ITV

Category: iWorld

  • Junglee.com launches android smartphone app

    Junglee.com launches android smartphone app

    Mumbai: Junglee.com, India’s #1 product search and price comparison website has announced the availability of its mobile app for android smartphones. This launch makes it convenient for customers to check prices of over 3.1 crore products anywhere through the easy to use app.  Customers can download the free app by simply searching for Junglee in Google Play Store or by giving a missed call to 1800 108 8080.

     

    The app has multiple features to help customers search and get to the right product. These include an auto-suggest feature, filters to help refine results by brand, price, item condition, discount, average customer review and more attributes. In a market first, the app enables shoppers to search across  online and local sellers  together as well as compare prices across new and used products, all in one place.  In addition to checking prices, the app allows shoppers access to reviews for millions of products that are listed on Junglee.com .Shoppers can check prices  and read product reviews anywhere , at home , office and while shopping at retail stores. The seller ratings help customers evaluate sellers and choose the right one and  shoppers  can buy on the seller site or directly call sellers, from the app .

     

    “We recognize that shoppers value their time and money. We are excited to bring this app to our customers.  So whether you are in a mall or at office or work, customers can now check prices and shop smart using the app. Being a lightweight app, it downloads fast from the app store, saving precious device storage space and data download charges for customers. Its simple user interface makes it easier and less time-consuming to search or browse products”, said Junglee.com’s General Manager Mahendra Nerurkar.

  • COAI gets a new core member in Reliance Jio Infocomm

    COAI gets a new core member in Reliance Jio Infocomm

    MUMBAI:  In a new addition to the core members of Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) has joined telecom industry body, reported PTI. With this, its core members have risen to seven.

     

    After being at loggerheads regarding spectrum allocation issues, COAI and RJIL have finally put their problems behind and joined hands. This move precedes RJIL’s pan-India rollout of 4G services next year. The company holds pan India broadband wireless access spectrum that can be used for 4G services.

     

    Prior to RJIL joining the association, COAI had six core members — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Unitech Wireless (now Telewings Communications) and Videocon Communications (now Videocon Telecom).

     

    Talking about the new member, COAI’s director general Rajan S Mathews said, “We are delighted that Reliance Jio Infocomm has joined us in our common endeavour to roll out innovative and affordable mobile broadband services to the citizens of India.”

     

    COAI represents mobile service providers, telecom equipment manufacturers and other communication services and product companies in India. Members of the telecom body jointly have about 68 percent of subscribers and around 71 percent of revenue share in the market.

     

    Besides its core members, it also has 12 associate members. COAI has opened the associate membership to social media companies like Facebook. Other associate members include Alcatel-Lucent India, Cisco Systems India, Ericsson India, IBM India, GTL Infrastructure, Huawei Technologies, Indus Towers, Intel Corporation, Nokia Networks, Qualcomm India and ZTE India.

     

    Corroborating the news, RJIL’s managing director, Sandip Das said, “We are pleased to join the COAI, where along with other operators, we hope to create an operating environment that will help us realise this ambition for all Indians as an industry, in the overall context of our nation’s development.”

     

    In addition to fixed and wireless broadband connectivity, RJIL also plans to provide various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment. In the past, the company has also entered into agreements with telecom companies including COAI member Bharti Airtel and its mobile tower arm Bharti Infratel.

  • Snapdeal enters into Hospitality segment; launches ‘Hotel and Catering supplies’ Category

    Snapdeal enters into Hospitality segment; launches ‘Hotel and Catering supplies’ Category

    MUMBAI: India’s largest online market place, Snapdeal.com announces its entry into the hospitality segment by launching the category of ‘Hotel and Catering supplies’. Snapdeal currently has close to 500 diverse categories listed on its website, such as- Furniture and Hardware, Mobiles and Tablets, Fashion and Lifestyle and Automotive to name a few. 

     

    This latest initiative by the company is an endeavor towards assisting upcoming restaurateurs and individuals and groups who are handling (current or in future) catering businesses. Consumers can shop for an assortment of products including Baking & Pizza Supplies, Bar Accessories, Chaffing Dishes, heavy gauge cutlery glassware, professional knives among many others. The products listed, also cater to the needs of households who are looking to use chef recommended cookware and utensils. The category includes products that are used in a restaurant kitchen, right from preparation to serving and buffet display.

     

    “This launch will further strengthen Snapdeal’s leadership as a marketplace and a shopping destination for all kind of products across categories which fulfil customers’ both home and business requirements. They can now shop for the widest range of kitchenware, utensils, cutlery and glassware at the comfort and convenience of their homes. In future we also plan to integrate a whole range of hotel linen (Mattresses, Pillows, Bed Linen & Bath Linen) into the category and thereby meet all the needs of a hotel/ restaurant”, said Tony Navin Senior Vice President – Electronics & Home at Snapdeal.com.

     

    For further information, please click on http://www.snapdeal.com/products/home-kitchen-catering-equipment

  • DoT in favour of 10 per cent custom duty on telecom gear

    DoT in favour of 10 per cent custom duty on telecom gear

    MUMBAI: Following the uproar after the union budget proposed imposing 10 per cent import duty on telecom products not covered under Information Technology Agreement (ITA) 1 of WTO to boost domestic production of telecom products, media reports suggest that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) wants the Finance Ministry to retain the 10 per cent customs duty on specified telecom products as proposed in the budget.

     

    According to a report in Economic Times, a letter written by the DoT to the revenue secretary said, “Imposition of customs duty on specified telecom products will create a level playing field for domestic manufacturers who suffer severe disability due to poor infrastructure and inverted duty.”

     

    India is a signatory of ITA 1 as a member of World Trade Organisation. Under the pact, member countries should allow duty free import of products falling under eight categories covering telecom, computers and semiconductors like mobile phones and electronic chips.

     

    The telecom products mostly fall in the category of 2G, 3G as well as the 4G equipment, including switches and broadband equipment. These products are outside the list of about 220 electronic items on which India has a zero duty commitment under the World Trade Organisation’s Information Technology Agreement (ITA-1).  

     

    The Government, also, recently declared set top boxes as a part of telecom network. The move exempts STBs from various taxes and duties, bringing down prices, which the government hopes to pass on to consumers. In the first and second phase of cable digitisation, imported STBs accounted for about 95 per cent market share.  

     

    The letter also added that “India is under no obligation to allow duty free imports of items not covered in ITA-1.”

  • Private labels coming soon on Jabong

    Private labels coming soon on Jabong

    MUMBAI: As the e-commerce wars continue, online fashion retailer Jabong.com is all ready to jump in. According to PTI report, the company is planning to launch private label brands in the next 4-5 months.

     

    Talking to PTI, Jabong.com’s founder and CEO Arun Chandra Mohan said,  “We are setting up a full-fledged design team in London because we also want to create our own brands that provide good, fast, western fashion to the Indian consumers. We are in the final stages of setting up a top end design studio in London. It will be a team of the best fashion companies in the world that are going to be focusing only on creating the design. There is an immense opportunity to develop our own brands.”

     

    Jabong.com sells over 1,500 brands like Adidas, Puma, Levi’s, Converse, Proline, Nike among others. It also has apparels from leading fashion designers.

     

    Mohan added, “About 55-60 per cent of the company’s revenue comes from tier II and III cities. There are not enough malls in the smaller cities, which makes it conducive for people to shop online. We are growing at 10-15 per cent month on month. We are doing sales of about $30 million a month.”

     

    Commenting on the increasing e-commerce market in India, Mohan said that India is at an inflection point, where China was nearly three-four years ago.

     

    Jabong has also invested heavily on its mobile app because nearly 50 per cent of people are accessing internet through their mobile phones and that brings about 30 per cent revenue to the company.

  • First interactive WebTV in India to have live standup comedy online

    First interactive WebTV in India to have live standup comedy online

    NEW DELHI: The country’s first interactive WebTV IndiaPostLive.com has launched the comedy section of the portal which will have live standup comedy along with other shows.

     

    This is for the first time in India when viewers will be allowed to participate in the show using Google+ or Skype and share their humour with the world. The section will also have blogs, graphics and short videos.

     

    Talking about the collaboration, Indiapost Live founder CEO and editor BC Jojo said, “Comedy is an outstanding tool to communicate on the web space. It is the most widely used form in which the world connects to the internet and social media. We are anticipating that the new section will add value to the existing comedy culture with its quality content.”

     

    India Post Live has taken on board the artistes from comedy company JokeJokerJokest, Nishant Joke Singh and Abijit Ganguly. According to JokeJokerJokest, ”India Post Live is a dynamic startup with a vision of Web 3.0 which is absolutely in sync with stand-up comedy and the way our comedy company Joke Joker Jokest envisions it. We believe this would be a healthy partnership between the two of us and we would generate fabulous end to end comical content for our users”.

     

    The section will start with two promos which have already been released online.

     

    Promo 1 – When #Kejri met Yo Yo! – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09heXgjTQ3E&feature=youtu.be

     

    Promo 2 – Prankly speaking with Arnab  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHUDu6CMrgI&feature=youtu.be

     

    IndiaPostlive.com is the first video-streaming, interactive news conversation portal from India. It is a forum that brings together diverse and multidimensional editorial resources and helps participants put across their views and ideas on society, politics, economy, culture, business, sports, entertainment, lifestyle and more. IndiaPostLive.com also has live interactive shows around key events and issues locally and around the world.

  • OLX and Flipkart ink unique marketing tie-up

    OLX and Flipkart ink unique marketing tie-up

    MUMBAI: With more and more people accessing the internet through smartphones and tablets, the internet user base has grown to be around 243 million.  

     

    This has led to an exciting and booming e-commerce sector in the country. Last week, Flipkart announced that it had raised fresh capital of $1 billion; soon afterwards Amazon too announced that it will invest another $2 billion in India.

     

    And keeping the momentum going, OLX.in and Flipkart have tied-up for a unique marketing campaign that will leverage each other’s strengths to offer combined benefits of their platforms to the fast growing internet user base.

     

    OLX is marketplace for used goods, and Flipkart is a destination for online shopping, making this alliance between the two online brands an unprecedented one. The joint initiative by the two e-commerce leaders has been launched to further increase the awareness levels and accelerate the adoption of their online platforms for buying and selling. The campaign will run for one month, and will include several verticals within the electronics categories.

     

    OLX CEO Amarjit Batra said, “The idea for this tie-up was conceived keeping in mind the strong and independent position of OLX and Flipkart in their respective space. The rationale for the number one online classifieds platform and the leading e-commerce platform coming together for a marketing campaign is a seamless one. This tie-up will enhance consumer experience on OLX and Flipkart by giving users a more holistic online shopping experience in which they can sell their used goods on OLX before buying new products on Flipkart.”

     

    Flipkart sr VP marketing Ravi Vora added, “At Flipkart, our constant endeavor has been to make online shopping convenient and attractive to the masses in the country. With this partnership with OLX, we will be able to provide an end-to-end solution to customers especially in the electronics categories where selling old products is an integral part of the buying process.”

  • No plans to impose censorship or regulate social media: Javadekar

    No plans to impose censorship or regulate social media: Javadekar

    NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar has said that there were and are no plans to impose any censorship on social media or to regulate any programmes beamed through social media.

    The Minister told the Parliament that the Communication and Information Technology Ministry has given an assurance in this regard.

    Social media has become an important tool that is also being used by government departments to reach out to the people. Although he highlighted that section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000 allows blocking of any videos or information affecting society in the interest of public order.

     

    Earlier in the month of May, Javadekar had urged all central Ministries to disseminate their policy initiatives through the Communication Hub under the existing New Media Wing of his Ministry.

     

    Firmly believing in prolific use of social media, the Minister wrote to his cabinet colleagues for utilising the hub as a one-stop place for social media outreach.

    In his letter, he said each Ministry or department may liaise with the New Media Wing which will cater to all its needs such as disseminating information through packaging and placing of content, wider reach through variety of tools and response management.

     

    He said the two-way interaction envisaged in this endeavour would provide a 360 degree communication approach to the government and hence, help in last man connectivity. 

    He said the directive was in adherence to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wanted to use the social media platforms extensively for transparency and better governance. 

  • Facebook joins COAI as associate member

    Facebook joins COAI as associate member

    NEW DELHI: The leading mobile communications association in India, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), has announced the induction of Facebook India Online Services as an associate member.

     

    COAI’s associate membership comprises companies that manufacture or support the functioning, promotion, research development and evolution of mobile communications services. The induction of the Mark Zuckerberg-led company in COAI will help it in getting a bigger platform to interact with the leading mobile operators.

     

    Facebook, public policy director – India and south Asia Ankhi Das said, “Over 85 per cent of the world’s population lives in areas with existing cellular coverage, yet only about 30 per cent of the total population accesses the internet. Affordability and awareness are significant barriers to internet adoption. Facebook believes that overcoming these barriers and connecting people has immense value, from empowering people to exercise their rights to freely express themselves, promoting transparency and democratic values and allowing people to access affordable data services in areas such as health care, education and information, which they otherwise cannot afford. Access = opportunity – creating more economic, social and political opportunities for everybody.”

     

    She further added, “Joining COAI as an associate member reflects our focus on mobile technologies, access and our continued desire to work in collaboration with the industry to increase connectivity. We look forward to playing an active role as a member.”

     

    Founded in 2004, the social media giant Facebook aimed to is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Facebook has more than 1.32 billion monthly active users globally, including over 100 million monthly active users in India.

     

    COAI’s other associate members include Alcatel Lucent India, Cisco Systems India, Ericsson India, IBM India, GTL Infrastructure, Huawei Technologies, Indus Towers, Intel Corporation, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Qualcomm India  and ZTE India.

     

    Commenting on the induction COAI director general Rajan S Mathews said, “We welcome Facebook India Online Services to the COAI family. Social networking, especially Facebook, has changed the way Indians work, play, communicate, socialise and do business. We believe this will further grow to become a crucial part of and influence the socio-economic culture in the country. We feel that Facebook’s active participation in COAI activities will result in mutual value addition and bring the much needed synergy of functioning between the service providers and the content/VAS players.”

     

    Having started as an association for mobile service providers, COAI, today, has members including cellular service providers, telecom infrastructure companies, and telecom equipment manufacturers; and still expanding to include other allied and critical stakeholders of the sector.

  • FirstCry.com to expand offline footprint

    FirstCry.com to expand offline footprint

    MUMBAI: The last couple of months have been an exciting one for the blooming e-commerce sector. As more and more investors fund the e-commerce sites, the sector’s purple patch is here to stay for a long time.

     

    However, the niche e-commerce sector, FirstCry.com, which was launched in 2010 to solve Indian parents’ problem of not having access to the best brands and products for their kids, is planning to take the offline route as well.

     

    The company feels that e-commerce’s future is looking promising in the country as more and more people come online and continues to be a big focus for us. “But what we see as a larger vision is to build an ecosystem of solutions for parents. Since, parents exhibit hybrid behaviour of shopping online and offline, we decided right at our inception that it was important to have offline stores as well. Today with a footprint in over 20 states with more than 70 stores, we are in a great position to offer the right variety of brands and products to parents,” says Firstcry.com founder and CEO Supam Maheshwari.

     

    With more than 95 per cent sales happening offline, there is still a large part of baby products market to be tapped, it has a vision of reaching 400 stores offline by December 2017. Currently, FirstCry stores have their presence in many Tier I, II and III cities in 45 cities.

     

    However, by entering into the untapped markets, where offline presence of baby products is low, it is highly optimistic about the company’s growth.

     

    On the marketing front, one of the key aspects of its strategy is to keep online and offline integrated. A parent who shops with FirstCry.com should be able to get the same experience online and offline. “We have a strong e-mailing program through which we are able to send personalised mailers making parents aware of store openings, promotions etc. In addition, we have introduced a highly innovative concept of a 32 inch digital Kiosk installed in each store – since a store is limited by physical space, we have used the Kiosk to allow parents to browse the large online variety and order what they like and the order will be delivered at the store. We also have a FirstCry Box program wherein we reach over 60,000 new parents each month with a complimentary gift box. Through this box, we make new parents aware of stores in their area and also offer a gift coupon which can be redeemed online or offline. Through a lot of such initiatives, we are able to ensure that we scale up our marketing plans with the highest ROI metrics,” says Maheshwari.

     

    Franchisee investment of about Rs 3,000 per square feet is required for setting up a store, which ranges anywhere from 1000 square feet to 2000 square feet. The stores act as experience centers, successfully tackling the touch-and-feel challenges faced in purchasing online.

     

    Overall, Firstcry keeps its model robust and scalable by controlling the franchisee’s investments, giving high return on investment and faster payback that has been instrumental in a break-even since inception. Firstcry.com along with its stakeholders looks forward to growing in terms of business and loyalty both.