raj Tejavath, co-founder of BuynBrag along with key team members has joined Urban Ladder as “VP – Home Decor” in an effort to strengthen and increase the talent pool of Urban Ladder.

Urban Ladder was launched in July 2012 with the vision of making a million Indian homes beautiful. So far, the company has remained focused on the furniture category and its closely curated furniture range has become synonymous with world class designs and impeccable quality.

Speaking about the acqui-hire, Ashish Goel, CEO & Co-founder, Urban Ladder:

Over the last two years, we have been able to do very interesting work in the furniture space and we are delighted with the feedback we have received from our customers. While we will continue to provide our customers with best in class furniture, we feel now is the right time to add a wider home decor range to our catalogue. We are happy to have Prithvi and the BuynBrag team join us to work their magic in the home decor category.

BuynBrag was launched in 2012 and is known for its contemporary design and extensive decor & furnishings range.

Joining the Urban Ladder team as the VP of Home decor, Prithvi Raj Tejavath said:

Urban Ladder has made a huge impact in the furniture category and has created a niche for itself. My team from BuynBrag and I look forward to contributing our expertise in the home decor segment for Urban Ladder. The amalgamation of the teams will lead to producing the best in the home decor space in the times to come.

Off-Late Urban Ladder has been in news for receiving funding from Mr Ratan Tata & launching it’s Augmented Reality App “Living Spaces”

|In: Business|Last Updated:

Ratan Tata, Chairman Emeritus, Tata Sons has made a personal investment in online furniture company Urban Ladder.  The investment comes four months after the company raised Series B funding from Steadview Capital and existing investors SAIF Partners & Kalaari Capital.

The home decor and furniture space in not new to Ratan Tata. He is a design enthusiast and holds a degree in Architecture from Cornell University.

As per Ashish Goel, CEO & Co-founder, Urban Ladder:

Mr. Tata understands the furniture space very well, specially our focus on product design since he has a lot of knowledge of the subject. His inputs and guidance will be very valuable for us.

Mr. Tata’s decision to invest in Urban Ladder marks a milestone in the company’s two and a half year old journey.  We are extremely proud that Urban Ladder caught Mr. Tata’s attention. His investment in the company reassures us of the path we have taken towards creating value for customers with great products and exceptional service.

About Urban Ladder

Urban Ladder was launched in July 2012 by co-founders Ashish Goel & Rajiv Srivatsa with the aim of making a million beautiful Indian homes. It offers over 1000 products across 25 categories in furniture such as wardrobes, beds, sofas, dining tables and coffee tables.

The company has been on a massive growth path and aims to be the biggest furniture seller in India in the next 18 months. World-class product design and exceptional customer experience have been Urban Ladder’s key differentiators. The company is also focusing on using innovative technology to further elevate customer experience to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping.

Urban Ladder’s “Living Spaces” App

In the past, we had reported about UL’s Augmented Reality App “Living Spaces” & you can read about the same here

Important Read – Tata gearing up for e-commerce with management re-shuffle

|In: Android|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

UrbanLadderLogo

Urban Ladder announced the launch of ‘Living Spaces’ – a one of its kind app in the on-line furniture segment. Living Spaces is a world class augmented reality app & a unique initiative to tie in Urban Ladder’s long term vision of providing best in class customer experience by integrating technology.

The Living Spaces app lets users virtually place multiple options of Urban Ladder[UL] sofas in their living space by using augmented reality.  Users can place life size models of UL sofas to visualize their entire living room & select multiple colour and seating options without having to involve any physical furniture.

The next version of the app will have additional notable features such as pulling in a silhouette and ambient lighting.

The app is conceptualized by the Urban Ladder team & developed in collaboration with Whodat & House of Blue Beans, both Bangalore based tech startups. The user experience is designed after in-depth research on sofa buying patterns so that the flow of the app is seamless. The app aims at making the interactions natural & the sofa design takes into account imperfections of the real world like wrinkled cushions and fabric folding at the edges. All these details make the user experience real & help solve several customer pain points.

Urban Ladder had earlier introduced another innovative initiative called ‘Trial Room’ where one can experience different models of UL sofas from the comfort of their home.

As per Rajiv Srivatsa, COO & Co-Founder, Urban Ladder

Over the last year sofas have emerged as one of our best-selling categories. This confirms a strong demand for the category and the potential for it to grow. Initiatives such as Trial Room, and now the Living Spaces app aim at converting the apprehensive shopper into a confident and content one”.

“We strongly believe that innovative technology is the solution to improve the ‘touch and feel gap’ in on-line furniture buying. We are proud that UL Labs is setting new benchmarks globally in the technology and e-commerce space. Living Spaces is another effort to stay true to our commitment of bringing innovative changes in the furniture industry globally, and we are proud to take technology to the world from India”

Living Spaces is the second app to be launched in the UL Labs series after Urban Storage which focuses on wardrobes. ‘UL Labs’ is a collaborative outreach effort where teams from Urban Ladder will work with digital start-ups across the world to come up with pioneering solutions in various aspects of furniture buying.

Download Link

UL Living Spaces can be downloaded from Android Play-Store from here

For more information on ‘UL Living Spaces’, please visit the following link. Do give UL’s Living Spaces a spin & share your comments/feedback !!!

|In: Android|Last Updated:

Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce marketplace, became the first in the industry to launch an app compatible with the Android wearable technology. The app will support viewing Flipkart wishlists on the wearable gear. Another significant feature with this update is that the app will now support push notifications from Flipkart on the gear.

This, however is possible only if users enable push notifications to be viewed via the gear. Possible future updates of the app include accessing order tracking related information, price drop notification & personalized offer notification.

Moto 360, which is back in stocks, was launched last month & Flipkart is now the exclusive retailer in India for three globally leading wearable technology brands – Garmin, Motorola and Martian. The latest version of this app will be compatible with all the three brands & will be the first app from India to be listed on the Android wearable technology store.

The current features available in the latest app are:

  • User Interface : Brand New User Interface and faster app
  • Happy Shopping : No Hassle Returns, 100% Buyer Protection
  • Choice of Payments : Cash on Delivery, Credit/Debit Card, EMI, NetBanking, PayZippy
  • Smarter Search : Look up products, categories or brands using text, voice or by barcode
  • Explore Your Way : Quickly switch between List, Grid and Full Screen views
  • Pinpoint Products : Find what you want with the sort and multi-filter functions
  • Never Miss an Offer : Get access to personalized and exclusive app-only deals
  • Personalized Alerts : Get notifications on personalized offers, price drops, order status & exclusive launches
  • Product Suggestions : Relevant recommendations based on your shopping history
  • Share with Friends : Suggest links to interesting products on Facebook, Twitter, Google+
  • Examine Closely : View products in great detail with the large, multi-perspective images
  • Do More with Images : Save images to your phone or instantly share them with friends
  • One-touch Wishlist : Add products to your Flipkart Wishlist with just one tap

To use the Flipkart wishlist on wearable devices, perform the following steps :

  1. Update the Flipkart application to the latest version from the app store
  2. Connect your wearable device to the phone
  3. Wishlist will automatically get installed on the wearable
  4. To download or review the app, please click here