ITV

Category: e-commerce

  • HomeShop18 rides the 4G wave for mobile phone shoppers this festive season!

    HomeShop18 rides the 4G wave for mobile phone shoppers this festive season!

    NEW DELHI: If you’ve been looking for the best destination to shop for a new mobile phone, look no further. From the latest iPhone 6S Plus to the new 4G handsets in town, HomeShop18, India’s leading television shopping channel also available on the web and mobile is making it all accessible this festive season. The company is launching a total of 11 new mobile devices in the month of October alone. All these launches are part of Homeshop18’s biggest sale, the Diwali Mela.

     

    Of the 11 mobiles, 6 products will be exclusively available on HomeShop18 including two next-gen mobile devices, Intex 4G mobile phone and Penta 4G Calling Tablet. These two 4G devices are a must have for customers who like to stay updated on the latest technology!

     

    Mr. Sanjeev Agrawal, CEO, HomeShop18 said, “At HomeShop18, our endeavour is to let our offerings reflect the ongoing consumer demands and preferences. With the current smartphone market in India pegged ahead of the US and China in terms of growth rate, and the wave of 4G adoption, we wish to offer our customers the entire gamut of mobile offerings. This increases the buying propensity of our customers as they get to browse through an entire range of new products on offer, thereby, significantly increasing consumer traction and interest in our mobile category.”

     

    With 4G handsets, customers can take advantage of superior, uninterrupted connectivity, especially during video chats and calls over the internet. For the younger generation, they can stream music, videos and movies share information online at a much faster rate than ever before. On buying the Intex 4G shoppers get a free screen guard and protection cover while, the purchase of the Penta 4G entitles them for a free keyboard. 

     

    The other exciting mobile handsets that will be launched this month are- three mobile models from Panasonic, Spice Proton 4 and 5, Celkon A36 Star, Penta 802Q, Spice 45Q and Intex Live 2. All these phones are bundled with exceptional promotions and freebies that make the proposition even more attractive.

     

    HomeShop18’s Diwali Mela guarantees a string of prizes and offers. A guaranteed cash back offer called “HomeShop18 Diwali Shagun”  that will entitle all customers who shop for Rs. 7,999 or more during the period of 13th October-15th November, 2015 to a voucher of Rs. 1,001 to be redeemed on the next purchase on HomeShop18-TV, Web and App. Apart from this, customers can also get a chance to  win an LED TV every hour, every day  till 31st October ’15 and a bumper prize of a Toyota Innova during this Diwali carnival.

     

    Where else would you get the advantage of scanning the latest and most exclusive mobile launches? So, stay tuned as HomeShop18 – your go-to shopping destination this October and make the most of the festive offers during its mobile fiesta! 

     

    About HomeShop18:

     

    HomeShop18 is India’s first comprehensive television shopping channel, selling credible brands to customers nationally, operating in a multimedia environment including Internet, TV and via mobile. As a pioneering player in the space, HomeShop18 changed the way Indians shop by launching India’s first 24 hour Home Shopping TV channel in 2008.  In 2011, HomeShop18 commenced its e-commerce arm with HomeShop18.com. With the introduction of mobile shopping in 2013, Homeshop18 redefines the way consumers shop. Present over all virtual platforms of shopping, HomeShop18.com has emerged as one of the largest e-retailer in India.

     

    Today, HomeShop18 reaches a strong loyal customer base with an impressive portfolio of over 14 million SKU’s across multiple categories and a logistical reach of over 3000 locations across India. HomeShop18 offers a complete product range across all major categories; including digital, fashion & lifestyle, beauty products, jewellery, kitchen essentials, home & furnishings, kids’ gear, food and many more.

     

    HomeShop18 offers cash-on-delivery along with other popular payment methods of credit, debit, wallet and internet banking. HomeShop18 TV channel is available to all cable operators & leading DTH players: Tata Sky-151, Dish TV- 118, Reliance- 219, Videocon- 124, Airtel- 112. For details on HomeShop18 shows and its various products, customers can call 1800-1800-918 and for exciting contest and information, visit the Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/homeshop18 or follow the Twitter handle@HomeShop18https://twitter.com/homeshop18.

  • Simplification of wallets key to digital payment’s success

    Simplification of wallets key to digital payment’s success

    MUMBAI: In a world fast moving towards all things digital, simplification of wallets will be the key to digital payment’s success.

    Addressing the session ‘Paving the way for Digital Money in India’ at IAMAI’s Digital Money 2015 Summit, Nykaa.com chief strategy officer Nihir Parikh said, “To go truly digital, there needs to be a process of paying through wallet that is less cumbersome. It should be a one click check-out like cash-on-delivery option. The time has arrived for integrated payment gateway, unless this is in place, it will be difficult to evolved digital payments.”

    Panelists at the session concurred that while women shoppers shopping online has increased phenomenally, 80 per cent of them still use cash –on-delivery as mode of payment. The last couple of years have seen a rise in internet banking, use of debit card for online transactions and usage of mobile wallets.

    The panelists were of the view that unless there is consolidation in the wallets segment, user base will not grow. Since by 2018, almost 50 per cent of internet users will be from rural India, the digital payment platform needs to embrace simpler and consumer friendly forms of transaction.

    A holistic approach towards payments ecosystem is inadvertent and digital platforms have provided a great opportunity for financial inclusion, in every aspect.

    The panel included Amazon India payments head of strategy and products Srikanth Rajagopalan, Yepme CEO Vivek Gaur; PayU Money business head Virender Gupta; Nykaa.com chief strategy officer Nihir Parikh, E-Billing Solutions  director Bhavin Mody and ItzCash Card general manager & business head Bhavik Vasa. The session was moderated by Billdesk co-founder and director Srinivasu M.N.

  • FabFurnish.com appoints Nimit Kumar as CTO

    FabFurnish.com appoints Nimit Kumar as CTO

    MUMBAI: FabFurnish.com has appointed Nimit Kumar as the chief technology officer (CTO) of the company.

     

    With over a decade of experience in enterprise technology products and hands-on knowledge of engineering and sales, Kumar will be responsible for leading technology innovation and expanding company’s service and product portfolio to support key industry trends.

     

    An IIT-Kanpur graduate, Kumar was the founder & CEO of uniRow Inc, a training cloud company.

     

    “We are quite excited to have Nimit on board. He brings in an expertise, which is quite diverse and has worked across various industries. His understanding of technology and the market is one of the best in the industry which is going to be a great asset for us. As we desire to grow at an accelerated pace, his thought process will surely give strategic direction to individual functions. We are sure Nimit will help us in evolving our mobile technology for seamless discovery of content and hyperlocal products,” said FabFurnish.com co-founder Ashish Garg.

     

    Kumar added, “FabFurnish.com is a high-growth company and am thrilled to be part of the team. It’s an exciting time for the e-commerce industry in India. FabFurnish.com is taking a fresh approach beyond the typical discounting models common in the industry and building tech-enabled products and services that will allow a large offline market to transition to the online world. I look forward to this journey and play a key role in strengthening relationships with strategic partners.”

  • PepperTap eyes $56 million in funding; raises $36 mn from Snapdeal & others

    PepperTap eyes $56 million in funding; raises $36 mn from Snapdeal & others

    MUMBAI: The e-commerce business is attracting funding galore in India. In a bid to boost its expansion plans, nine month old on-demand hyperlocal grocery delivery service PepperTap is eyeing to raise funds to the tune of $56 million. While the company has closed a Series B funding round of $36 million from multiple investors, it is also in advanced talks with financial investors to close another round of an additional $20 million, which is expected to close in the coming few weeks.

     

    The latest funding round of $36 million was led by Snapdeal along with existing investors Sequoia India and SAIF Partners. The funding also saw participation from new investors like Ru-net, JAFCO, and BeeNext.

     

    With the infusion of fresh funds, PepperTap plans to expand its presence to 75 cities across India by the end of the current fiscal year. The company also plans to invest heavily in strengthening its technology and supply chain capabilities. PepperTap expects to have more than 5,000 staff by year end to support its operations.

     

    PepperTap co-founder and CEO Navneet Singh said, “PepperTap has been on a hyper-growth track since its inception nine months ago. From less than $1 million GMV run rate at the start of Fiscal Year 2015-16, we are solidly on track to end the year with a GMV run-rate of over $250 million. Investment by an established player like Snapdeal is a stamp on our asset-light, low burn business model and our execution track record. We look forward to leveraging Snapdeal’s experience to help our partner stores develop their capabilities and multiply their sales.”

     

    Snapdeal co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl added, “We are excited to be entering into a strategic partnership with PepperTap. Navneet and his team have done a phenomenal job in building PepperTap into India’s leading grocery ordering platform. We look forward to working closely with PepperTap to make them very successful, leveraging the capabilities we have built in Snapdeal’s ecosystem.”

     

    Sequoia India MD Shailendra Singh said, “PepperTap is making exciting progress in building the most efficient hyper-local infrastructure to deliver a great user experience for grocery shopping. It’s thrilling to see the incredible progress Navneet and team have made since Sequoia India’s seed investment and we’re delighted to support them in their journey.”

     

    SAIF Partners’ Ravi Adusumalli added, “Since our investments a short while ago, the team at PepperTap has done an extraordinary job of growing and establishing themselves as the clear leader in the hyperlocal grocery space. We believe that this is a massive market and our focus only on groceries will enable us to have the best customer service in the market.”

  • NBCU’s Fandango to acquire Brazilian online ticketing company

    NBCU’s Fandango to acquire Brazilian online ticketing company

    MUMBAI: NBC Universal’s online and mobile movie tickets company Fandango has signed an agreement with Latin American e-commerce company, B2W Companhia Digital, to purchase its entertainment ticketing subsidiary, Ingresso.com, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

     

    With more than six million registered customers, Ingresso.com is Brazil’s largest online and mobile movie ticketing service. In addition to movies, the service also sells tickets to concerts, soccer games and cultural events including the world-famous Rock in Rio music festival.

     

    The acquisition, subject to regulatory review and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.

     

    Brazil has a leading moviegoing population, accounting for 40 per cent of Latin American box office dollars in 2014, according to Rentrak. The country has seen nine continuous years of box office growth, representing the largest market in South America and the world’s 11th largest theatrical market, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA predicts that Brazil will constitute the world’s fifth largest market by the end of 2020.

     

    “As our ongoing commitment to the domestic business continues to produce record-breaking results, we see this as an opportune moment to expand outside of the United States. We are thrilled to work with the talented Ingresso team and build upon their already successful organization.  Latin America presents the next logical growth area for Fandango, and we look forward to extending our leading online and mobile ticketing capabilities to Brazil’s entertainment fans,” said Fandango president Paul Yanover.

     

    Fandango will bring to Ingresso.com its online and mobile entertainment products, branding and marketing expertise and fast-growing international position on YouTube with Fandango Movieclips content to build an even larger presence for Ingresso.com in Brazil’s entertainment ecosystem.

     

  • Oxigen appoints Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador

    Oxigen appoints Sachin Tendulkar as brand ambassador

    MUMBAI: India’s payments solutions provider Oxigen Services has signed cricketer Sachin Tendulkar as its brand ambassador.

     

    The brand zeroed in on Tendulkar as he reflects the core values of the company in his virtues of unshakable commitment and humility.

     

    Oxigen has aligned its vision to aggressively push for Digital India and financial inclusion, a key agenda on the radar of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

     

    Oxigen Services India founder & CMD Pramod Saxena said, “We are absolutely proud and honoured to be associated with the god of cricket himself, who is renowned not only in India, but across the globe. It is not just his values that inspired us to get him on board, but also his strong commitment towards larger national issues such as education and  upliftment of rural India that resonate with our own programs. Together we are set to take our initiatives towards Financial Inclusion, Digital India and Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to the next level.”

     

    Tendulkar added, “I am excited to be associated with Oxigen Services, which is at the threshold of exponential growth. Oxigen’s effort to align with the needs of the common Indian and focus on offering convenience, flexibility and ease in payment solutions is admirable. With the Oxigen wallet providing so many features, I am sure it will be the preferred mode for payment emphatically replacing the present day need to carry physical forms of cash and plastic money.”

     

    Oxigen recently came on board as the official sponsor of the Proteas – South African T20 Cricket Team, which will be visiting India for The Mahatma Gandhi – Nelson Mandela Series this week.

     

    The company has also launched the #Playthehost campaign for the series.

     

    “The adoration for Tendulkar, as a person, cuts across demographics, states and cultures. He is a much loved and trusted sport personality, with an unblemished track record. We, at Oxigen as well, reach out to a large mass of people across the country, we have something for everyone, A mobile wallet for the youth and money transfer and payments services, through our retail network for all fellow Indians.  The city dwellers and rural Indians alike, see us as a dependable service provider. By associating with Sachin we are sure we reinforce the trust and reliability factor with our customers, taking it to the zenith with his endorsement to the Oxigen Brand,” said Oxigen corporate affairs brand and marketing services president Meher Sarid.

  • Snapdeal names Harish Sivaramakrishnan as VP – design

    Snapdeal names Harish Sivaramakrishnan as VP – design

    MUMBAI: Snapdeal has appointed Harish Sivaramakrishnan as vice president-design. In his new role, Sivaramakrishnan will spearhead the design teams across the company’s portfolio of products and build a design studio across the Delhi and Bangalore offices.

     

    This is an expansion of his current role at Freecharge, where he is currently heading the UX, Design and the front end engineering teams. Sivaramakrishnan will now play a key role in product design as Snapdeal turns its focus to building a technology platform with intuitive web and mobile interface.

     

    Prior to Snapdeal, Sivaramakrishnan was with FreeCharge where he joined as head of design & UI engineering in 2013. Previously, he has also worked at Myntra as user experience architect. 

     

    Prior to joining Myntra, he spent a decade in Adobe in Bangalore and San Francisco working on a diverse set of products in engineering, product and design capacities.

     

    Sivaramakrishnan said, “Snapdeal’s growth in the technology space has been unprecedented and it gives me great pleasure to be a part of this young and energetic team. Over the years I have been extremely passionate about building great consumer experiences in the Indian e-commerce space. I was fortunate to have gotten the opportunity to bootstrap the FreeCharge Design team and now look forward to building a uniform design sensibility across Snapdeal’s entire digital commerce ecosystem.”

     

    Snapdeal chief product officer Anand Chandrasekaran added, “Great design is as much form as it is function. At Snapdeal, we strive to deliver the best buyer and seller experiences and are thrilled to make design an integral part of our approach to product development. In India design is yet to get its due recognition. We are extremely excited to have Harish onboard and wish him a great journey ahead with the Snapdeal family. Our consumers and sellers will be the beneficiaries of our endless debates as we endeavor to get to pixel perfection.”

  • IndiaMart targets revenue of Rs 2000 crore by 2020; tots 1 lakh customers

    IndiaMart targets revenue of Rs 2000 crore by 2020; tots 1 lakh customers

    MUMBAI: Online market place IndiaMart has accomplished one lakh premium customers on its online platform and is looking at net revenues of Rs 2000 crore by the year 2020.

     

    IndiaMart director Dinesh Gulati said, “We have recalibrated our strategy to enhance our focus on the big businesses. This will lend a fillip to our vision of IndiaMart 2.0, wherein we are looking at net revenue of Rs 365 crore in 365 days this year and take it to Rs 2000 crore by 2020. With our Big Brands initiative, we are moving from the motto of ‘More buyers, More Sellers and More Business’ to ‘Big Buyers, Big Sellers and Big Business.’ We are now focusing to cater to the procurement needs of bigger businesses and bigger orders.”

     

    IndiaMart’s big brands programme, an integral part of vision 2.0, will be a major growth area for the online marketplace, which initially built the Rs 200 crore businesses by catering to small and medium enterprises. Currently, IndiaMart has about one crore buyers, 15 lakh suppliers, 3.5 crore products listed on its platform.

     

    From April 2006, with about 10,000 premium customers online, the journey to 50,000 till July 2014 was painstaking, what with economic slowdown and inflation dogging businesses. Since April 2014, the paid-customer size saw a steep and steady twin-fold rise. Regular and timely innovative adaptations enabled IndiaMart harness the advantages of rising internet penetration & proliferation of smart devices. The milestone is best described a phenomenon never seen before in the e-commerce ecosystem.

     

    IndiaMart founder and CEO Dinesh Agarwal added, “I am extremely pleased to announce the milestone and I would like to thank everyone associated with us who have helped us reach this important landmark. 100,000 premium customers marks a watershed moment in our journey to become the undisputed e-marketplace leader. We will continue to innovate and grow to serve our customers in newer and better ways.”

     

    IndiaMart has been empowering MSMEs and unrelenting in innovating to add to their customers’ profitability. The brand is recognised for its pioneering role in the Internet business for inclusive growth and has mentored over two million MSMEs across India since its launch in 1996.

  • Snapdeal appoints Twitter’s Rahul Ganjoo as vice president – technology

    Snapdeal appoints Twitter’s Rahul Ganjoo as vice president – technology

    MUMBAI: Snapdeal has appointed Rahul Ganjoo as vice president in its technology team. In his new role, Ganjoo will augment the company’s efforts to enhance customer experience across various Snapdeal platforms. He will also focus on program management and help build the most innovative tech company in the world.

     

    Prior to his appointment at Snapdeal, Ganjoo has spent more than two years at Twitter where he worked on solving high visibility problems such as large scale spam and targeted abuse. He was working out of the company’s headquarters in San Francisco, USA.

     

    Ganjoo also worked on evangelising agile practices across engineering teams. His previous stints were with companies like Six Apart, Symantec, Thoughtworks and Wipro Technologies, where he built program management teams, led the execution of large scale programs and instituted processes to make engineering organisations more effective.

     

    Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal said, “We are very excited to have Rahul on-board. He comes with 15 years of rich experience across various domains with his last stint being Twitter, a consumer facing high-decibel platform. Snapdeal is a consumer oriented technology company with an exponential daily traffic .Rahul’s expertise in identifying, monitoring, rationalising and controlling the interdependencies between projects will ensure optimal utilisation of resources which will enhance efficiencies of our platform. Snapdeal is growing at lightning speed and it’s important for us to adopt a cohesive approach towards technology enabled processes to offer consumers a seamless experience. I am sure Rahul will play a notable role in bringing synergies within Snapdeal’s internal processes and I wish him luck as he starts his journey with Snapdeal.”

     

    Ganjoo added, “I’m incredibly excited to join the young and energetic Snapdeal family. E-commerce in India is a very interesting space and I am sure that my journey with the company will be a huge learning experience. My focus will be on institutionalising best of breed product development practices to ensure Snapdeal is a world class engineering organisation. I am looking forward to contributing to Snapdeal’s vision of creating the most impactful digital e-commerce system by closing the gap between strategy and execution.”

  • Snapdeal to invest $300 million in SCM, names Hardeep Singh as head infrastructure

    Snapdeal to invest $300 million in SCM, names Hardeep Singh as head infrastructure

    MUMBAI: Snapdeal is planning to invest $300 million this year to strengthen its Supply Chain Management (SCM), which is a key function of any e-commerce company. Additionally, the company has strengthened its SCM team with the appointment of Hardeep Singh as head – infrastructure.

     

    In his new role, he will help craft strategies for making Snapdeal’s Supply Chain systems future ready. This includes the entire gamut of network design, infrastructure and special projects.

     

    Singh comes with over 21 years of experience in various aspects of supply chain operations including – planning, warehouse management, driving process excellence, supply chain technology integration, end-to-end solutions design and implementation. Prior to his appointment at Snapdeal, he was at Bharti Retail as head – supply chain and infrastructure. During his stint at Bharti Retail and Bharti Walmart, Singh was responsible for driving the best-in-class strategies covering Supply Chain, IT and Real Estate.

     

    Previously, he was the CEO at Inlogistics, the first private container train operator to run on Indian Railways network. In his two decades long career, Singh has also worked with organisations like Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints and Madura Fashion & Lifestyle.

     

    Snapdeal entered into a strategic partnership with Gojavas earlier this year. In order to further customer experience on the platform, the companies together launched innovative delivery services like four hour delivery, card-on-delivery and 90 minutes reverse pickups. Snapdeal’s flagship service, Snapdeal Plus has seen success since its launch a year ago. Currently, 60 per cent of the orders are Snapdeal Plus fulfilled up from seven per cent in January 2015. The SCM team at Snapdeal is 1000+ people strong and has grown five times since December 2014.

     

    Singh said, “Snapdeal has been consistently focused on delivering a superlative customer experience and the progress that the company has made in this regard is unprecedented. It is exciting to see a young company like Snapdeal launch innovative supply chain solutions and set new benchmarks in this space. I look forward to working with the dynamic team at Snapdeal.”

     

    Snapdeal co-founder Rohit Bansal added, “Supply Chain Management and Logistics form the back bone of the ecommerce industry. Our aim is to create a delightful experience for our customers and as the customers evolve, we need to constantly innovate and develop newer solutions to service them better. Hardeep comes with many, many years of rich experience in diverse and complex aspects of SCM. He will help us lay out the road map for our future supply chain management systems.”