The Season of Opportunism

Devangshu Dutta

October 29, 2014

(The Hindu Businessline - cat.a.lyst got marketing experts from diverse industries to analyse consumer behaviour during the last one month and pick out valuable nuggets on how this could impact marketing and brands in the years to come. This piece was a contribution to this Deepavali special supplement.) Two trends that stand out in my mind, having examined over two-and-a-half decades in the Indian consumer market, are the stretching or flattening out of the demand curve, or the emergence of multiple demand peaks during the year, and discount-led buying. Secular demand Once, sales of some products in 3-6 weeks of the…

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Biyani’s Brand Factory unfazed by online sales

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October 27, 2014

Raghavendra Kamath, Business Standard Mumbai,27 October 2014 365-DAY DISCOUNTING - Brand Factory plans to continue with a mix of private labels and brands to attract customers - Maintains that online sales won’t dent the appeal of year-round discounts on brands up to 50 per cent - Battling a bigger threat than online, of brands not discounting, Megamart is retailing more inhouse brands now Kishore Biyani, following the online discount fest that marked the season, has alternated between criticising an e-commerce portal (Flipkart) for undercutting and tying up with another (Amazon) to sell some of Future Group's private labels. But Biyani's…

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New perspectives needed for food and agricultural growth

Devangshu Dutta

October 25, 2014

These are thoughts shared in an emailed interview with the AgriBusiness and Food Industry magazine (published in the November 2014 issue.) A Perspective on the Indian market: Our first word of advice to companies that are looking at India as an evolving and large market, is to acknowledge the fact that that it has very diverse cuisines and food cultures. Both Indian and international companies wishing to enter this market for the first time need to understand and acknowledge that one-size certainly does not fit everyone. The variety of finished products needed requires food companies to address smaller quantities and…

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Flipkart to buy into Jeeves in home appliances push

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October 22, 2014

Mihir Dalal, MINT Bangalore, 22 October 2014 Flipkart, India’s biggest online retailer, is close to buying a large stake in Jeeves Consumer Services Pvt. Ltd, which provides after-sales services on large home appliances and electronics, two people familiar with the matter said. Flipkart is buying into Jeeves partly because the company plans to launch its private brands in home appliances such as televisions and refrigerators as well as electronics, said one of the people. Flipkart has already launched a range of tablets under the Digiflip brand in June and is planning to launch private brands in the large appliances category,…

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Preparing for the big sale

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October 20, 2014

Devina Joshi, Ankita Rai & Sonali Chowdhury, Business Standard New Delhi , 20 October 2014 Monday, October 6, 2014, was supposed to be India's answer to America's 'Cyber Monday'. It was the day Indian e-tailing giant Flipkart unleashed its Big Billion Day sale, promising unthinkably deep discounts across a host of categories. The day ended up making history for all the wrong reasons - the website's server crashed frequently, there were complaints of fraudulent pricing, stocks ran out within seconds of the sale launch, there were payment and delivery glitches, and to top it all, an unsatisfactory response mechanism from…

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