Ashwini Phadnis As a special tribute to the Father of the Nation on his 150th birth anniversary, Air India will paint images of Mahatma Gandhi on its aircraft.

This is part of the two-year- long celebrations planned by the government; they will end on October 2, 2020.

Source: thehindubusinessline

Written By Sagar Malviya & Writankar Mukherjee, ET Bureau

MUMBAI | KOLKATA: Amazon India’s largest seller Cloudtail crossed the Rs 5,000 crore sales mark in the year to March but growth tapered off significantly, indicating its fading role as the company seeks to comply with foreign direct investment (FDI) rules on marketplaces.

The government said last year that it will not permit a single vendor to account for more than 25% of sales on an online marketplace that has overseas investment.

Cloudtail, a joint venture between Amazon Asia and Infosys founder Narayan Murthy’s personal investment vehicle Catamaran, posted over a 24% jump in revenue to Rs 5,688.7 crore in FY17, according to its annual return.

That’s against a 300% surge to Rs 4,586.9 crore in the previous year when it accounted for over a third of the sales on Amazon’s shopping platform in India.

“With the restriction, it was very clear that growth had to be moderated. But Amazon would still prefer to channel their goods through a seller where they can control margins and inventory,” said Devangshu Datta, CEO, Third Eyesight, a consultancy firm. Amazon India declined to comment. Cloudtail didn’t respond to an email.

Cloudtail’s numbers pale in comparison with Flipkart’s biggest seller WS Retail, which posted sales of Rs 13,921 crore for the year ended March 2016. It hasn’t filed a financial performance report for the last fiscal yet but Flipkart has also been reducing its dependence on the seller, in which its founders used to own a stake.

After the government’s guideline, which ecommerce companies had to comply with by March 31, 2017, Cloudtail almost stopped selling mobile phones a year ago but continued with Amazon private labels in India. Smartphones constitute the largest category of India’s ecommerce sales and formed a big part of Cloudtail’s overall sales in previous years.

“With the smaller pace of growth by exiting smartphones, Cloudtail will surely comply with the FDI norms of one seller accounting for 25% of total transactions at Amazon last fiscal itself,” an executive said.

Another seller said Cloudtail’s gaze is on consumables such as FMCG, nutrition, apparel and televisions, which are the next focus areas for Amazon. Personal care, baby care and nutrition are also of interest. It currently sells Amazon exclusive television brands like TCL, Sanyo and BPL.

Source: economictimes

The numbers were 27 percent higher compared to the sales last year with $24 billion of gross merchandise value (GMV)

Written By SABAHAT CONTRACTOR

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba sold a record $30.8 billion worth of products on its 24-hour Singles’ Day sale.

The numbers were 27 percent higher as compared to the $24 billion of gross merchandise value (GMV) of sales last year.

Even though China is facing major geopolitical and economic challenges, the story on Chinese middle-class consumption on November 12 was different altogether.

Last month, India also had one of its biggest online shopping festivals, but reported a fraction of this number at $2.3 billion during five-day period.

What got Alibaba to achieve the $30.8 billion GMV target in 24 hours is the trust placed by the Chinese consumers, the consolidation of online and offline retail, the categories of products, the income and expense of the Chinese consumers and others, according to the analysts.

While we can say that both China and India have almost the same population size, it will not be appropriate to compare the size of online e-commerce market of China and India.

“China’s online e-commerce market was between $900 billion to 1 trillion in 2017 whereas India’s e-commerce market was around $18-20 billion. There is a significant difference in size of the market in both countries,” said Ankur Pahwa, Partner and National leader, E-commerce and Consumer Internet, EY.

Income and consumption power plays an important role for a consumer. “The economies of China played an important role in the spending habits of the Chinese. The GDP per person in China is around $9000 whereas in India, it is around $2000,” said Pahwa.

Devangshu Dutta, Chief Executive of Third Eyesight said, “I don’t think that Indian and China can be compared at par. There is a huge difference in their income and consumption profiles.”

But what lessons should other e-commerce platform learn from Alibaba?

Trust plays a very important role in an online e-commerce market. Alibaba, with its closed ecosystem, has developed trust with its consumers. Indian e-commerce still lags behind on this factor.

“Quality and trust played a very important role for Alibaba in China. Also, a large part of the Chinese economy is virtual. Whereas in India, a majority of buying is still from offline,” said an analyst.

Alibaba said that more than 40 percent of consumers made purchased from international brands

. “Indian e-commerce should give a mix of categories to its consumers. Proper curation of the inventory should be there in order to target Tier 2-3 cities. Another lesson one can learn from Alibaba is the dealings with the brands,” said analyst.

Alipay plays an important role for Alibaba. “Alibaba has integrated all ecosystems in its e-commerce business. From Alipay to its logistics. It has provided qualitative and seamless experience for its consumers,” said an analyst.

Online and Offline markets

Dutta added, “Alibaba has consolidated its hold on both the business and the consumer side in the Chinese ecosystem. India still has a fragmented consumer market, and online retail is only a couple of percentages of the total market, though the supply side is consolidated between the two foreign-owned businesses, Flipkart Group and Amazon. In India, I think both online and offline formats need to evolve together.”

Source: moneycontrol

[Accompanying Image credit: Amazon Go; CC/Wikimedia Commons/Brianc333a)]

To many, retail seems to be having an identity crisis.

Closed storefronts on American and European streets and dead malls in India and China are blamed on the growth of online retail. At the same time, the world’s largest online retailer, Amazon, is opening physical stores and buying offline retail operations in the US and in India, while the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, is busy digesting India’s ecommerce market leader. Even India’s online fashion and lifestyle websites – among them Myntra, Firstcry, Yepme and Faballey – are acquiring offline brands or opening stores. Or both.

What in the world is going on?

The short answer: consumers want choice; and retailers have no choice.

For many, ecommerce still seems to have the “new car smell” after more than 20 years, the message pitched so desperately by the founders of and investors in ecommerce companies still echoing: that this “new kid” will make customers’ lives a quintillion times better and wipe out the competition. Two decades on, and hundreds of billions of dollars of investment later, online retail is estimated to be about 12% of the global market. Ecommerce is 10% of the US market, of which Amazon takes up about half. In India the figure is in the vicinity of 2%, with that share is virtually stitched up between Walmart-owned Flipkart Group and Amazon.

Clearly, consumers value offline retail stores, whether for convenience or as holistic brand ambassadors. You can’t take away the fact that retail for us is theatre, experience, social.

Over at physical retail businesses, managers have been terrified of “channel conflict”. Senior management have squeezed resources for online, even when return-on-capital was demonstrably better than a new store. Some have refused to publicise their own company’s website through in-store banners, fearing that the customers would get sucked away from the store. It has been strange to see this opportunity being passed up – if a customer is trusts you to walk into your physical store, why would you not want to connect with them at other points of time when they are not near your store?

As I’ve written earlier, retail is not and should not be divided between “old-world physical” and “upstart online”. Successful retailers and brands have always been able to integrate multiple channels and environments to reach their customers.

For instance, British fashion retailer Next has long used a combination of physical stores (of varying sizes) as well as mail order catalogue side-by-side, and then ecommerce as the digital medium grew. Another British retailer, Argos, took another angle and embedded a catalogue inside the physical store – first a paper catalogue, and then on-screen.

American designer Rebecca Minkoff has taken this unification further. Without the weight of legacy systems, the brand attempts to create a seamless experience for the customer, unifying the store, in-store digital interfaces such as smart dressing rooms, the website and the mobile.

No doubt, for older companies, integrating is tough; business systems and people are in disconnected silos, incentivised narrowly. Each channel needs different mindsets, capabilities, processes and systems, to ensure that the optimal customer experience appropriate for the interface, whether it is a store, mobile app, website or catalogue. But etailers opening physical stores have their own challenges, too, tackling the messy slowness of the physical world, where you can’t instantly switch the store layout after an A:B test. They now need to develop those very “old-world skills” and overheads that they thought they would never need.

Regardless of where they begin, retailers need to mould and blend their business models with proficiency across channels. In the evolving environment, any brand or retailer must aim to offer as seamless an experience to the customer as feasible, where the customer never feels disconnected from the brand.

Varying circumstances make customers choose different buying environments. At different times or on different days of the week, even the same person may choose to shop in entirely different ways. Successful retailers that outlast their competitors have used a variety of formats and channels to meet their customers, and will continue to do so.

To my mind, retailers have no choice but to see the retail business as one, even as it is fluid and evolving. A retailer’s only choice is to bend with the customer’s choice.

(Published in the Financial Express under the title “Uniting retail: Why online versus offline debate must end“)

Written By Shambhavi Anand, ET Bureau

New Delhi: Chinese fashion firms are joining the Diwali party this year. Shein, Romwe and ClubFactory—which figure among the top 10 most downloaded apps, according to app tracking firm App Annie — plan to roll out mega offers to take on the likes of Myntra, Jabong, Ajio and others during the upcoming festive season.

ClubFactory, which recently roped in Ranveer Singh and Manushi Chhillar as brand ambassadors, has planned its biggest sale of the year called the ‘Club Diwali Sale’ during October 10-14. Apart from three flash sales per day, all those placing orders during this period will get a chance to win a free iPhone daily. According to App Annie, ClubFactory was the highest downloaded app in the shopping category in July. Shein, which recently completed one year of operations in India and has crossed 5 million downloads, will offer discounts as well as free shipping during the festive period.

Source: economictimes