MxMIndia

Category: Digital

  • Anupam has eight years of digital marketing experience and has had a front row seat to the evolution of the medium in India

    Anupam Dixit takes on Industry Manager role at Twitter

    By A Correspondent

     

    Twitter India has announced the appointment of Anupam Dixit as Twitter’s first Industry Manager in India. As Twitter’s first Industry Manager in India, Anupam is responsible for providing support for Indian advertising campaigns leveraging the company’s platform for live, public conversations, while working with industry-leading marketers to increase engagement with their customers on Twitter.

     

    Anupam has eight years of digital marketing experience and has had a front row seat to the evolution of the medium in India. In his last role, he was Head, Digital Marketing & eCommerce at MTS, India’s leading CDMA telecom operator, where he worked on the MTS Internet Baby campaign - which is one of the most-viewed brand commercial on YouTube among other award winning digital innovations.

     

    Prior to MTS, he launched Blyk - a youth mobile messaging media platform - in India; besides starting his first digital venture EveryMedia – now India’s largest digital movie marketing company.

     

  • The festival site will have all kinds of categories including real estate, automobiles, consumer durables, electronics, FMCG products, music and entertainment.

    GroupM, Google join hands to launch online shopping fest for Diwali

    By Pritha Mitra Dasgupta

     

    They are now in talks to rope in a top e-commerce company to partner the event and provide logistics support, officials of the two firms said. While GroupM will bring in the brands that will sell their products on the website, Google will help with the technology for the shopping festival that will run for three weeks starting October 1.

     

    CVL Srinivas

    “Grand Diwali Mela is taking offline festive experiences online,” CVL Srinivas, chief executive officer at GroupM South Asia, said. “It will allow users to window shop, browse merchandise and, in some cases, sample products as well, just like your local mela,” he added. Rajan Anandan, country head at Google India, said people can join the festival through their mobile phones. “This will be first of its kind initiative to kick off the festive season in India. Our teams are very excited about this and we are sponsoring the effort that will be accessible across all kinds of devices, including mobile phones,” he said.

     

    The festival site will have all kinds of categories including real estate, automobiles, consumer durables, electronics, FMCG products, music and entertainment. A number of FMCG brands will sample their new food and beverage products through the website, officials said.

     

    The real estate segment will provide information on new properties including layout plans and facilitate site visits. Similarly, people interested in cars and bikes can get details of different models and schedule test drives on the site. GroupM and Google are in the process of signing on brands – including those that Group M does not handle – to participate in the event. “Through this initiative we are trying to help brands graduate to the virtual world,” GroupM’s Mr Srinivas said.

     

    GroupM has already ideated and created an advertising campaign to promote the Grand Diwali Mela across different media platforms including TV, radio, print, internet and social media. Officials said that if the Diwali festival proves a success, than they will host similar events around other major festivals and occasions.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

  • With rise of e-commerce, deal or coupon sites such as Coupon Dunia and Groupon see revenue rising around 500%

    Deal sites make hay as e-comm rises

     

    By Payal Ganguly & Aditi Shrivastava

     

    The fierce rivalry among ecommerce sites to snag new customers through massive discounts has expectedly led to burgeoning sales at couponing sites that enable users get products and services online at a steal.

     

    With the rise of e-commerce, deal buying and couponing sites, such as Coupon Dunia, Groupon and several others, have seen revenue rise as much as 500%, most of it attributed to the bigger players – Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal.

     

    In a couponing website, a customer can search for a particular discount voucher and use that code to get a discount or cashback on an etailer’s website. “I see couponing as a less exploited marketing tool as of now. Going ahead, as ecommerce grows, we will see more and more success for these sites,” said Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail advisory firm Technopak.

     

    A majority of transactions for these portals still come from the bigger ecommerce sites like Flipkart, Amazon India, Jabong, Fashionara and MakeMyTrip, among others.

     

    “A lot of online shoppers start their shopping journey from these (couponing) sites, and we do get a healthy share of business from them,” said Darpan Munjal, co-founder of Fashionara.

     

    The couponing sites get commissions that vary across merchants and categories. For electronics, it is 2-5%. For clothing it’s between 10% and 15% or even higher. Travel sites usually pay about Rs 100-300 per flight booking. Some ecommerce partners like RedBus pay fixed amounts per transaction regardless of cart size.

     

    “At Myntra, we are working with several affiliate networks for more than two years, directly or indirectly. Affiliates drive about 10-15% of our overall transactions,” said Deepak Srikumar, head of digital marketing at Myntra.

     

    “The coupons on ecommerce site are usually directed at customer acquisition and ensure that the customer revisits the site the next time to redeem the coupons,” said Rachna Nath, leader of retail and consumer at advisory firm PwC.

     

    In 2012, Amazon entered in India through price-comparison and lead generation site Junglee, which it bought years earlier. Mature markets like the United States, have seen some couponing websites including Coupons.com, RetailMeNot.com, even go public in the past couple of years. Japanese ecommerce giant recently bought couponing site Ebates to enter the US market.

     

    The opportunity in India is also huge. Indian ecommerce market is expected to reach Rs 50,000 crore by 2016, according to Crisil. Going ahead, these sites are betting on mobile to drive its revenue. “We expect our mobile app to be a game changer,” said 30-yearold Sameer Parwani, who started CouponDunia from Boston in the United States in 2010. The company, which has now been acquired by Times Internet, is expanding its offline restaurant coupon business and expects to earn a revenue of Rs 40 crore in fiscal 2016.

     

    “With a higher discount range in all the online stores, people are completely involved in shopping online, mainly due to the cash on delivery and return policy features,” said KR Murle, founder of Getextrabux, a cashback, deal hunting and price comparison portal. The company, which was set up with an investment of about Rs 45 lakh, pays around 60-90% of the commission it earns to the customers as cashback.

     

    The tech-based companies have consciously chosen to stay away from the local-deals model. “Working with local retailers could be tricky as sometimes the deals get oversubscribed and they run out of margin,” said Swati Bhargava, cofounder of Cashkaro. “For us, online was a better way since it’s a volume game we are targeting.”

     

    Cashkaro said its sales have gone up 500% in one year. “While I don’t mind paying to (these couponing sites) to get new customers, if I had to pay for a repeat customer, I wouldn’t be very happy,” said Praveen Sinha, managing director of Jabong.

     

    The mobile-first has worked well for Mydaala. com which is one of the few surviving deal sites for local businesses. “We were one of the first to tap into analytics which helped us user-specific deals every time they logged in but presently no one seems to be working with local merchants,” said Anisha Singh, founder and CEO of Mydaala. com, which introduced couponing for all major telcos last year.

     

    However, local-deals space remains niche with few players venturing into it. “When we entered the market in 2011, there was a lot of competition in India and none of these sites curated the merchants who were a part of it. As a result, once the customer has a bad experience, he would never come back to the coupon or deal site,” said Ankur Warikoo, CEO of Groupon India.

     

    He said that Groupon has evolved to accommodate a mix of transactions keeping in mind the growing ecommerce industry. While local deals contribute to 60% of Groupon’s business, 25% comes from manufacturers who list directly with the site to sell and the remaining 15% is driven by travel deals.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • The event saw a turnout of around 200-odd marketing enthusiasts learn about future marketing trends, understanding consumer behaviour, the mix of social and mobile media among a host of other topics

    Mobile marketers discuss trends & future at IAMAI Summit

    By Sneha Johari

     

    The number of connected Indians is also going to exceed the English newspaper circulation in India by ten times and will exceed the English speaking population in India by 1.5 times. These and a variety of other facts and figures were discussed and deliberated on at the Mobile Marketing Summit 2014, organised by the trade association IAMAI at the Hyatt Regency in Mumbai on Wednesday. The event saw a turnout of around 200-odd marketing enthusiasts learn about future marketing trends, understanding consumer behaviour, the mix of social and mobile media among a host of other topics.

     

    Rajesh Jain

    Rajesh Jain, Chief People Officer of netCORE Solutions spoke about the integration of marketing and technology which is already upon us (and is slowly merging). Tushar Vyas, Managing Partner Interaction of GroupM South Asia took some stand-out numbers and presented them in the context of the Indian online population.Talking about the next 100 million users (the upcoming generation as well as people who are converting to smartphones), in the near future, the number of connected Indians is going to be larger than the US population. India is the world’s second largest online user base. He also gave the stats on the number of connected Indians exceeding English newspaper circulation cited earlier. Mr Vyas added that the tolerance for delay (in any service) is decreasing as the information gap closes in and more and more things become available to a consumer faster. “The mobile web is increasingly becoming visual and discoverability is now social,” said Mr Vyas.

     

    Neeraj Roy

    Neeraj Roy, MD and CEO of Hungama Digital Media Entertainment stressed on the statistics of mobile consumers. “79% of smartphone owners are also smartphone shoppers. The Asia Pacific region will have the largest in B2C e-commerce in the near future,” said Mr Roy. Content is consumed across devices and people want a uniform experience across devices. The CEO of Proscape Services, Michele Raspone demonstrated how Proscape helped in cutting costs and enabling technology for their clients.

     

     

     

    Nishant Rao

    In the midst of all marketing talks, Nishant Rao, MD, LinkedIn India spoke about how mobile could be leveraged to become more productive professionals. He stressed on the importance of having a simple app for your business which worked efficiently and delivered the content or service. “Mobile is a mindset,” said Mr Rao. It should not be viewed as a technology separate from our lives. When asked by an audience member whether it would be best to have an all in one app, a mix of Facebook and LinkedIn, Nishant said that although that would be a nice idea, people prefer to keep their personal and professional lives separate.

     

    As the Summit progressed, a session on Marketing APPeal: Nuances of Mobile App Marketing discussed important aspects of investing in apps, best methods for a marketer to retain users on the app, native ads, how to use push notifications effectively while increasing consumer engagement and how to prevent overexposure of information. Rohan Tyagi, Digital Product Head of ABP News, said that push notifications helped in increasing their user engagement fourfold. This led to higher consumption of news. “You need to study your app as well as its users carefully. We segregated our users based on their engagement (high or low engagement) and delivered notifications accordingly,” Mr Tyagi said.

     

    Veer Chand Bothra, Chief Innovation Officer of netCORE Solutions said that looking at the app as content was necessary. He also mentioned that content is the king. His advice to marketers using apps? “Integrate all your information channels- voice (call), SMS, push notifications and email. As a marketer, take an omni-channel approach where the experience remains uniform across platforms,” Mr Bothra replied. Jay Jain, Director and Co-Founder of m-AdCall Digital Media, an app which lets you earn incentives for watching ads, said, borrowing from experience, “Give points to your consumers to bring them back to your app.”

     

    Nitish Tipnis, the ‘old-school’ Director of Marketing & Sales, Hover Automobile India neatly demonstrated Nissan’s social-only approach to the launch of its SUV, the Terrano and the phenomenal results they got from this medium last year. Nitish elaborated on how the customer is interested is knowing how technology works for them, that as marketers we should not bombard them with high-end tech specs but rather simplify and explain. In his research, he found that 95% of automobile-buying prospects research online before making a decision to purchase an automobile. “Create conversation, ensure quick responses, use multiple channels to engage with customers,” Mr Tipnis suggested.

     

    Rajiv Dingra

    The last plenary session explored the symbiosis between Mobile Marketing and Social Media. Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO, WATConsult, talked about using the right kind of content for social and differentiating correctly between the print, TV and online, especially social media.

     

    Snehi Mehta, Head – Client Solutions, Facebook India said, “Brands must have a voice on social platforms. Facebook is not just a social media platform, it is a mass media platform. We have to simplify planning metrics. Planning metrics have changed. It’s not about a 30 second advertisement anymore. The need of the hour is optimum reach.”

     

    Different case studies were also presented towards the end of the Summit.

     

  • With $1bn in a year-odd of ops, Team India is just fabulous, says Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on his second trip to the country and the first after launching .in

    India Matters for Billionnaire Bezos

     

    By Pankaj Mishra & Karthik Subbaraman

     

    India has surpassed the highest expectations for Amazon, the company’s founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said, promising to keep the money tap open for a business that he announced has sold goods worth more than $1 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) in just over a year of operations.

     

    “We had very high expectations and this team has blown past our highest expectations… It’s going extraordinarily well,” said Mr Bezos, 50, who is making his second visit to India and his first after Amazon launched its India retail business in June 2013. “The results are very good. Now that’s why we are doubling down our investments… If there is an opportunity to invest more, we will. We are not capital-constrained, we are ideas-constrained,” he said in an interview.

     

    In July, Mr Bezos committed to invest $2 billion in India, just a day after India’s biggest online retailer Flipkart announced $1 billion in funding, setting the stage for a battle for top honours in a market that retail advisory Technopak expects to be worth $32 billion (Rs 1.9 lakh crore) by 2020.

     

    With an estimated net worth of $30 billion, Mr Bezos is one of the world’s richest men and India is crucial to his plans for Amazon, given the country’s size and potential, and especially since it has failed to make much headway in China.

     

    Unfazed by Alibaba

    His company launched relatively late in this country. Amazon’s share price has fallen by around 20% on the Nasdaq this year, and China’s Alibaba is flush with cash after its IPO and ready to challenge Mr Bezos around the world, including India. But Mr Bezos, who swears by the credo of long-term thinking, is unfazed.

     

    “Judging just based on results, I would say we have come exactly at the right time,” Mr Bezos said in response to a question about whether he has left India until too late, and let out a full-throated guffaw, one of several that punctuated the 40-minute interview.

     

    Amazon’s main rivals in India are Bengaluru-based Flipkart and Snapdeal, the Delhi-based company that counts eBay, Azim Premji and Ratan Tata as investors. Together, they have sold goods worth more than $4 billion, with Flipkart alone estimated to have crossed $2 billion. Alibaba, too, is keen on India, and the Chinese company has the money, experience and ambition to succeed here.

     

    Does Alibaba’s $25-billion IPO earlier this month put Mr Bezos under added pressure? “If so, I haven’t felt it,” he said, bellowing once again with laughter and reiterating his focus on good business results over the long term.

     

    Asked what was his message for Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal of Flipkart (both former employees of Amazon India) especially after it appeared to have tauntingly welcomed him with giant billboards across Bengaluru, including one outside the Sheraton hotel where he is staying, announcing its upcoming ‘Big Billion Day’ sale, Mr Bezos refused to be drawn to speak about competition.

     

    “I have this long-standing practice about not talking about other companies. We have a somewhat unusual or rather unique approach of mostly ignoring our competitors,” he said.

     

    With revenue of nearly $75 billion in 2013 and a market value of $150 billion, Amazon is best-known as an online retailer. But it also runs a fast-growing cloud computing business called Amazon Web Services and makes Kindle tablets and Fire smartphones. Mr Bezos, in his personal capacity, bought The Washington Post newspaper last year. In India, Amazon started its technology operation first and employs a total of about 12,000 staff at offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi.

     

    Dressed casually in beige trousers and a light blue shirt, Mr Bezos was unstinting in his praise for country head Amit Agarwal, whose team has made sure that India is the fastest country to reach $1 billion in gross sales for Amazon. “He is going to blush because I am going to say so many good things,” Mr Bezos at the start of the interview said about his former technical advisor at Seattle headquarters.

     

    Some of the innovations by the India operation are being exported to the rest of the world, Mr Bezos said, pointing to its ‘Easy Ship’ service of delivering goods for sellers who don’t stock their products with Amazon.

     

    “I am super-excited,” he said. Traditionally, Amazon has grown organically but it is open to acquisitions in India, Mr Bezos said, as he spoke of the Indian operation along with AWS, Kindle and fashion as the company’s new frontiers. “Mostly we grow organically and that’s true in India. But if there are opportunities to do acquisitions, we’ll always consider.”

     

    Asked whether India’s marketplace-based e-retailing model was a bother – Amazon operates an inventory-based model at home – Mr Bezos said his company had no issues whatsoever, dispelling a perception that the Indian system was an irritant and he would lobby with the government during this visit to change it. “Our marketplace model is working phenomenally well… I always tell my team that whatever the rules are, we are the ones who would have to adapt to the local rules,” he said.

     

    Some five years ago, Mr Bezos made a quiet two-week visit to India, allocating the first half of his trip for business and rest for leisure. The father of four took his nine-year-old son to the main tourist attractions, including the Taj Mahal in Agra and Varanasi, a city now represented in the Lok Sabha by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

     

    “I find India and the people not just energetic but personally energising,” he said.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • Based in Mumbai, he will work closely with the business and leadership teams at TTN and will report directly to MK Anand

    Vivek Srivastava joins TTN as SVP & Head – English Entertainment Cluster

    By A Correspondent

     

    Times Television Network (TTN) announced the appointment of Vivek Srivastava, as Senior Vice-President and Head of the English Entertainment Cluster which includes premium channels such as Movies Now and Romedy Now. Based in Mumbai, he will work closely with the business and leadership teams at TTN and will report directly to MK Anand.

     

    Speaking on the announcement, M K Anand, CEO & Managing Director, TTN said, “Vivek’s experience in the broadcast sector combined with our aggressive approach to drive growth for the network will add great value to our business. The experience and calibre he brings to the table, we believe, will set new benchmarks for our channels.”

     

    Vivek moves to Times Television Network after a successful stint at Viacom 18 Media Pvt Ltd. where he handled Channel strategy for Colors as a part of their launch team, moved to handle International Business and Distribution and over the past few years has served as Head – Commercial and Digital at Colors.

     

  • The advertisement demonstrates the USP of the phone which is a combination of superlative front and rear camera performance

    LAVA launches new campaign for Iris X5

    By A Correspondent

     

    LAVA International Limited has announced the launch of its new ad campaign for Iris X5, made for selfie smartphone. The LAVA Iris X5 is a mid-range phone designed for the selfie generation featuring a 5MP front camera with wide angle viewing lens. The advertisement demonstrates the USP of the phone which is a combination of superlative front and rear camera performance.

     

    The campaign has been conceived by Shop Advertising and will be aired on television from October 01st 2014. The TVC features a story of a group of friends trying to avoid a situation through a selfie taken from the phone. The advertisement strengthens on the essence of the product bringing out the message a notch higher by highlighting its camera performance.

     

    Talking about the new ad campaign, Tarun Verma, Head- Marketing, Lava International, said, “The new ad campaign created for Lava Iris X5 is specifically targeted at the selfie crazy generation. The ad showcases how Lava Iris X5 enables users to capture every moment of their life as a ‘Perfect Selfie’ picture. By means of the campaign, we wish to get closer to the lives of our users and enhance their overall smartphone experience.”

     

    Commenting on ongoing marketing initiatives by LAVA, Tarun added, “Today, LAVA Iris X series enjoys a good recall in the consumer mind, courtesy our recently concluded successful campaign for Iris X1. We have a total marketing budget in excess of 220 cr planned for FY 13-14,  out of which we are looking at approximately 50% spend on advertising. In addition to this, BTL and digital will be our key strategic channels, through which we will be rolling out more campaigns in an integrated manner.”

     

    Naved Akhtar, Creative Director, Shop Advertising said, “This communication has been developed to support the key preposition offered by LAVA Iris X5, which is its superlative front camera performance. The campaign captures an everyday moment in today’s youngster’s life, made complex by his forgetfulness and how the phone playing the true hero, saves the day. Teasing between friends, SOS gestures, the faux pas and the comedy that ensues, all create the drama that the TVC is all about.”

     

    The campaign will be aired across all leading channels nationally & regionally. The on-air campaign will be supported by an extensive outdoor, digital & retail visibility campaign with overall spends across all communication channels close to INR 20 cr.

     

  • Invests in state-of-the-art warehousing facility to service a single product to a single consumer anywhere in the country

    Raymond ventures into e-tailing with RaymondNext.com

    By A Correspondent

     

    Raymond Limited has announced the launch of their official online store - ‘RaymondNext.com’. RaymondNext.com integrates all Raymond products, brands and services under a common e-commerce platform.

     

    The launch of RaymondNext.com is a step forward for the company to ensure increased visibility and availability of its products, as consumers can now see and purchase from the wide range of products from the house of Raymond acrossTextile, Apparel brands, Home Furnishing and Accessories.

     

    In a first, Raymond has launched five individual eCommerce enabled brand websites of Raymond, ColorPlus, Park Avenue and Parx with a common shopping cart. All of these websites are optimized to be viewed on Smartphones and Tablets.

     

    Commenting on the launch of RaymondNext.com, Vijay Basrur, Head – eCommerce, Raymond Limited said, “We are thrilled to offer our customers an exciting new avenue for shopping with the launch of RaymondNext.com. E tailing at present is a small contributor to retail and is fast emerging as an alternate commercial channel across multiple product categories amongst a rapidly evolving Netizen base in the country. According to industry estimates, E tailing market is set to reach $32 billion by 2020 and hence makes perfect business sense for Raymond to capture this growing demand.”

     

    RaymondNext.com comes with an array of exciting features and the user interface has been designed to ensure the ease of discovery and selection with a quick check out. The online shopping website is a one stop shop for the entire brand season collections that can be viewed with high resolution graphics. It also plans to introduce streaming videos of garments donned on models & mannequins along with virtual dressing rooms and 360° viewing and zooming tools making online shopping a fascinating experience.

     

    ​”We have further invested in the state-of-the-art warehouse, having the capability to service a single product to a single consumer anywhere in the country and offers the capability to service a pan India consumer base with relatively minimal investment. We are confident that with the launch of exclusive lines from brands available on RaymondNext, unique E tailing features like style look purchase and online fashion advisory coupled with the first of its kind concierge service from Raymond MTM is set to offer our customers a world-class shopping experience going forward,” explained Vijay Basrur.

     

  • Backlash on social media even as Flipkart claims of sales of over $100 million in 10 hours

    The Big Sale: Hit or Flop?

     

    By Harsimran Julka & Aditi Shrivastava

     

    Flipkart declared on Monday it had created Indian e-commerce history by clocking $100 million (Rs 600 crore) in sales in just 10 hours of its much-heralded discount sale, but not before its hard-won reputation for customer service excellence suffered knocks amid technical glitches and recriminations from angry buyers disappointed with the pricing and availability of products.

     

    As India’s largest online retailer and the posterboy of its startup boom took pride in successfully seeing through what it termed as an unprecedented event, competitors took advantage of its missteps and cut prices, diverting traffic away from Flipkart on what was supposed to be its big day.

     

    Backlash on Social Media

    “It feels a bit like a boxing bout in which one boxer accidentally knocked himself down before the opponent even entered the ring,” said Kartik Hosanagar, professor of internet commerce at The Wharton School in the United States.

     

    Flipkart’s so-called ‘The Big Billion Day’ is the first time in India that a discount sale of this magnitude has taken place. Modelled after the Black Friday shopping bonanza in the US, Flipkart said its aim is to create an online equivalent for India.

     

    Sachin Bansal, the cofounder and CEO of Flipkart, said he was pleased with the outcome, admitting at the same time that there were surprises and some errors. The company said it sold goods worth $100 million (almost Rs 1 crore every minute) within 10 hours and its site recorded one billion hits. “This was unprecedented. It is an historic day for ecommerce,” the 32-year-old entrepreneur said.

     

    Online sales of goods, while they are growing rapidly, are still a minuscule part of India’s retail sector. Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon and others account for just $5 billion in annual sales compared to the retail industry’s size of over $500 billion but projected to grow exponentially.

     

    Flipkart ended up with lot of backlash on social media sites as its system continued to change prices of products during the day. A Delhi-based customer who had paid Rs 27,000 for an LCD TV listed at a pre-discount price of Rs 49,000 was declined purchase as Flipkart said that the product had gone out of stock. “Mean sites for the same product,” the customer wrote on Twitter.

     

    Another customer who wanted to buy an LCD set on Flipkart saw the price change by Rs 10,000 within two hours. Customers were also peeved as Flipkart did not allow cancellations. Many shoppers who encountered better deals or changed their mind after clicking the buy button had no choice left, unlike on other days when cancellations and replacements are allowed.

     

    Flipkart attributed some of the problems to the “largest scale of traffic and customer visits e-commerce has witnessed across the country”, noting that it had got a billion hits on its website. As angry customers took to social media, rivals gained traction. “Amazon was the most trending site on our site on Tuesday,” said Swati Bhargava, CEO of CashKaro, an online cashback site which directs user traffic to sites such as Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal.

     

    “People are loving the Amazon discounts which keep on getting bigger and Monday compared to Sunday, making October 6 its biggest day ever in India. The company attributed this to deals every hour and “ensuring the availability of the deals advertised.” Amazon India’s site was redirecting to bigbillionday. com during the day.

     

    Rival Snapdeal, which cocked a snook at Flipkart with an advertisement that sought to make light of its rival’s big day (“For others, it’s a big day. For us today is no different), also did not leave any stone unturned. Its co-founder and CEO Kunal Bahl said Snapdeal had also sold goods worth Rs 1 crore a minute. “The best part of the day: we didn’t really spend much to bring customers to Snapdeal,” Bahl said, in an apparent dig at Flipkart’s advertising blitz that preceded Monday’s sale that, industry watchers say, would have cost the company tens of crores of rupees.

     

    Bansal admitted errors with “a few products and few customers.” These he attributed to mistakes on Sunday night while uploading prices of products and promised to rectify the problem. “it was not intentional at all. We are sorry for that,” he said, adding that the Flipkart team had burnt the midnight oil ahead of the sale. “I slept only 2-3 hours last night. Living on Red Bull.”

     

    Despite the backlash, there was optimism about the future of the ecommerce sector. Experts said that the Flipkart sale and the Diwali bonanza from Amazon and Snapdeal will help change the habits of the Indian consumer used to thronging bazaars and malls during the festival season.

     

    “This looks like a transformational move for ecommerce in India, a tipping point,” said Arvind Singhal, CEO of retail consultancy Technopak.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

     

    Companies accuse e-retailers like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon of devaluing brands and threatening livelihoods

     

    By Writankar Mukherjee & Sagar Malviya

     

    As Flipkart’s discount sale ran into a storm of protests in the virtual world, the company and its ilk of online retailers found little comfort in the real world too.

     

    A parade of big name consumer goods makers and brick-and-mortar retailers took aim at the e-retailer flock of Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, accusing them of devaluing their brands and threatening their livelihoods, further marring a day that was billed as an important milestone in the evolution of the fledgling sector.

     

    LG Electronics, the country’s largest white goods maker, issued a rare advisory on Monday in which it explicitly stated that it had not authorised any e-commerce company, bar its own online store, to sell its products in India and hence it retains the right of not extending additional services, warranties on such products as it does not vouch for their genuineness.

     

    “This is to safeguard our consumers,” a company spokesperson said. Flipkart, however, sought to reassure customers that all products sold on its site were genuine.

     

    Tightening the noose

    “We can assure our customers buying LG, Sony or Canon products on Flipkart.com that they are genuine. Our customers will continue to enjoy the warranty and services extended to all original LG products as always,” a company spokesperson said. But officials at several consumer goods makers, many of which have also had an uneasy relationship with the lot of e-retailers, said they would henceforth tighten the noose on online discounting.

     

    LG’s rival Sony said it will not allow massive online discounting of its wares because it impacts the company’s brand image and accused e-retailers of having violated business arrangements. “The online sale war of Monday was really disappointing and alarming. This is not the way we have agreed to do business as partners,” said Sony India sales head Sunil Nayyar. He said Sony televisions had borne the maximum brunt of discounting and that it had taken a toll on the company’s brand image as customers who brought the same product a day earlier at its correct market price could feel cheated and blame the brand.

     

    “We have decided to handle online discounts now with an iron hand and will ensure Sony is not involved again and there is a fair play for all channels,” he said. The maximum discounts at Monday’s flash sales were for electronic products, notably items such as Apple’s iPhone, iPod and laptops, Sony’s televisions and smartphones, Canon’s cameras, lenses and printers, Samsung’s television, smartphones, refrigerators and washing machines, LG’s televisions, refrigerators, microwave ovens and smartphones, and tablets and computers of Lenovo, Asus, Dell and HP.

     

    Camera maker Canon said it would henceforth ask distributors to have separate sets of products for brick-and-mortar stores and online stores. “We have just reached an agreement with Amazon and Flipkart that while they can sell offline models, they cannot discount it. We hope Monday’s sale is just one-off scenario and will not be repeated,”said Canon India Executive Vice President Alok Bharadwaj, adding that the hefty discounting of its products on online marketplaces was not endorsed by Canon and was also difficult to control.

     

    “Probably, the best way to reduce disruptions like these is deeper engagements with these online marketplaces which we now plan to do.” Lenovo, which had earlier this year urged customers against buying its products from online retailers only to subsequently withdraw its advisory, said it would also have different models for its online and offline sales channels. Lenovo India MD Amar Babu said his company was keen to have fair competition in the marketplace and did not favour one sales channel growing at the expense of another.

     

    The tongue -lashing from the consumer goods biggies on Monday followed a huge brouhaha created by traditional retailers, upset that the hefty discounting by online sites would hurt their business. Brick-and-mortar stores remain the mainstay sales channel for consumer goods brands, but fear that their businesses are threatened by the fast march of online retailers. In categories such as smartphones, online retailers now account for more than a 10% market share, so much so that some new model launches now happen exclusively on these sites. Online retailers also account for 5% of television sales.

     

    As Flipkart’s discount sale and Snapdeal’s riposte captured shoppers’ imagination on Monday, small retailers and trader lobbies said they wanted the government to intervene.

     

    The All India Mobile Retailers’ Association, a new body that claims to represent the interest of around10,000 mobile retailers, said it would approach the government and the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to stop such predatory pricing deals by e-commerce marketplaces.

     

    “The way e-commerce is progressing, several shops may have to shut down, which will jeopardise lakhs of jobs,” said the organisation’s secretary general Dhiraj Malik. He accused e-commerce firms of cartel-like behaviour, discounting products and selling them below cost prices. “This in turn has impacted our sales by 30% and profitability by 60%,” he said.

     

    The Confederation of All India Traders, an umbrella body representing some six crore traders and small retailers, has already written to Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to stop discounting by online marketplaces. It said discounting by these sites had affected store sales of items such as cosmetics, footwear, apparel, jewellery, watches, electronics, computer hardware and software, mobiles, sports goods, travel luggage and books.

     

    “Since e-commerce firms merely provide a technology platform for sellers who are registered with them and because the ownership of the inventory is not their’s, how can these marketplaces offer discounts?” asked its secretary general Praveen Khandelwal. He said his association would complain to the competition watchdog this week.

     

    Officials at large retail chains, also taken aback at the aggressive discounting offered by online players, said e-retailers not only antagonised brands by selling products at throwaway prices but also affected distributors who might now demand unreasonable margins.

     

    “This event will perhaps now trigger many brands to go against all online channels for spoiling their imagery and pricing strategy,” said the owner of a leading electronics store chain. Vijay Sales managing director Nilesh Gupta said when it comes to appliances and durables, consumers still want the touch and feel factor, especially in smaller cities.”Also, most of the popular products are not sold online and consumers will have to visit stores if they want latest collection,” he said.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

     

     

  • During his tenure in the mobile industry Roger has been engaged in creating and driving deployment of content globally

    Roger Davies joins Robosoft as VP & GM

    By A Correspondent

     

    Roger Davies, a digital & gaming industry veteran, has joined Robosoft as Vice President & General Manager of the Games & Entertainment division and will be based out of London, UK. He has extensive experience across marketing, business development and strategy having worked with leading technology and entertainment companies like BT Global, Shell, Medio Systems, Real Networks, Nazara Technologies. During his tenure in the mobile industry Roger has been engaged in creating and driving deployment of content globally, building relationships with key participants in the digital ecosystem.

     

    Robosoft Technologies, a premier mobile solutions provider known for creating over 1400 ground breaking mobile applications for its global clients, sees immense potential in the Games & Entertainment category. Rohith Bhat, CEO of Robosoft observes: “according to Smartphone & Tablet Gaming 2013 report by Casual Games Association, already, 378 million consumers worldwide, or 39% of all mobile gamers, spend a monthly average of $2.70 on or in mobile games. By 2016, these figures will amount to 50% and $3.07 respectively.”

     

    “We want to be the premier go-to company in mobile games. Given our capabilities in game design & technology and our track record, we are confident of making a mark in the Games & Entertainment domain. There is a huge potential between movie franchises, game developers and brands for bespoke mobile games,” added Roger.

     

  • The stakes couldn't be higher for Apple and Samsung this Diwali as they unleash their newest devices – the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be ranged against the Galaxy Alpha and Note 4

    Samsung, Apple to spend Rs 200 crore on promotions

    By A Correspondent

     

    The stakes couldn’t be higher for Apple and Samsung this Diwali as they unleash their newest devices – the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will be ranged against the Galaxy Alpha and Note 4.

     

    Both companies will hurl almost everything they have in their advertising budget into a short, sharp burst of promotions as they seek to influence buyers seen to be emerging from slump-induced austerity – car sales for instance have picked up in the last five months. Diwali falls on October 23.

     

    As much as Rs 200 crore will be pumped into ads for the four products. According to trade partners and media planners, Samsung has lined up around Rs 100-120 crore on a big-bang launch of the two devices.

     

    Q3 Earnings to Plunge 60%: Samsung

    Apple is going to spend around  Rs70-80 crore along with its two telecom partners, Reliance and Airtel. Experts say this is among the highest amounts spent on new launches in Indiafs consumer goods industry. The iPhone 6 has a 4.7-inch screen, the same as the Galaxy Alpha, while the 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch display compared with the Note 4’s 5.7-inch size.

     

    The South Korean company has booked front-page jackets in all leading newspapers and primetime spots on television channels well in advance, forcing Apple to focus more on digital media and below-the-line activities such as in-store branding and product demonstrations that will be extended even to some small, neighbourhood stores.

     

    Apple’s media agency and company officials are also negotiating for prime space in leading newspapers. “Samsung has progressively increased their booking of advertisement spots during Diwali and they have indeed picked up huge ad inventory,” said a senior sales executive at a leading broadcaster with multiple television channels across genres.

     

    To be sure, Samsung needs to push products harder to gain an edge over Apple because of the US company’s skill at creating a media splash and generating public interest in its products. Meanwhile, Samsung also needs to counter the slowing demand for high-end phones, given the perception that newer devices in the high-price band only offer incremental advances. That trend has been bolstered by Chinese companies such as Xiaomi offering phones with advanced features at lower price tags. Such phones also include those made by Motorola and Micromax besides the recently launched Android One handsets.

     

    In fact, parent Samsung Electronics warned on Tuesday that its thirdquarter earnings would plunge 60% from the year before because of competition from Chinese rivals, Bloomberg reported.

     

    “It appears that Samsung has been cutting prices to maintain market share but has lost market share anyway,” analyst Richard Windsor told Bloomberg. “If market share continues to fall… Samsung will come closer to joining the long-suffering ranks of every other Android handset maker.”

     

    Samsung will also be keen to avoid the fate of Nokia, once the world’s leading cellphone maker, which was unable to cope with competition as iPhones and devices made by the South Korean company gained popularity. In 2013, Apple spent $1.29 billion (or 0.6% of sales) globally on marketing campaigns compared with Samsung’s $14 billion (5.4% of sales), although this includes spending for the latter’s vast range of electronics goods such as televisions and appliances.

     

    At the premium end, Samsung’s last major release, the Galaxy S5, failed to generate high demand. According to the latest figures from market tracker IDC, Samsung’s share of the Indian smartphone market dipped from 31% in the second quarter last year to 29% in the same period this year. As per estimates, Apple is the market leader in the Rs 30,000-plus smartphone segment in India, controlling almost half the market followed by Samsung with around 25% share.

     

    “In the premium segment, Samsung is facing intense competition as most of the international device vendors have aggressively revised their pricing strategies,” said Karan Thakkar, senior market analyst, client devices, at IDC. “On the other hand, in the affordable segment, most of the international brands are challenged by Indian and Chinese vendors, who attach a value-formoney proposition. The latest price reduction by Samsung for most of its products is one step to retain the leadership position.”

     

    A senior executive with a leading retail chain said Samsung would price the Alpha and Note 4 cheaper than Apple’s two new devices to get the attention of consumers.

     

    “Since Monday, after Apple announced the India launch of the new iPhones, the Samsung sales force has been meeting all trade partners to boost confidence in the two new models. In the same way it wants to bombard consumers with far more communication than Apple for topof-the-mind recall,” he said. Samsung and Apple will be deploying the bulk of their ad budget for the year in a short period, a reflection of how critically both sides regard Diwali sales.

     

    “The presenting sponsor of the Indian Premier League spends Rs 50-60 crore in 60 days,” said a media planner. The two companies will spend almost 60% of their total budget in the first six weeks, while the rest would be spread over the next few months.

     

    Samsung has told trade partners that while the Galaxy Alpha will hit stores this week at around Rs 39,990, the launch of the Note 4 will be on October 15-17 and is going to be priced at Rs 50,000-Rs 52,000. Apple’s two new iPhones will be launched in India on October 17. The iPhone 6 will start at Rs 53,500 and the biggerscreen iPhone 6 Plus at Rs 62,500. A Samsung India spokesman said the company would announce the launch dates of the Alpha and the Note 4 in a few days. “We are working on the pricing formula for Note 4. But yes, we have been aggressive on media buying this festive season since it’s a good time and would be launching new products,” he said. Apple didn’t respond to an email query as of press time.

     

    Samsung is going to become a highly visible brand this Diwali and may draw more eyeballs right from outdoor activations to in-store promotions, said D Sathish Babu, founder of leading cellphone retailer Univer-Cell. The intense competition will see demand revive across the board, he said. “Of course, the iPhone will have its own dedicated customers. It’s going to be an interesting fight and would revive smartphone demand since after almost 10 months some good models are going to hit the market,” Babu said.

     

    Apple started taking bookings for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on Tuesday, generating a substantial amount of interest. Industry executives said all top retail chains have ordered a few hundred devices each, while more than 1,000 have been booked at Infibeam. com, which is Apple’s official e-commerce partner in India.

     

    Going by the pre-order numbers, Infibeam expects demand to exceed that for the iPhone 5s and 5c launched last year, said a spokesman for the site. He, however, refused to share any numbers. However, sources said Infibeam has already received more than 1,000 orders. Samsung too is planning to start pre-orders for Note 4.

     

    Both Samsung and Apple have assured trade partners that they would ration stocks and supply strictly in line with actual sales to ensure that there is no online discounting by any seller. “However, there will be no shortage of inventory at anytime,” said a senior executive at a top retail chain.

     

    Source:The Economic Times

    Copyright © 2014, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved

    Licensed to republish

     

  • Indiahomes.com is India's multi-award winning and leading Property Advisory Company

    ZO wins media mandate of Indiahomes.com

    By A Correspondent

     

    ZenithOptimedia has won the entire media mandate for Indiahomes.com after a selection process that involved a multi-agency pitch. This mandate covers all aspects of the company’s media planning & buying, and will include digital duties as well.

     

    Indiahomes.com is India’s multi-award winning and leading Property Advisory Company.

     

    Indiahomes.com has also finalised its new positioning, “Aap Ke Saath”, and is in the process of rolling out its multi-media campaign. With the new positioning and partnership with ZenithOptimedia, it is all set to take on the online real-estate category, which has seen increased levels of intensity with several brands becoming active in the media.

     

    Anupriya Acharya

    Commenting on the business win, Anupriya Acharya, Group CEO, ZenithOptimedia said, “The proposition of professional property advisors fills a crying need and we are excited to be the communication partner of a company that is introducing this big change in the Indian market. It represents a big opportunity. We are looking forward to creating innovative solutions for Indiahomes.com.”

     

    Himanshu Arora, VP – Marketing, Indiahomes.com added, “We needed a partner who has a deep understanding of consumers and their ever-evolving relationship with media. ZenithOptimedia impressed us with their strategic framework and ability to execute with speed and accuracy.”