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Category: iWorld

  • “We are customer obsessed, not competition obsessed”: Amit Agarwal

    “We are customer obsessed, not competition obsessed”: Amit Agarwal

    Since its inception over 20 years ago in the United States, Amazon.com has been obsessed with a fervor to serve its consumer and being the ‘earth’s biggest bookstore’. It has grown from a ‘dot-com’ corporation into a king in the domain of internet retail. And now, its Indian arm under the leadership of Amit Agarwal, is looking at achieving the same landmark.  

     

    Describing his current role as ‘Bringing Earth’s Biggest Selection to India; building India’s most customer-centric company’ on Linkedin, the new role has countless firsts for Mumbai-born Agarwal, now an American citizen. He has never worked in India in a business-facing role and never headed country operations as well.

     

    The IIT-Kanpur and Stanford alumnus has been with Amazon since 1999. He has worked in various departments in the company including technical advisor to CEO Jeff Bezos between 2007 and 2009, before heading the operations in India.

     

    Born in 1974, Agarwal joined Amazon as a part of its technology team.

     

    Just a year old and Amazon India has already become the biggest threat to the seven-year old Flipkart in the Indian e-retail market. With an action-packed first year, the global online retail giant is gearing up to play a dominant role in the $13 billion Indian e-commerce industry.

     

    In an interview with Indiantelevision.com’s Pranati Deva, Amazon India VP & country manager Amit Agarwal discloses Amazon India’s journey in the Indian e-commerce space and plans for the future.

     

    Excerpts…

     

    What inspired you to finally start an arm in India? Flipkart started in 2007, why did you think 2013 was the right year to jump into the Indian e-commerce space?

     

    We believe that we entered the India market at the right time. Indian e-commerce space is still in a very nascent stage with significant potential for innovation to improve customer experience. We believe that the growth is at an inflection point and there is tremendous opportunity. 

     

    We have received a fabulous response from both customers and sellers in the last 14 plus months of our India operations. We launched in India with two departments – Books and Movies & TV Shows – and in these 14 plus months, our total selection now stands at more than 17 million products across 30 departments and hundreds of categories. We have witnessed phenomenal selection growth across several categories and are already the largest store  in 12 of the 30 departments that we have on amazon.in including Books, Music, Video Games, Toys, Home & Kitchen, Luggage and Backpacks, Fashion Jewellery, Beauty Products, Movies & TV shows, Men’s inner wear , Sports, Fitness & Outdoors and Pet Supplies.

     

    What is your current strategy in India? And how will your strategy change if the e-commerce sector opens up to FDI?

     

    Our strategy for amazon.in is the same as our global vision to be India’s most customer-centric company by giving customers more of what they want – low prices, vast selection, fast and reliable delivery, and a trusted and convenient experience – and provide sellers a world-class e-commerce platform. The execution of this strategy is local. If you look at the logistics infrastructure, Amazon has built one of the most sophisticated logistics infrastructures that has ever been built to serve sellers and customers

     

    We start with the customer experience and work backwards from it. Building a great customer experience drives traffic; traffic attracts sellers; more sellers drive more selection and this further improves the customer experience.

     

    We have always maintained that opening up this sector to FDI will be good for consumers and Indian businesses as it would allow us to partner with local manufacturers to source products not carried by other sellers in the marketplace, giving Indian consumers unique and wider choices at lower prices. Allowing FDI, also, positively impacts infrastructure development in the country.

     

    The announcement for the $2 billion investment in Amazon India came in just days after Flipkart announced fundraising of $1 billion. Was the announcement strategically placed?

     

    We are customer obsessed and not competition obsessed.  We aspire to provide Earth’s biggest selection and the most trustworthy and convenient online shopping experience to our customers in India.  And we have been investing aggressively right from the beginning.

     

    Our rapid growth in a short time and the significant opportunity ahead of us makes us very comfortable in making this large additional investment. We are not surprised if our rapid growth and customer experience ambitions have increased investment elsewhere as well.     

     

    What areas will you mainly focus on now, after the investment?            

      

    We don’t talk about any of our future plans but essentially it will go towards growing our business and enhancing customer and seller experience. 

     

    Which categories contribute the most to your revenue?

     

    Categories with the strongest growth are Books, Consumer Electronics, Shoes, Baby Products, and Watches.

     

    To increase your demand in the Indian space, which brands have you associated with recently for their products?

     

    We are witnessing that both brands and SMEs are willing and are excited to use the Amazon India marketplace to reach to consumers nationally. Brands and sellers see a lot of value in their association with us. We not only play a significant role in driving sales but also in building consumer awareness about products and educating them about the benefits of these offerings so that they are able to make smart purchase decisions.

     

    Today several sellers and brands are keenly exploring possibilities of exclusive associations with us. For example Amazon India is the exclusive retail partner for Microsoft’s entire Interactive Entertainment Business portfolio which includes Xbox One, Xbox 360, Kinect, Xbox Live, Xbox Accessories and all Microsoft-published Xbox game titles. Similarly, Philips has made available its new Philips Disney Imaginative Lighting range for kids exclusively on www.amazon.in. In mobiles we have exclusive launch deals with Samsung for the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom, Karbonn, Lava, XOLO, OPPO mobiles, etc.

     

    We are also the exclusive online partner for KitchenAid, a premium kitchen appliances brand from Whirlpool that launched in India in March, for Waterlily LA, a premium leather handbag brand headquartered in Los Angeles that made its India debut on Amazon.in as well as for many more. There are several such examples across the 30 departments that we, at present, have on Amazon.in. We are very excited to see this response from brands and sellers and this stands proof to the value that they see in associating with us.

     

    What is Amazon India doing differently to stay ahead of the competition in India?

     

    In terms of services – we were the first ones in India to introduce premium guaranteed delivery services including the ‘One-Day Delivery’ service for items fulfilled by Amazon. Within a short time we have been able to make available over 300,000 products for next day delivery across hundreds of pin codes in India. More than 60 per cent of our customer demand is already eligible for next-day shipping on products fulfilled by Amazon.

     

    We are investing in making sellers successful; continually looking for ways to do the heavy lifting for them; and enabling them to sell more and make more money. We started with over 100 sellers and today this base has grown to more than 10,000 sellers.

     

    We now have seven fulfilment centres in India with a total storage capacity of half million square feet. All FCs are aimed at meeting fulfilment needs of retailers and small and medium-sized businesses and to help them achieve nationwide scale.

     

    We are the first ones in India to introduce customised, personalised and multi-lingual Amazon.in Gift Cards that enable customers to buy over 15 million products (excludes ebooks) from our marketplace. Customers can purchase the Amazon.in Gift Cards of any value starting from Rs 10 up to Rs 10,000. Available in nine Indian languages including Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Telugu, Malayalam, Bengali and Punjabi in more than 200 designs that celebrate various special and memorable occasions in a person’s life.

     

    Indian Postal Services (IPS) is one of the prime carriers that Amazon India uses as a delivery channel Amazon uses the extensive IPS network to service over 19,000 pin-codes through 140,000 post-offices across all 35 states and union territories in India. Number of deliveries through India Post has increased from 800 (June 2013) to 35,000 (in July 2014)

     

    For us it is always ‘Day 1’ and today we believe we have the right ingredients to entice and delight our customers with a trusted online shopping experience.

     

    Learning points so far about the Indian consumer and the e-commerce market in India?

     

    Our experience of working around the world has shown one thing, that customers around the world are similar. Customers around the world always want a vast selection at low prices and a convenient, reliable and trustworthy online shopping experience. Indian customers are no different.  I am yet to come across a customer who will say that they want a smaller selection or higher prices. And we are focused on ensuring that we are able to deliver and raise the bar for online shopping in India.

     

    What are your views about the Indian e-commerce industry and what are your expectations from the sector in the coming future?

     

    Indian e-commerce space is still at a very nascent stage with significant potential for innovation to improve customer experience. The growth is at an inflection point. With increasing internet penetration, both broadband and smartphones, there is an interest and demand from mini metros and smaller towns across the country. We see as a tremendous opportunity and are very excited by it.

  • Amazon.com enters into the world of online gaming

    Amazon.com enters into the world of online gaming

    MUMBAI: E-commerce giant Amazon.com bought Twitch Interactive, a popular Internet video channel for broadcasting and watching, people play videogames, for about $970 million in cash.

     

    The move, announced by the two companies is the largest deal in Amazon’s 20-year history and will help the US e-commerce company vie with Apple and Google in the fast-growing world of online gaming, which accounts for more than 75 per cent of all mobile app sales.

     

    Talking about the acquisition, Amazon.com’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, “Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month – from The International, to breaking the world record for Mario, to gaming conferences like E3. And, amazingly, Twitch is only three years old.

     

    “Like Twitch, we obsess over customers and like to think differently, and we look forward to learning from them and helping them move even faster to build new services for the gaming community,” he added.

     

    Twitch is a multi-channel online platform for people who not only enjoy playing video games, but find it entertaining to watch others who might impart tricks and tips for excelling at their favorite games. In July, more than 55 million unique visitors viewed more than 15 billion minutes of content on Twitch produced by more than 1 million broadcasters, including individual gamers, pro players, publishers, developers, media outlets, conventions and stadium-filling e-sports organisations.

     

    “Amazon and Twitch optimise for our customers first and we are both believers in the future of gaming,” said Twitch CEO Emmett Shear. “Being part of Amazon will let us do even more for our community. We will be able to create tools and services faster than we could have independently. This change will mean great things for our community and will let us bring Twitch to even more people around the world.”

     

    Twitch will help Amazon accelerate a push into web video that is brought it into competition with Netflix and Google’s YouTube. Twitch seized on the popularity of games like League of Legends and Minecraft, developing tools to let players broadcast their game sessions to an audience of more than 55 million users and generating revenue from advertising and subscriptions.

     

    According to media reports, Google also held talks about potentially acquiring Twitch as early as May.

     

    The deal, expected to close in the second half of the year, is an unusual step for Amazon, which tends to build from within or make smaller acquisitions.

  • Alia Bhatt becomes ‘Genius of the Year’

    Alia Bhatt becomes ‘Genius of the Year’

    MUMBAI: She tried altering India’s political landscape through ignorant replies during her appearance on the chat show Koffee with Karan. Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt then went on to become the reigning queen of santa-banta jokes on social media.

    But that hasn’t deterred the 21 year old who used her half witted comments into an opportunity to get back at everyone who laughed at her. In a new video put up by comedy group All India Backchod, the actress has truly become the ‘Genius of the Year.’

    The hilarious video begins with a short message- In 2014 a documentary crew followed ‘Alia Bhatt in the aftermath of her Koffee with Karan debacle.’ She is then seen visiting Dumb Belle Mental Gym which offers her to transform her from ‘Dolce and Gabbana to Smart like Shabana (Azmi)’

    Here, she is recommended a healthy diet consisting of newspapers and novels and is made to do away from junk food like Bollywood gossip. Her BMI (Brain Mein IQ) which was nearly nonexistent receives a boost of knowledge through music. Bhatt then finds herself again on the gossip show Koffee with Karan and stuns the cold soul host Johar with her sharp replies.

    The documentary also features other Bollywood actors like Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra, her father and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt and mentor Karan Johar. Her two famous songs;

    ‘Saturday Saturday’ from Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania has been changed to ‘Faraday Faraday’, while ‘Radha On The Dance Floor’ has been made into ‘Sodium On The Dance Floor’.

    Available online, it’s indeed a treat for both her fans and critics and is directed by Shakun Batra.

    Click here to watch the video

     

  • Indian weavers to get an online platform now

    Indian weavers to get an online platform now

    MUMBAI: With a view of giving a boost to the handloom industry of the county, the Ministry of Textiles has announced that the Ministry through Development Commissioner for Handlooms has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with e-commerce platform Flipkart. The aim of the partnership is to provide online marketing coverage to the sector.

     

    The collaboration will empower the weavers and boost manufacturing in the country. Through this exclusive agreement, Flipkart’s aim is to provide weavers in India online marketing platform, infrastructural support in data analytics and customer acquisition to help them get remunerative prices for their products and scale up their business.

     

    The MoU was signed in the presence of the Minister of State (Independent Charge) Textiles, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Flipkart VP – Marketplace, Ankit Nagori, Development Commissioner (Handlooms) SK Panda and other officials of the Ministry of Textiles.

     

    The Minister for Textiles while speaking on the occasion congratulated the heads all the organisations and maintained that they must work tirelessly for the uplift of weavers and ensure the success of the venture. He mentioned that periodic review of the sales and progress of the weavers in the targeted clusters should be carried out emphasising that the focus of this association should be to help weavers and weaver entrepreneurs to produce products in tune with the buyer requirements and grow significantly so that they may become manufacturers not only at a local but also at a national level.

     

    According to the release by Ministry; this kind of a coordinated effort has been planned and executed for the first time with Flipkart for handloom weavers which will bridge the missing linkages of market intelligence, market access and logistics and help the Indian weavers in getting remunerative prices for their products.

     

    The weavers will sell their products under their brand name and evolve as an entrepreneur selling his products directly to buyers across the country without stepping out of their workplace. The data analytics and market intelligence provided by Flipkart will help the weavers focus only on producing better saleable product ranges. This in turn will help them plan their production and inventory and expand their business.

     

    This partnership will connect the artisans directly to the buyers and the guidance by Flipkart in packaging, collecting and delivering to the buyer will motivate the artisans in rural India.

     

    Earlier this month, Flipkart signed a MoU with the Ministry of Labour and Employment’s Directorate General of Employment & Training (DGET), aiming to train at least 5,000 students by December. Flipkart joined hands with the government to train people from semi-urban and rural areas and possibly employ them at the company or its business partners.

  • Gender discrimination apparent in comments on Pak artistes in Indian films, says Pak website

    Gender discrimination apparent in comments on Pak artistes in Indian films, says Pak website

    NEW DELHI: Even as several artistes from Pakistan are striking it rich in Bollywood, the social media in Pakistan is full of criticism about them.

     

    Two recent entrants are Fawad Afzal Khan in Khoobsoorat and Humaima Mallick in Raja Natwarlal.

     

    The response has been full of reproach.  Some pages on Facebook also have abusive remarks from their own country fellows especially Humaima Mallick who is facing discontentment for recording bold scenes in her upcoming movie with Imran Hashmi.

     

    The ‘horrendous condemnation’ on Humaima Mallick is reminder of Veena Malik’s social media trial from which she terribly failed to sustain, according to Pakistan’s MoreMag.

     

    Interestingly, Fawad Khan has received some praise from Pakistanis as he was already popular in the country. He has got some successful dramas in his fleet like Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzaar hai, with the latter being telecast on Zee’s Zindagi channel.

     

    Describing it as sad, MoreMag said the other reason may be gender discrimination.

     

    When Humaima kisses Imran Hashmi, she has to face outrage and there is a lot of hue and cry for not preserving the dignity of Pakistani culture but when Fawad does the same with Sonam Kapoor, people enjoy it, the website points out, referring to these as ‘patriarchal behaviours’.

     

    Imran Abbas with his charming and appealing looks also gained much popularity on social media especially with girls. With some of romantic scenes with Bipasha Basu, he definitely nailed it and therefore is enjoying healthy appreciation on social media. Some people also criticised him for being too bold.

     

    Social media is already a terrifying place for celebrities from all around the globe, whether it is for Bieber or Kim Kardashian, says the report, adding they all have been thrashed badly by the people for no considerable reason.

     

    ‘Social media has become a place where people dispose of all their frustrations,’ the report concludes.

  • Movies use social media to gain traction

    Movies use social media to gain traction

    NEW DELHI: At a time when feature films are lucky if they last one week at the theatres, the social media has made it possible for them to reach more people through mediums like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and just plain e-mail.

     

    Two forthcoming movies have already broken records as far the popularity of their trailers on social media goes: Viacom18 Motion Pictures and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Mary Kom, and Red Chillies Entertainments and Farah Khan directed Happy New Year.  

    The trailer of Mary Kom has had a current viewership of over 4.3 million. The trailer of the biopic based on the life of the five-time World Championship and Olympic medalist is one of the most successful trailers of all time.

     

    Overwhelmed with the response, Omung Kumar who makes his directorial debut with the film said, “First we were overwhelmed with the response to the first look of the film. The trailer touched people and many people called to tell me that they cried after seeing it. The most touching response for me was from a lady from the north east, who had somehow found out my mobile number and called to say how seeing the trailer, she felt so proud and felt grateful for what it was attempting to do for women, sports and most importantly, people from the region.” 

    Priyanka Chopra who has enacted the title role said, “I was in shock after the response to the first look of the poster itself! I remember we were shooting in Turkey and I tweeted it and went back to shooting. By the time I came back, my phone was flooded with SMSs and over 3,500 Twitter messages loving it. I thought my phone would explode. The nicest response I got post the trailer was when Mary called me and said, `My kids saw you and thought it is me.’ For me, if I could convince a mother’s children despite not looking like her, it made me proud.” The biggest compliment that came the actress’ way however was from Farhan Akhtar when he said, `Mary ko Milkha ka salaam.”

    Producer Sanjay Leela Bhansali said, “Mary Kom’s story is an inspiring one that touched my heart. Not many films are based on biopics of living people, so this is a rare experiment. I am extremely proud of it.”

     
    Produced by Viacom18 Motion Pictures and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Mary Kom stars Priyanka Chopra and Darshan Kumar in the lead. The movie will be released on 5 September.

     

    Red Chillies Entertainments claimed that the views of the trailer of its Happy New Year from all platforms crossed a record breaking number of four million in 24 hours.

     

    The first trailer to be launched on Facebook, became the most viewed movie trailer on Facebook Native Player across the globe with 1.5 million trailer views, 2.8 million post interaction and over 18 million FB users reached, and over 360,000 likes for the trailer which is the highest ever.

     

    On Twitter, it had 1.5 billion impressions only on 14 August and five hashtags trending of Happy New Year.

     

    It had over two million views across various YouTube partner channels. It became the first film to send a trailer via WhatsApp.

     

    The trailer on the DTH platform Tata Sky reached over 13 million subscribers and each one had to watch the channel 100 when they switched on their TV sets before they could go to any other channel of their choice.

     

    Airtel WAP had over 15 million visitors every day while over 300,000 fans received it via SMS service (missed call facility). Over 25,000 fans received the trailer via email.

    While most of the films opt for the conventional YouTube platform, the trailer of Happy New Year slated to release around Diwali was first launched on Facebook’s native video player using an application wherein the trailer was not only launched on the Facebook page of the film but also the timelines of all the users who subscribed to the app. 

     

    “In keeping with the tradition of innovation established by Red Chillies, we were delighted to launch the trailer of HNY for the first time across multiple platforms. This was also done to meet the demands of fans who are consuming talent in ways that suit them. This has given the trailer an unprecedented footprint and delighted the fans,” said RCE CEO Venky Mysore.

     

    The trailer was launched on the native video player of Twitter with personalised messages from the cast of the film. “Red Chillies and the cast of Happy New Year understand the value of developing live, personal and interactive connections with their audience, which is only possible on Twitter. From the entire cast and crew sharing every moment of film production on Twitter via their personal handles to their launching personalised trailers and posters on Twitter, Happy New Year has set a new national and global standard in the movie business,” said Twitter India market director Rishi Jaitley.

     

    The trailer was also launched on the conventional platform of YouTube on all channels of the partners (Music distributors T-Series and film distributors Yash Raj Films) of the film along with Red Chillies’ official channel.

  • redBus crosses 2 million downloads

    redBus crosses 2 million downloads

    MUMBAI: redBus.in, number 1 online bus ticketing platform in India, crossed 2 million app downloads last week across its three platforms – Android, iOS and Windows. redBus achieved this feat in 22 months. 

    redBus completed its 1st million downloads in 18 months and next 1 million came in just 4 months’ time. redBus is now one of the highest downloaded travels app in India and also maintains a high rating of 4.3+ across its 3 apps. 

    redBus is focusing deeply on its mobile customers by releasing some key product features like real time travel tips, live tracking on mobile, directions to boarding points, suggest best dropping point, one touch payments & cancellation etc. These innovations have not only helped redBus build a loyal customer base for its apps but also reach new customers organically. redBus mobile now accounts for than ~35% of its online transactions and half of its traffic comes from mobile now. 

    Prakash Sangam, CEO, redBus.in says: At the ibiboGroup, we have disproportionate focus on the mobile platform. Over the past year, most of the innovation and go-to-market at redBus has centered around Mobile. This strategy seems to be paying off well making redBus possibly the most downloaded app in the OTA space. And with an average rating of 4.3 across all store fronts, it is certainly the highest rated app in its category. Mobile would witness continued investments in the days to come.”

     

  • Govt identifies broadband and mobile networks as key growth pillars

    Govt identifies broadband and mobile networks as key growth pillars

    NEW DELHI: The government has identified broadband and mobile networks as the key growth pillars to achieve its targets under the digital India programmme.

     

    It identified two areas of growth: broadband and mobile in untapped areas where the Telecom Ministry wants to spend more funds. It started allocating more finance for the initiative and the government is trying to achieve its targets in advance.

     

    The government has enhanced expenditure on broadband network to connect all 2,50,000 village panchayats to Rs 32,000 crore against Rs 20,000 crore approved by the previous government, according to a PTI report.

     

    The BJP government is also trying to advance deadline to finish roll out of national optical fibre network (NOFN) to December 2016 from the earlier announced date of March 2017.

     

    Recently, TRAI chairman Rahul Khullar criticised the delay in executing NOFN project, saying private sector companies should be part of such large projects.

     

    The Indian government has earmarked Rs 16,000 crore to provide mobile connectivity to approximately 42,300 villages that still don’t have any network coverage. The deadline to offer mobile connectivity in these unconnected villages is 2018.

     

    The BJP government has decided to create national information infrastructure at a cost of Rs 15,686 crore. The project will include integration of existing programmes like the National Knowledge Network (NKN) and NOFN.

     

    Under the National Rural Internet Mission, government has earmarked fund of Rs 4750 crore to roll out common service centres (CSCs) across 2.5 lakh villages.

     

    Through CSCs, people in rural area get access to government services like birth certificate, train tickets, pay various fees etc without actually having to visit the concerned office. The CSCs are present at about 1.3 lakh locations.

     

    Besides this, the union government has earmarked Rs 200 crore to train one crore students in small towns and villages for IT sector jobs over period of next five years.

     

    UPA government had started NKN to connect 1,500 universities with high speed broadband network.

     

    The NDA government has decided to provide wi-fi at all universities in the country with an estimated cost of Rs 790 crore by the end of next year.

     

    Under digital India programme, government has decided to spend Rs 98 crore on secure email, which will now be the primary mode of communications, for official communications.

     

    At present 10 lakh government employees have been moved to secure email communication and by March 2015 around 50 lakh employees will be moved on to the new system.

     

    The union cabinet on Wednesday approved the digital India programme that deals with all projects involving IT and communication technology like e-governance and broadband connectivity. The initial cost of the project, to be implemented over the next five years, is estimated at Rs 1,13,000 crore.

     

    The Digital India programme has various other provisions which include wi-fi hotspots at public places, e-books for schools, national portal for lost and found children, biometric attendance at government offices for which funds are yet to be finalised.

  • Jabong expects up to 1000 orders a day from ‘Next-Door’ service in a year

    Jabong expects up to 1000 orders a day from ‘Next-Door’ service in a year

    MUMBAI: With logistics one of the biggest challenges in the country, physical delivery of products is not feasible in a number of villages and rural communities. Coming up with a solution to the concern and an opportunity to increase its consumer base, one of India’s biggest fashion retailers, Jabong.com has come up with a new ‘Next-Door’ service.

     

    The service will enable customers to pick up their order at the nearest coffee shop, petrol station or tour operator. The trial for the pickup service is going to start soon in 39 towns, including Murshidabad in West Bengal, Chandausi in UP, Dahod in Gujarat and Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.

     

    Talking about the new initiative, Jabong’s cofounder and managing director Praveen Sinha says, “This will open channels for the consumers in the rural areas. The pilot for the pickup service will be launched in 469 pincodes and 114 pickup points.”

     

    Piloting the most extensive initiative of its kind by an Indian company, the Delhi-based online fashion retailer, Jabong.com gets about 55 per cent of its revenue from non-metro centres and Sinha expects a double digit contribution in sales from this new scheme once the services scale up.

     

    “We are expecting about 20 orders a day in the first round of the service while anticipating it to go up to 200-1000 orders a day within a year,” he adds.

     

    While the revenue model for the new collaboration is still undecided, Sinha said that it is most likely to be a mixture of giving some per cent out of the revenue to the partners or on the number of orders it receives. It will find a balance between the two so that no one is at a loss.

     

    With 700 per cent growth in mobile usage, Jabong is banking more on the smart phone users in the non-metro regions for the success of this new venture. At Jabong, mobile users now contribute 25 per cent of its orders and Sinha expects it to cross 50 per cent in the next five years.

     

    Even though Jabong declined to share financial details about the partnership Sinha reckons, “The company is growing 100 per cent year-on-year and was valued at $26 million in the month of December 2013.”

     

    Since e-commerce in India is still booming, 60-65 per cent of its customers use the cash on delivery (COD) mode of payment and according to the co-founder, it will still be open to the customers in the pickup service launched by them.

     

    E-commerce sector companies are now beginning to experiment with newer techniques, mergers and acquisitions. While companies like Flipkart-Myntra are already in collaboration, Jabong is not currently looking at any mergers or acquisitions but is not closed to the idea.

     

    E-commerce space in India has been growing like gangbusters with an annual growth rate of 56 per cent. Over the past four to five years, competition from online retailers such as Flipkart (in books, music and electronics) and Myntra and Jabong (in apparel) has hurt physical retailers. Commenting on the advancing E-commerce industry, Sinha states, “Indian e-commerce space will increase up to eight times by 2018-2020 to $30 billion.”

  • Spuul premiers Mumbhai Connection

    Spuul premiers Mumbhai Connection

    Spuul, the popular online streaming service for Indian cinema and television, brings the ultimate movie experience right to its users with the premiere of Mumbhai Connection. Viewers can avail the offline sync feature to watch this highly appreciated movie, which had a day and date release on Spuul on Friday, August 22.

     

    Spuul users worldwidecan watch Mumbhai Connection on all second screen devices including mobile, web, smart TV’s etc. the same day it hits theatres. Spuul, which is the official online partner for the movie has opted for the day and date strategy to offer trade with the advantage of multiple screens. This initiative comes in the wake of providing content to its customers so as to avoid piracy.

     

    Mumbhai Connection is the story of an Indian salesman who joins an Atlanta IT company only to learn that it is run by the Mumbai mafia. Revealing the functioning of the powerful and dangerous mafia, it shows how the salesman’s life changes overnight as he finds himself trapped. Mumbhai Connection features RafiqBatcha, Srinivas, Dick Mays, Aliessa P. Badresia, Chrissy Chambers, Eli Jones and David Peirce. The movie is about the hardships of a boy who has all the goodness in his heart and mind.

     

    Speaking on this development, Prakash Ramchandani, Chief Content Officer, Spuul said, “Spuul is very well placed to meet the growing demands of the movie watchers online. We are excitedto add Mumbhai Connection in our library and make quality content easily accessible. The idea is to curb piracy and provide a legal platform for the industry.”

     

    RafiqBatcha, Producer-Actor of Mumbhai Connection, said,“The Mumbhai Connection team is very pleased to be associated with Spuul and have them as Video on demand partners. Mumbhai Connection is dark absurd comedy about the world of IT clashing with the world of Mafia. Its novel plotline is bound to connect with metro audiences in India especially the youth who are cutting edge users of technology. With Spuul as partner, we are able to make our award winning film available on platforms that these audiences use most the most for their media consumption. Mumbhai Connection is the first Hindi film set and shot in Atlanta, USA.”

     

    Spuul, standing by its promise of being consistent and providing new content recently introduced the comedy club, which includes funny shows like Jay Hind!. The users can also have hassle – free entertainment at home or while travelling with offline sync for free. We are working behind the scenes to bring you the best in Indian entertainment so stay tuned for more!