admin
September 27, 2015
Kaushikibrata
Banerjee and Utsav Basu, Millennium Post
New
Delhi, 27 September 2015
Creative
cafes, restaurants and delivery joints are slowly but steadily
creating a whole new culture in the Capital.
A food capital as it already is, Delhi is a labyrinth of connections that interlinks one neighbourhood to another and most importantly, migration has been a steady theme in this city giving rise to an array of preferences and predilections. So, do we consider it to be a fortunate adventure? Give in to the indulgence and find out for yourself.
These days, professionals are either working through the night or are awake watching movies, TV shows or partying hard. Since they are up at odd hours, they often feel hungry much after restaurants close – like midnight snacks and beverages or are in need of other essentials like medicines as well.
There are a number of outlets indulging in this business these
days. But what is interesting is the fact that these outlets are
not evenly spaced out all over the national Capital. Enviably
so, these 24×7 outlets are concentrated in particular areas like
Gurgaon and South Delhi respectively. Some of the most popular
midnight delivery services are Batman Delivers, Midnight Munchies,
The Night Shift, Cravebusters, Midnight Cravings, Captain Grub
and the like.
You can order the best of biryanis, kathi rolls, salads, sandwiches, pastas, pizzas and even paranthas from Batman Delivers, apart from party items and medical essentials, cigarettes, tissue papers and disposable plates/cups. They deliver in Gurgaon and South Delhi but you have to pay a delivery charge of Rs 50 with an approximate delivery time of 40 minutes.
Midnight Munchies operates in South Delhi and offers delicious vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals like pizzas, noodles, wedges, nuggets and chicken bomber sandwiches, along with soft drinks, juice and packaged water. They do not have any delivery charges but the minimum order has to be upto Rs 350. Cravebusters is a popular late night delivery service, operating in 130 localities in Delhi NCR and promises hot and delicious food every time. Known for their unbeatable burgers, Captain Grub functions in South Delhi and Gurgaon only. Midnight Cravings is located at Vikas Marg and delivers around East Delhi.
These are just a few examples which show the concentration of 24×7 food outlets only in Gurgaon and South Delhi. Keeping this in mind, it has become very important to understand the reason why they are spaced out the way they are and what business orientations the owners have that have encouraged them to open such outlets in these respective areas only.
Sangeeta Singh, Head of Street Food Programmes, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), explains: “As far as I understand, South Delhi is considered to be a very posh area and has a history of its own. Most people residing there are bureaucrats and businessmen who have a very rich background. East Delhi or the Trans Yamuna as it is called was never a good choice in the 1970s and 1980s for residential purposes.”
Elaborating on how the different strata of society are spaced out in the national Capital, she goes on to say: “Delhi being the capital attracts people across India for a better future. The city has very good mix of working class, educated and un-educated business class, landlords comprising the local Gujjars and Jats, migrant workers (unorganised sector). The social strata of Delhi have unique characteristics as compared to other Metros or big cities in India. Old Delhi is dominated by the local business class, South Delhi by locals as well as educated business class and bureaucrats; North mostly by the Punjabis, East Delhi is dominated by migrants from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh while West is again a mix of Punjabis and migrants.
Prof J S Rajput, Former Director of NCERT, elaborates on how important social profiling is to run a business. He goes on to say: “Who has not seen young people in their executive suits and ties, sweating on roadside stalls, grabbing a plate of noodles working through long hours trying to crack a deal. In business, it is all about profiling. It is all about making an impression which will help them start and run a business successfully. Everything else is secondary.”
Highlighting on why there are a lesser number of 24×7 food joints or essential outlets in East Delhi compared to South Delhi and Gurgaon, Sangeeta Mittal, Associate Professor, Department of English in Maharaja Agrasen College, says: “There are lesser number of 24×7 outlets, I think, due to law and order constraints and lifestyle of lowerandmiddle middle-class in the area. People who work during the night or require to access groceries or drugstores after midnight are very few.” She tries to reason out the cause behind the concentration of such food joints in South Delhi and says: “I think the elite class refers to the high income groups. While some people are those who have been living in South Delhi since Independence and Partition in what began as refugee settlements making it big later in life, the rest are those who shifted after Independence to cash in on the developing political and professional opportunities in Delhi. Diplomats, NRIs, MNC workers, government servants and many more today stay there due to proximity to their workplaces.”
Mittal further adds: “Delhi has a cyclical demography. People prefer to live nearby to where they work. They also live where they are able to afford rent or to purchase property. But more well-to-do then shift to places with more spacious and luxurious houses, more sophisticated and safe urban housing options and locations with more facilities and better urban planning, if these locations are in peri-urban spaces like Gurgaon, Noida or farmhouses in what has today become Delhi NCR. The spaces vacated by them are occupied by the upwardly mobile aspiring migrants who continue to flock to Delhi for educational or professional reasons.”
Devangshu Dutta, head of retail research group, Third Eyesight says in a report: “There is an emerging consumer segment that works longer hours, especially among the workforce in the country’s outsourcing and technology industry. There has to be something catering to them.”
Technology and new-age entrepreneurship have changed the face of food ordering business in India. Today, you can order ingredients for a Greek salad or have biryani flown from Hyderabad to any city through apps on your mobile phone or at the click of a mouse. But in hindsight, it is a developing business and though several areas need to be incorporated within its ambit, the craze is growing slowly but steadily. And with that, the need for more 24×7 essential outlets is increasing by the day.
So, leave alone the physical component of a midnight craving and stop being overwhelmed by the need. Here’s your lip-smacking delight at 3 am, waiting for you to dig in. Now, whether up for an exam or watching matches till late night, bored at work or feeling low and stressed out at the crack of dawn, no need to introspect for inner peace. Just pick up the phone and order your favourite meal, for the night is still young!
"There are lesser number of 24×7 outlets, I think, due to law and order constraints and lifestyle of lower and middle-middle-class in the area. People who work during the night or require to access groceries or drugstores after midnight are very few- Sangeeta Mittal, Associate Professor, English Department, Maharaja Agrasen College
"South Delhi is considered to be a very posh area and has a history of its own. Most people residing there are bureaucrats and businessmen who have a rich background. East Delhi or Trans Yamuna as it is called was never a good choice in the 1970s and 1980s for residential purposes – Sangeeta Singh, Head of Street Food Programmes, National Association of Street Vendors
(Published in Millennium Post.)
admin
September 25, 2015
Sapna
Agarwal, MINT
Mumbai,
25 September 2015
With brands like Zara and Forever 21 gaining acceptance and rapidly
growing their businesses in India, Kishore Biyani-led Future Lifestyle
Fashions Ltd has set up a design studio in London to tap into
the vibrant fast fashion market. The studio will launch its first
fast fashion brand with global design sensibilities in spring-summer
2016
Located in Victoria, London, Future Style Lab houses an international
team of designers and merchandising experts. It will infuse the
brands Future Lifestyle sells such as Lee Cooper, Indigo Nation,
Scullers, Urbana, John Miller, Jealous 21, UMM and RIG with a
global design ethic, besides curating the new fast fashion brand.
“Indian fashion is evolving at a rapid pace and incorporating
global trends and sensibilities. Women in India today shop for
fresh fashion 8-10 times a year. Our design studio in London will
develop a fast fashion brand that responds to these needs and
infuses our brands with global sensibilities and innovation in
design and sourcing,” said Kishore Biyani, managing director,
Future Lifestyle Fashions.
London’s Victoria district has emerged as the new fashion
hub. While the likes of designer Tom Ford and luxury label Burberry
have their headquarters in the neighbourhood, offices of lingerie
brand Victoria’s Secret, fashion label Dolce and Gabbana,
luxury behemoth Richemont and shoemaker Jimmy Choo are in close
proximity.
The company has hired Manjula Tiwari from fashion and lifestyle e-tailer Jabong to lead Future Style Lab. Tiwari has over two decades’ experience in the fashion industry and was invol-ved in introducing global brands such as Espirit and United Colors of Benetton in India.
The design team will be led by Ainsley Dart, who has directed large design teams of multi-product, fast fashion brands and worked with textile suppliers such as Courtalds and Dewhirst.
Biyani’s plan to launch a fast fashion brand comes at a time when Swedish fashion retailer Hennes and Mauritz AB (H&M) is ready to launch its first store in India in October. UK-based Arcadia Group’s fashion brands Topshop and Topman made their debut in the Indian market with fashion e-tailer Jabong in the past week. Topshop has about 400 new styles hitting its 300 stores in the UK every week. These are then available at all its global stores and geographies within a week of launch.
“The plan is to make these available in India as well,” said Jacqui Markham, global design director, Topshop.
Moreover, existing global retailers like Zara, Forever 21 and Gap are also expanding in India. Since its launch five years ago, Spanish fast-fashion brand Zara, which has 16 stores in the country, has clocked revenue of Rs.721 crore for the financial year ended 2015—a growth of 24% over the year ago period.
Los Angeles-based Forever 21 has nine stores in India and plans to add five to six every year. “On average, each Forever 21 store does Rs.35 crore of business per year,” said Deepak Agarwal, CEO, DLF Brands Ltd, the brand’s joint venture partner in India in an earlier interview.
Likewise, US-based Gap Inc., which launched its first store in May in a franchise agreement with Arvind Brands, will have nine stores by the end of the fiscal, said J. Suresh, CEO, Arvind Brands.
The fast fashion business model is different from that of department stores or traditional retailers. It takes global fashion trends and makes them available within a very short time span—which could be a week or so—in stores. It involves continuous refreshes that keeps interest levels high among consumers who are fashion conscious.
Analysts believe Biyani will benefit by making the transition. “For Future Group, the fact that it is entrepreneurial and has its manufacturing base located here will allow it to do the continuous refreshes in good speed. It could work to its advantage,” said Devangshu Dutta, CEO at consulting company Third Eyesight.
(Published in Mint.)
admin
September 16, 2015
Varun Jain, The Economic Times
New Delhi, 16 September 2015
Flipkart’s
‘Big Billion Days’ sale has yet again run into glitches this year,
and this time the ecommerce giant is tendering apologies to its
sellers in Agra whose products have been removed from the site
for almost two days now due to delivery issues.
Various vendors in the city ET spoke to complained that Flipkart
has blocked their products to be sold on its ecommerce site amid
a rush of consumers. They said the listings of their products
were not visible on the company’s website since the second day
of the mega sale event after they saw major traction on Tuesday,
the first day of sale.
"We were waiting for the Big Billion Days sale and have
kept ourselves adequately stocked to meet the consumer demands.
We got six times more order than what we usually get, on the first
day of the event. But on the second day we were surprised to see
our orders fell to zero. This is when we realised that something
is wrong," said an Agra-based vendor who sells artificial
jewellery on Flipkart.
One footwear vendor who received around 120 orders on day one said he has not been able to dispatch the whole order even on the third day because Flipkart’s logistics partner is only collecting partial orders, saying they have been asked only to collect certain orders owing to huge demand.
Experts said this reveals gaps in Flipkart’s logistics as the company has failed to cope with the huge amount of business the Big Billion Days is generating this year as well. The mega sale event had run into glitches last year when thousands of customers complained about products being sold out on the website even before they can hit buy button. There were complains of company intentionally increasing the prices of some products to make the discount look even bigger and the website also crashed several time. Eventually Flipkart’s co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal had to apologize to the customers after the event.
Manish Maheshwari, vice president and head of sellers’ ecosystem at Flipkart, said consumer demand is around 40% more than the 3-4 times increase the company had expected "and there are implications of that".
"Being a marketplace, everything that is ordered by the consumer has to be supplied by the seller. And we have limited capacity in terms of how many people we have and how many collections we can do in a day," said Maheshwari. "So, it might be true that for a day we might have switched off the pick up from the Agra hub and therefore sellers in this region would have been impacted," he said.
"But they might have received enough demand on day one. This is a temporary block and we switch them back again once the backlog is cleared up," Maheshwari added.
According to the Agra vendors, they got an automated message from Flipkart on their seller account: "To ensure customers receive their orders on time and have a great experience buying your products, we have to temporarily restrict the order flow for sellers in your area. We will be reverting to normal order flow by tomorrow morning or as soon as the situation eases up. We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for the continued support."
However, many vendors in Agra region said the services were not restored as of Thursday afternoon.
Some of the vendors said their listings were showing on Flipkart site/app, but consumers could not place order because either ‘Add to Cart’ option was disabled or they would be repeatedly greeted by ‘The item is currently unavailable in your pin-code’.
Devangshu Dutta, chief executive of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, said the peak capacity that Flipkart planned for Agra region might have reached and "now they were not able to pick any more orders to deliver".
"There is a very clear indication of the infrastructure gap," Dutta said. "If you are looking at rapid ramp up of business it cannot happen without the requisite infrastructure because all such infrastructure capacity planning has to be done on the basis of peak demand and if every time you are building up demand only to find it blocked by lack of capacity then obviously it is a problem," he said.
Another industry expert who did not wish to be named said it is a clear disappointment for vendors who are losing out on business, which they know is theirs as consumer orders were coming on day one. "There must be an investment made from the vendors’ side for one of the biggest sales in the ecommerce industry. That investment has essentially gone down the drain," the person said.
Maheshwari of Flipkart said that while it needs to add more capacities to meet the ever-growing demand, it is already following a scientific process to keep all stakeholders happy.
He said that when certain hubs starts getting more order than expected, the company switches off the collection hub of that particular region and the demand then gets diverted to the region where it is low. During this period, all the vendors linked to that collection centre will not be able to generate new orders. The company switches on the hub again once all the backlog has been cleared, Maheshwari said.
(Published in The Economic Times.)
admin
September 16, 2015
Ashish K Tiwari, DNA (Daily News & Analysis)
Mumbai, 16 September 2015
"Quickest
delivery! Ordered an AC frm @snapdeal #electronicsmonday ystrdy
& zoom!its thr4 me today", reads a tweet by Sonali Jagwani,
a Delhi-based HR professional, summing up the mood at the ongoing
festive mega sale of e-commerce firms.
As the sale by Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal entered fourth day
today, the online world was mostly praises.
@Flipkart MY #Wished_FullFilled after only 1 day wait, Flipkart
amazing" Thanks #BigBillionDays more to come, a tweet by
one of the shoppers was shared by Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal.
This is in contrast with the last year, when e-marketplaces had
to face barrage of criticism on social media from consumers over
delayed, wrong deliveries, server crashes and pricing issues.
E-marketplace players too seem to happy with claims of millions of products sold, particularly in mobiles and consumer consumer electronics.
While Flipkart claimed to have sold half a-million mobile handsets in 10 hours, Snapdeal in its Diwali Dil Ki Deal campaign shipped five million orders so far. Amazon’s The Great Indian Festive Sale claimed categories like appliances, television, health and personal care and movies witnessed sales growth in the multiples of 3-7 times times over its previous biggest sale (The Great Indian Freedom Sale).
Calling it a blockbuster beginning for their mobile category sale, Mukesh Bansal, head of commerce platform, Flilpkart, said, "The Indian mobile revolution has truly come of age and the half a million mobile handsets sale record is truly a testament to the growing demand for smartphones in India."
P Sanjeev, director sales – Huawei & Honor Consumer products, tweeted that 1,000 units of their latest mobile handset Honor7 got sold out in less than an hour on Flipkart.
Flipkart had claimed sale of 1 million products in the first 10 hours of the sale with 25 items sold every second.
Flipkart, which is conducting the sale only on its mobile-app, said over 1.6 million mobile apps were downloaded two days prior to the sale.
SoftBank-backed Snapdeal, which saw five million app downloads on the Day One of sale, said it has set new benchmarks this time around: About 98.9% orders were dispatched within 24 hours of order placement, achieving 98.6% on-time delivery.
Jayant Sood, chief customer experience officer, Snapdeal, said the significant ramp-up in supply chain and technology capabilities has translated into superior customer value proposition. "There is a 350% increase in first-time customers and over 70,000 units of large-sized products like furniture, beds, TVs, and sofas have been shipped in just three days. The electronics sale has seen the highest demand for mobile phone with Rs 500 crore worth of phones sold on Snapdeal that day."
In view of the continuing strong demand Rs 200 crore worth phones are available today, he said.
While attractive discounts and pricing played their part, strategies like exchange offers and additional discount offers from banks YES bank, Standard Chartered and Citi Bank too help lure consumers. According to Flipkart, about 50% of customers availed the bank offers.
Commenting on the smooth execution by e-marketplaces for their respective festive sale offerings, Devangshu Dutta, chief executive, Third Eyesight – a retail consulting firm, said that e-marketplace operators have learnt their lesson from last year’s debacle. "They have been able to manage high traffic better this time around by scaling up efficiently on the server side. This has ensured a glitch-free shopping experience for customers. Having said that, I still think that challenges pertaining to physical infrastructure continues to be an issue and e-marketplaces need to address it properly and invest in," said Dutta.
But still consumers stayed sceptical.
"At Rs 675/- the price is unbelievable. Hope the material is good," read a comment below a description of an apparel posted on an e-commerce website.
(Published in DNA.)
admin
September 14, 2015
Richa
Maheshwari, The Economic Times
Bengaluru,
14 September 2015
Online
grocers are working on shortening their delivery time to less
than two hours by building more delivery points or roping in more
partner stores in a bid to attract consumers who prefer quicker
kiranas to waiting for delivery of online orders.
Companies such as BigBasket, PepperTap, ZopNow and Localbanya say time and convenience are driving more sales for online groceries, unlike deep discounting that has helped apparel or durables segment. In fact, if consumersdon’t get their orders on the same day, the order dropout rate could be as high as 50 per cent, industry experts said.
"In general ecommerce segment, the price differentiation is so high that the consumers are ready to wait as they won’t get such an option outside. But in our case, if we don’t deliver it when consumers need, they will go to the next kirana store even if there is Rs 20 discount on our site," said Mukesh Singh, cofounder of ZopNow.
Getting daily household, food and personal care products delivered at short notice needs investments and partnerships with a host of players.
ZopNow, which is present in five cities, is in talks with various supermarkets chains for tieups to shorten its delivery time while Amazon India, which started Amazon Kirana services in March, plans to rope in more kiranas to reduce its delivery time to 2-4 hours.
BigBasket, which recently acquired Bengaluru-based hyper local delivery startup Delyver, introduced one- hour delivery service in Gurgaon last week.
"There is a part of the basket that the customer buys on a higher frequency basis. These are smaller order values and these can be delivered efficiently through Express delivery," said Vipul Parekh, chief finance officer at bigbasket.com.
Gurgaon-based PepperTap, which offers two hour delivery service, plans to reduce the time to one hour by next year. "We are working on a technology which will help us crunch the whole process, from picking up to delivering the product," said Navneet Singh, CEO at PepperTap that currently operates in seven cities.
Mumbai-based Localbanya, which offers deliveries on the basis of time slots, also introduced two to three-hour delivery service in five cities two months ago. However, it does not plan to crunch the time any further.
"The issue is that most of this is done on a bike and hence, there is a limit to how much a biker can take along and how much orders we can accept for a particular time. Hence, we will not reduce the time any further for now," said Karan Gonsalves, head of marketing at Localbanya, which is present in six cities.
Despite these companies’ efforts to reduce delivery time,
some experts say replacing local grocers still remains a huge
challenge for online grocers. "Over the years, grocers have
built a relationship with their customers. All you have to do
is call them up and they will deliver the products to you in 30-35
minutes," said Devanghsu Dutta, CEO at Third Eyesight. That
kind of service would be hard for any online grocer to match.
(Published in The Economic Times.)
