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Smartbox.in, India’s first network of automated parcel delivery terminals, commenced its operations in India with Oriflame becoming the first company to offer the superior customer experience associated with receiving orders via automated delivery terminals to its customers. Additionally, Smartbox has partnered with YES Bank to power their terminals with unattended payment solution. Besides being the only available 24/7 parcel delivery service, Smartbox also offers the option of cashless COD making it the most safe, secure and private among the available delivery options.

Oriflame, the leading international beauty products company, has entered into a strategic alliance with Smartbox to offer the most flexible and convenient alternative to receiving parcel delivery from couriers at home or office. The partnership brings in extended capabilities to deliver orders 24 hours a day through Smartbox’ automated parcel delivery terminals installed at strategic locations in Delhi NCR.

Last mile delivery is one the most crucial steps in the entire delivery process-as it involves a lot of co-ordination between logistics partner and end consumers to locate exact address, match timings, etc. Current delivery methods of most ecommerce companies often result in repeated/missed delivery attempts, or returned orders due to last mile delivery challenges that increases cost per delivery and loss of order respectively. Automated delivery terminals from Smartbox solves such challenges of ecommerce companies while at the same time, empowers consumers with a highly secure, private & convenient way to collect their orders.

Smartbox delivery terminals have been installed at various convenient locations such as metro stations, residential complexes and office premises from where shoppers can pick their parcels 24/7 as per their convenience, be it the early morning or late night. Smartbox automated parcel terminals are also environment-friendly and help in reducing carbon footprint.

Oriflame becomes the first company in India to deliver products through automated terminals. This is a shift from the traditional courier home-based delivery system to more efficient self-service lockers.

Kunal Verma-Operations Director, South Asia, Oriflame Cosmetics said

This is a crucial move from the perspective of Oriflame as an endeavor to streamline the product delivery to our network of consultants and consolidate our position in the market by providing high-quality products faster to end customers. We see this partnership with Smartbox as a great opportunity to eliminate logistical bottlenecks and make our network more efficient. We have successfully used such services in other markets and hope to make this association with Smartbox a similar success in India. The Smartbox network is expected to first cover Delhi NCR extensively before moving to remaining 7 metros and eventually to cover the Rest of India.

Amit Sawhney-CEO, Smartbox Ecommerce Solutions Pvt. Ltd. said

We are delighted to get into this partnership with a globally leading brand in its category like Oriflame. Our technology helps solve the most complex and costliest part of a parcel’ journey – i.e. the last mile. Our agile platform is a world class solution that solves multiple challenges for E-commerce businesses in India. 

YES BANK has ensured that best-in-class security systems are implemented for ease and safety of transaction for consumers at various locations across Delhi NCR to give today’s busy consumers the flexibility to take deliveries at the place & time that fits their schedule-instead of courier person’s schedule.

Speaking on the partnership Ritesh Pai, Senior President & Country Head, Digital Banking, YES BANK said

Earlier this year YES BANK partnered with Smartbox to efficiently solve the last mile delivery challenges of e-commerce companies and offer additional convenience to the online shoppers. YES BANK powers the payment solutions for Smartbox network of more than 60 Automated Parcel Delivery Terminals installed in Delhi NCR region, and provides best-in-class security systems to ensure easy and safe transactions by shoppers. I am excited about the next phase of this innovative solution where we get onboard the online seller/merchant base. One such significant partnership is with Oriflame, an international beauty brand, that will now use Smartbox solution powered by YES BANK to deliver its products at the delivery terminals near the consumer’s vicinity. We at YES BANK are working in tandem with e-commerce players to drive digital banking in India & build an advanced ecosystem for both the buyers and sellers.

With the recent government emphasis on digitization and its push towards making India a cashless economy, Smartbox with its inherent cashless COD option will also help its clients as well as their customers in making this transition as smooth as possible.

About Smartbox

Smartbox is a fresh & innovative new way to simplify online shopping. It is India’s first integrated network of automated parcel delivery terminals-a true symbol of technology bringing convenience to online shoppers. Smartbox has been established with an objective of streamlining the delivery process of e-commerce businesses in India and improve online shopping experience for consumers. For more information, please visit SmartBox

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CashKaro, India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site did a survey titled E-Shopping Revelations 2016 to understand the ever evolving preferences and behaviour of online shoppers. The survey was conducted at a pan-India level and registered more than thousand respondents.

On the survey Swati Bhargava, Co-founder CashKaro.com commented

As one of the largest affiliate sites in India, we are in a unique position to talk about the e-commerce ecosystem and what drives consumers to shop online more. CashKaro survey is a reflection of how buying habits of the Indian online shopper are changing and increasing importance of softer aspects like fast delivery, prompt customer service, discounts and cashbacks. 2016 was an eventful year for Indian e-commerce. The advent of subscription based services like Amazon Prime, Flipkart First, Snapdeal Gold etc. helped in enhancing shopping experience while Cashback offers became mainstream. Post demonetization, we saw a great increase in the use of payment wallets and also witnessed an increased number of users using Cashback sites like CashKaro to save on their daily transactions.

Key findings

  • Amazon.in is the most preferred site when it comes to Quickest & Hassle-Free Deliveries
  • Flipkart ranked the best for Customer Care Service
  • Paytm rules as the best payment wallet followed by Freecharge
  • 55% respondents feel Subscription based services like Amazon Prime, Flipkart First, Snapdeal Gold etc. enhance online shopping experience
  • Shopping for daily items/groceries online has gained momentum

 

For more information, please visit CashKaro on E-Shopping Revelations’ 2016

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#FlipTrends2016, the annual in-depth critique by Flipkart, India’s largest online marketplace, on India’s online shopping trends, threw up interesting statistics on this year’s smartphone and smart wearables sales. Analyzing online shopping of over 100 million customers across India, #FlipTrends2016 records data collected from online shoppers over 2016 across all Flipkart-owned platforms.

The Scenario in 2016

With the Digital India mission moving from strength to strength, the smartphones category in India continues to be one of the most hotly contested arenas in online shopping. With over 50% of sales in the category coming from Tier 2 & 3 cities, this is an indication of the fact that higher volumes of smartphone sales is enabling more Indians to come online to shop for their favourite products. Combined with these local market dynamics, brands are increasingly seeking out the right strategic partnerships to brand, market and sell their products.

Commenting on the #FlipTrends2016 insights, Ajay Yadav, Head – Mobiles, Flipkart said

The popularity of smartphones in India, as clearly indicated by #FlipTrends, highlight the shift consumers are making towards 4G enabled smartphones. Today consumers are opting for brands and models that could not just offer them the features, but were smart on the pocket as well.

More of our customers are choosing Flipkart as their preferred platform of choice when it comes to shopping for mobiles. Industry-first innovations such as No Cost EMI and Easy Product Exchange, along with exclusive brand partnerships and flash sales, have helped us to maintain the market leadership in this segment. We will continue to bring more innovation, better choices, and a richer experience to keep the excitement alive amongst our audiences.

Top 7 Mobile #FlipTrends in 2016

  • Affordable 4G smartphones from national and international brands, with new-age features and exciting price ranges, were a hit with customers in 2016
  • Redmi 3S Prime, Redmi Note 3, Moto E 3 Power, and Lenovo K5 and Samsung J5 were the top 5 best sellers of the year
  • Lenovo, MI, Samsung, Motorola, and LeEco remained the most favourite brands
  • Delhi NCR led mobile phone sales amongst the top metros, followed closely by Bengaluru. Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad
  • Tier 2 India rising : Guwahati and Jorhat in North East India were first time entrants to the top gainers list; amongst other Tier 2 cities Mysore, Salem, and Tirupur from South India led sales in the smartphones category
  • South India emerged yet again as the most tech-savvy region, accounting for over 35% sales, while North stood at 28%, West at 22%, and East India at 15%
  • The IOT category of smart bands and smart watches saw tremendous growth, growing over 500% from 2015. Top sellers in this category were Apple, Motorola, and Samsung

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ValueShipr, an online logistics marketplace platform [Decker Logistics Pvt. Ltd] has activated its presence in Goa making their services available in twelve locations across India. With a foothold gathered in Goa, ValueShipr fortifies the company presence across locations with the objective to bring together multi modal logistics solutions (Surface, Ocean, Rail, and Air) for cargo movement for consignors, consignees, fleet owners, transport companies, warehouse owners as well as agencies all on one common platform.

Headquartered in Mumbai and launched in October 2016, the ValueShipr logistics platform, is strongly forging ahead with its smart and simple technology platform with the aim to organize, change, institutionalize and bring the much necessary change in the logistics sector. The company caters to over 50+ lanes inter-city with over 700 plus trucks/container between all these 12 main centers. The company enjoys a pan India presence including offices in Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.

With focus and emphasis on express logistics and inter city transportation, the ValueShipr platform offers omni-channel experience, two different mobile apps (catering to transporters and shippers separately) and a call center facility for accessibility at all times. All services when integrated together allows a unified and seamless experience to both the transporter as well as the shipper. Users can enjoy a wholesome and smooth experience while attaining their logistical requirements owing to a pervasive cloud based enterprise, that allows bidding and load matching, IOT and GPS tracking enabled, event based alerts, security and payments. Customers can book an instant shipment, to-pay shipment, contractual loads on the platform. The ValueShipr team’s process sensitivity additionally of getting involved in each leg of the shipment, is another force multiplier and re-assurance to quality in the overall offerings to the users.

Speaking on this occasion Jyotheesh Kumar, Co-founder & CEO shared

The sole focus of ValueShipr is to overcome the identified challenges of the Logistics stakeholders through introduction of pioneering technology applications in line with the consumer’s requirement. Post the introduction of the platform, in a very short span of time, the response we have received from the customers has been very enthusiastic and we have seen accelerated growth of transactions and volumes coming in across our platforms. The current currency scenario has also given a fillip to the transactions.  By early February 2017 we would be active across 25 centres in India and will introduce newer products and multiply operational lanes for customers. We most definitely see mobile technology as a future harbinger for growth for our offerings.

ValueShipr will be one of the pioneers in South East Asia, leading the emerging trend in the developed nations with near similar online network platforms that add value, create efficiencies and bring seamlessness to transactions in the transportation and logistics sector.

About ValueShipr

The company founded and based out of Mumbai, ValueShipr is heralding in an innovative logistics platform ecosystem on ‘On-Demand Logistics’ marketplace by aggregating, organizing and bringing ‘Transporter Partners’ and ‘Clients-Shippers’ to harmoniously conduct business. The company is founded by Jyotheesh Kumar who brings in close to 20 years of experience in diverse and varied business roles. The company has received seed funding in 2016.

The platform focuses on Multi Modal Logistics Solutions (Surface, Ocean, Rail, and Air) for cargo movement and brings together consignors, consignees, fleet owners, transport companies, warehouse owners as well as agencies on one common platform and enable them to transact and manage their business. For more information, please visit ValueShipr

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The term Demonetization has become a household name since the Government pulled the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes out of circulation. While the unprecedented action by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi comes with both short-term and long-term implications for the e-commerce industry, but has there been an impact on the consumers and their shopping behaviour.

CashKaro-India’s largest Cashback & Coupons site did a Survey recently to understand the Effects of Demonetization on Online Shopping. Over 1000 people across India participated in the survey.

Major findings from the CashKaro survey

The survey stated that Online shopping has seen a surge; Paytm wallet & CoD payments via bank cards are most preferred amongst shoppers.

Demonetization has given a boost to digital payments and is encouraging people to shop online more. While as a business CashKaro’s transactions fell 20% post the announcement but now things are stabilizing.

The announcement has bought a lot of value consciousness amongst shoppers and as a result, users are looking for more Cashback deals on basic items like groceries, consumables etc.

CashKaro is seeing an increase in the number of people clicking through our site and going to their partner retailers to purchase such daily essentials. Retailers too are offering incentives to promote the ‘Go Cashless’ movement.

Looking ahead, with increased adoption of cashless payment methods CashKaro will be able to drive more sales to partner e-tailers including Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and more.

Infographic Source – CashKaro

For more detailed information and statistics, please refer CashKaro’s Blog on demonetization effects on Online Shopping

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MakeMyTrip, India’s leading travel company recently launched a first-of-its kind recognition programme-MakeMyTrip Star Partner Awards to honour the best rated hotels in the company network. The MakeMyTrip Star Partner awards recognize the best rated & highest performing hotels in every city. Under this programme, the company evaluates the performance of hotels basis customer experience and satisfaction across 24 cities in its network. Hotels in Bengaluru, namely, Sairam Residency, Treebo Elmas, Springs Hotel and Spa, Treebo Silverstar, IRIS-The Business Hotel, Citrus Cunningham Road-Bengaluru, Adarsh Hamilton, Vivanta by Taj-Yeshwantpur, Le Meridien Bengaluru & ITC Windsor-A Luxury Collection Hotel have been awarded The Star Partner Awards under the Customer Choice Award category.

Commenting on the awards Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder & CEO-India, MakeMyTrip said

The domestic hotels segment has grown exponential over the last year or so, and we’re excited to be at the centre of this hyper-growth phase. With initiatives such as the Star partner awards, we intend to engage and recognize the efforts of our hotel partners who have consistently provided superior stay experience to our customers. The recognition and awards are another step towards cementing our relationship with our hotel partners. With the great success of our recognition program in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Pune, Indore and Goa, we have now launched this program in Bengaluru to honor the efforts and commitment of our partner hotels in the market.

The MakeMyTrip Star Partner Award aims to inspire and encourage the partnering hotels to further improve their performance and customer experience.

Commenting on this, Ritwik Khare, Senior VP & Head-Business Development, Hotels, MakeMyTrip said

At MakeMyTrip, we believe that our success lies in the success of our partners.  All the hotel partners who are being presented with the MakeMyTrip Star Partner Award have gone above and beyond to ensure that our customers have the most delightful experience at their hotel. MakeMyTrip enables partnering hotels by expanding their reach and we, along with our hotel partners are committed to offer the best in class experience to our customers.

The company has formulated stringent parameters to evaluate the performance of the hotels in its network. The parameters of evaluation include a quality score (basis combined weighted average of customer experience and reviews) and business performance on the MakeMyTrip platform to recognize the best from the rest.

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In line with its strategy to catalyze shift from offline to online and keeping the recent development (demonetization) in consideration, MakeMyTrip, India’s leading travel company today launched a special cashless travel sale The Cashless Travel Carnival.

The sale, scheduled to be held from Tuesday, 06 December 2016~Thursday, 08 December 2016, focuses on the upcoming high travel season and provides jaw-dropping offers and attractive discounts across flights, hotels and holiday packages across platforms-desktop, mobile app and m-site. With the aim to provide the widest range of travel options at best prices, MakeMyTrip has partnered with Axis Bank and Citibank as exclusive banking partners for this event.

Commenting on the launch of the sale, Rajesh Magow, Co-Founder & CEO-India, MakeMyTrip said

As a company we have been focused on driving customers to shift from offline to online for their travel bookings. In line with the recent demonetization drive, we have designed this three-day long event to help customers realize the benefits and convenience associated with making bookings online. We are thankful to all our partners joining us in rolling out this mega travel carnival.

With over 27.5 million downloads till date, our app is the most widely used travel app in India and we are strongly focused on strengthening our mobile technology and have been constantly enhancing our systems to offer a seamless booking experience to our customers. We look forward to a positive response and constructive feedback from our customers.

Given the under penetrated and fragmented nature of online accommodation segment in the country especially hotels where online penetration currently stands at around 14%, the Cashless Travel Carnival offers lucrative deals on online bookings panning a wide range of hotel properties across the country.

Led by aggressive integrated offline and online marketing campaign, The Cashless Travel Carnival has been built on strong partnership alliances & exclusive supplier participation including Taj Hotels Resorts & Palaces, Amazing Thailand, Air France, KLM, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways, Mailndo Air, Turkish Air, Ginger Hotels, Country Inn and Suites, Lemon Tree Hotels, Sarovar Hotels and Resorts, The Lalit, Sterling Holidays, Neemrana Hotels, Pride Hotels and Resorts, Citrus Hotels, Keys Hotels, Bookmyshow, Croma, Myntra and Ola among others.

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With the growth in purchase of smartphones, laptops, PCs, tablets and increasing internet penetration, Indian customers are increasingly buying various software products online to enhance and protect their electronic devices. Amazon India has a selection of over 10,000 products in the software category and is India’s largest online software store with nearly 900 sellers selling software products. Here are a few trends in the software category seen over the last one year.

Mobile Software

One of the fastest growing sub-categories, Mobile Software, witnessed a growth of over 100%. Some interesting trends seen in the mobile software growth are

Top products sold in this category are Multi Device/Android protection software by popular brands like Kaspersky, K7 and Quick Heal. Antivirus protection kits were the most sought after product across the country. Mumbai leads in the purchase of mobile software, followed closely by Bangalore and Delhi

Tier II and III cities are close in terms of demand for mobile software products. Ahmedabad and Chandigarh witnessed high demand for mobile software such as Kaspersky Android security and Quick Heal Android Security. Bhopal too has emerged as a growing market for this sub-category.

Single User Subscription

This sub-category has seen a lot of traction with more than 80% growth with maximum demand from customers. This category is divided into two sub-categories, non-educational software and educational software.

Non-educational software which comprises of products like Antivirus, Internet Security, and Total Protection and other office use products saw a phenomenal growth of over 85% in the last one year

Top selling brands under this category are-Kaspersky, Quick Heal, McAfee, Eset, K7 and Microsoft.

Microsoft witnessed a growth of over 75% and saw a nearly 4x spike in sales during Diwali.

There was high demand for non-educational software from tier II and tier III cities, with Ahmedabad and Chandigarh topping the charts once again.

Educational software this sub category comprises of topics across school subjects to Engineering, medical and even post graduate subjects. The software available caters to all age groups from class I mathematics to competitive exam preparation of JEE, IIT as well as learning new languages. E-Learning is one of the main growth driver’s for this sub-category and saw good traction with growth of over 35%.

Top selling brands include Byjus, Comprint, Average2Excellent, Idaa and Practice Guru.

Tier II and Tier III cities follow closely with Pune and Ahmedabad seem to be the most academically inclined.

Selection for Educational software grew with new Educational brands  like WizIQ and Plancess that have recently tied up with Amazon.in

Multi device software (accessing multiple devices like phone, laptop, tablet etc. with a single key)

Has seen a growing inclination by customers. The category over the past one year grew over 2.5x. This can be attributed to the fact that a lot of customers have one account connected to multiple devices, and there is a growing awareness of the convenience of installation and consistency in protection that is provided by multi device software kits.

Overall customers are increasingly aware of the different types and brands of software programs available in the market and are conscious of avoiding pirated software. Overall popular brands in demand include Kaspersky, McAfee, Quick Heal, Eset and K7. Amazon.in also witnessed healthy demand for the exclusively available McAfee’s 3-year subscription products.