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November 14, 2024
Economic Times
14 November 2024
The Swiggy IPO is making news for being the most successful in a decade in its category. The food and grocery delivery firm yesterday listed at a 5.6% premium to its IPO price of Rs 390, making it the first company with an issue size of over Rs 10,000 crore in the past decade to have listed above its offer price, ET has reported. The stock closed 17% above its issue price at Rs 455.95 in a weak market, surpassing analysts’ expectations of a tepid debut. The company’s market capitalisation at close on Wednesday was Rs 1.02 lakh crore.
Swiggy’s impressive debut also indicates the incoming deluge of cash in an emerging business, quick commerce. Swiggy plans to plough more cash into its quick-commerce business, Swiggy Instamart. Swiggy’s bigger rival, Zomato, is also planning to fatten its war chest. Zomato plans to raise fresh funds through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) despite sitting on $1.5 billion, or about Rs 12,600 crore. The money will also fuel its quick commerce business, Blinkit. Zepto, another quick commerce player, is also raising money. ET reported last month that Zepto is in talks to raise $100-150 million from a group of domestic family offices and wealthy individuals. It last raised $340 million in August. Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit and Zepto are the top three players with over 85% market share.
The floodgates of capital opening into the quick commerce sector would worry the big e-commerce platforms which have already started feeling the heat from quick commerce.
The quick rise of quick commerce
While quick commerce becomes the preferred medium for immediate needs and impulse purchases, e-commerce is favoured for more planned purchases like home, beauty and personal care. But now quick commerce firms are diversifying beyond groceries, small-value items, etc. and invading the home turf of e-commerce players.
Quick commerce is already conquering kirana, the neighbourhood small retail business, as well as hitting modern retail. As consumer preferences shift towards the convenience of last-minute grocery deliveries, quick commerce companies are outpacing traditional retailers, with 46 per cent of consumers surveyed reporting a cut in purchases from Kirana shops, a recent report has said. The quick commerce market size is expected to reach $40 billion by 2030, a jump from $6.1 billion in 2024, according to the report by Datum Intelligence.
Quick-commerce operators such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto are aggressively trying to lure away consumers from large ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart by matching their prices across groceries and fast-selling general merchandise, triggering a price war in the home delivery space, ET reported a few months ago. This is a departure from the earlier pricing strategy of quick-commerce players who typically charged 10-15% premium over average ecommerce marketplace prices for instant deliveries, industry executives had told ET.
A recent ET study of prices of 30 commonly used products in daily necessities, discretionary groceries and other categories, including electronics and toys, in both ecommerce and quick-commerce platforms reveal the pricing disparity has been bridged. “The pricing premium which quick commerce used to charge for instant deliveries is gone with these platforms now joining a race with large ecommerce to offer competitive pricing to shift consumer loyalties,” B Krishna Rao, senior category head at biscuits major Parle Products had told ET.
The increasing competition is putting pressure on ecommerce majors to reduce delivery time.
“Price matching by quick commerce is to acquire market share and is part of market acquisition cost even when it might not be profitable at a per unit transaction level,” Devangshu Dutta, CEO of consulting firm Third Eyesight, had told ET. “They may have to sacrifice margins in the short term to get customers shopping more frequently.”
After challenging kirana and modern retail, e-commerce is the next frontier for quick commerce companies.
The challenge shaping up for e-commerce giants
With Swiggy, Zomato and Zepto raising a huge amount of money, the war between quick commerce and e-commerce is likely to turn bloody, besides increasing internecine competition among quick commerce players themselves.
Quick commerce, which began with the delivery of groceries and essential items, has now expanded to include a diverse range of products. This includes electronics, clothing, cosmetics, household goods, medicines, pet supplies, books, sporting equipment, and more.
E-commerce sector offers a vast opportunity for growth of quick commerce business. The Indian e-commerce market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21% and reach $325 billion in 2030, as per Deloitte’s report released on Monday. This huge potential is luring big players. The Tata group’s ecommerce venture Neu is set to enter the quick commerce segment branded as Neu Flash, rolling it out to select users selling grocery, electronics and fashion, ET reported last month. Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance, leveraging its vast network of supermarkets, is expanding into the 10–30 minute delivery segment. Ambani wants to ensure quick commerce helps bolster its business ahead of an IPO of Reliance Retail, which was last year valued at $100 billion, and has backers including KKR, sources told Reuters recently.
Besides entry of big ones like Tata and Ambani, the deluge of fresh investment into business by the incumbents such as Swiggy, Blinkit and Zepto will pose a big threat to large e-commerce players Amazon and Flipkart. Swiggy has recently hired two Flipkart executives to boost its senior leadership. They have joined two other executives that Bengaluru-based Swiggy had hired from the Walmart-owned ecommerce major in the past few months.
Swiggy and Zomato are both assessing several new services as they diversify beyond their core businesses, ET has reported a few days ago. Swiggy is all set to launch a pilot programme for a services marketplace, labelled ‘Yello’, which will host professionals such as lawyers, therapists, fitness trainers, astrologers, dieticians, according to sources. It is also testing a premium membership service called ‘Rare’, for affluent customers providing them access to high-end events such as Formula 1 races, music concerts, upscale art exhibitions, in addition to VIP hospitality and priority reservations at luxury restaurants.
Zomato has previously been bold in its diversification moves by buying Paytm’s events and ticket business for Rs 2,048 crore. It is now trying out a concierge-like service to help users place online food orders over WhatsApp. Human customer relationship agents will provide the Gurgaon-based company’s new service instead of its usual approach of deploying chatbots, a person familiar with the move has told ET recently.
Apprehending challenges by quick commerce players, Flipkart has already started its own quick commerce business Flipkart Minutes. While still far behind its established rivals, Flipkart Minutes hit daily orders of 50,000-60,000 during its Big Billion Days sales, people with knowledge of the matter told ET last month.
Further investment and bigger players entering the sector will heat up competition among the quick commerce companies even as they will grapple with new challenges such as logistics as they expand. But a bloody war could soon be seen on the e-commerce battlefield as emboldened by huge popular response the quick commerce companies start invading on the well-guarded turf of Flipkart and Amazon.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
September 16, 2024
Sesa Sen, NDTV Profit
16 September 2024
As India’s economy grows and digital technologies reshape consumer behavior, the future of kirana stores—the quintessential neighbourhood grocery shops—hangs precariously in the balance.
These soap-to-staple sellers, once impervious to change, now confront an existential threat from quick commerce players like Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto, and from modern retailers such as DMart and Star Bazaar, raising a pivotal question: Can kiranas survive the pressure of change, or will they die a slow death?
The All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation, that represents four lakh packaged goods distributors and stockists, has recently raised alarms, urging Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal to investigate the unchecked proliferation of quick commerce platforms and its potential ramifications for small traders.
Their concerns are not unfounded. Data suggests that the share of modern retail, including online commerce, which is currently below 10%, is set to cross 30% over the next 3-5 years. Much of this growth will come at the cost of traditional retail.
“Unless the government takes on an activist role to support the smallest of business owners, the shift toward large corporate formats is inevitable,” according to Devangshu Dutta, head of retail consultancy Third Eyesight.
Casualties Of The Boom
Madan Sachdev, a second-generation grocer operating Vandana Stores in eastern Delhi, has thrived in the recent years, adapting to the digital age by taking orders via WhatsApp and employing extra hands for home delivery.
Despite having weathered the storm of competition from giants like Amazon and BigBazaar, he now finds himself disheartened, as his monthly sales have halved to about Rs 30,000, all thanks to quick commerce.
Sachdev is worried about meeting expenses such as rent, his children’s education, and other household bills. He finds himself at a crossroads, uncertain about how to modernise his store or adopt new-age strategies in order to attract customers in an increasingly competitive market.
India’s $600 billion grocery market, a cornerstone for quick commerce, is largely dominated by more than 13 million local mom-and-pop stores.
Retailers like Sachdev are also seeing a steep decline in their profit margins from FMCG companies, which now hover around 10-12%, down from the 18-20% margins seen before the Covid-19 pandemic. The consumer goods companies are instead offering higher margins to quick commerce platforms so that they can afford the price tags.
Quick deliveries account for $5 billion, or 45%, of the country’s $11 billion online grocery market, according to Goldman Sachs. It is projected to capture 70% of the online grocery market, forecasted to grow to $60 billion by 2030, as consumers increasingly prioritise convenience and speed.
Many of the mom-and-pop shops are family-run and have been in business for generations. Yet they lack the resources to modernise and compete effectively with larger chains. Modern retail businesses, including quick commerce, begin with significantly more capital, thanks to funding from corporate investors, venture capital, private equity, and public markets.
“They can scale quickly and capture market share due to a superior product-service mix, larger infrastructure, and more robust business processes,” said Dutta.
Moreover, their ability to engage in price competition poses a challenge for small retailers and distributors, making it difficult for them to compete.
“This is something that has happened worldwide, in the largest markets, and I don’t think India will be an exception,” Dutta said, adding that it would be incomplete to single out a specific format of corporate business such as quick commerce as the sole villain in this situation.
“India is a tough, friction-laden environment at any given point in time, including government processes which don’t make it any easier,” he said.
Peer Pressure
Data from research firm Kantar shows that general trade, which comprises kirana and paan-beedi shops, have grown 4.2% on a 12-month basis in June, while quick commerce grew 29% during the same period.
Shoppers are becoming more omnichannel, rather than gravitating towards one particular channel, said Manoj Menon, director- commercial, Kantar Worldpanel, South Asia. “While the growth [for quick commerce and e-commerce] might appear to have declined compared to a year ago, a point to note is that the base for these channels has significantly grown. Therefore, achieving this level of growth is still commendable.”
Consumer goods companies such as Hindustan Unilever Ltd., Dabur India Ltd., Tata Consumer Products Ltd., etc., have acknowledged the salience of quick commerce to their packaged food, personal and homecare products. The platform currently comprises roughly 40% of their digital sales.
“We are working all the major players in the quick commerce space and devising product mix and portfolio. This is a very high growth channel for us,” according to Mohit Malhotra, chief executive officer, Dabur India.
Elara Capital analysts have pointed out that the share of quick commerce is expected to rise to60% in the near future with e-commerce and modern trade turning costlier for FMCG brands than quick commerce. “The larger brands tend to make better margins on quick-commerce platforms versus e-commerce due to lower discounts on the former,” it said in a report.
However, it is too premature to draw a parallel between kirana and quick commerce in terms of competition, given the significant size difference.
The average spend per consumer on FMCG in kirana stores stands at Rs. 21,285 annually while the same is Rs. 4,886 for quick commerce, according to Menon.
Rural Vs Urban Divide
Quick commerce is still an urban phenomenon. In contrast, in rural settings, where internet penetration is still catching up and access to large retail chains is limited, kirana stores continue to thrive.
According to Naveen Malpani, partner, Grant Thornton Bharat, while the growth of quick commerce is undeniable, this channel is not poised to replace traditional retail, which still has a wider reach in the country. “It will complement older models, filling a niche for immediate, smaller purchases. Also, a 10-20-minute delivery may not have a strong market pull in rural markets where distance and time are not much of a concern.”
Yet many others believe, even in these areas, the challenge is palpable.
The small businesses are beginning to feel the sting of same slow decline that once befell the ubiquitous telephone booths in the era of mobile phone, according to Sameer Gandotra, chief executive officer of Frendy, a start-up that is building ‘mini DMart’ in small towns where giants like Reliance and Tatas have yet to establish their presence.
As rural customers slowly start to embrace digital shopping and seek more variety, kirana stores must adapt or risk becoming obsolete, he said.
Besides, the popularity of quick commerce is set to challenge the dominance of incumbent e-commerce platforms, especially in categories such as beauty and personal care, packaged foods and apparel.
“Quick commerce is primarily operational in metros and tier 1 markets, which is impacting the sales of traditional companies in these areas. However, if quick-commerce players were to extend their operations to tier 2 and tier 3, it would even challenge companies such as DMart and Nykaa, and would pare sales and profitability,” noted analysts at Elara Securities.
Frendy’s Gandotra believes the journey for kirana stores is not a lost cause, but it requires strategic interventions. Many kirana store owners struggle to integrate point-of-sale systems, inventory management software, or even digital payment solutions. These stores need to embrace technology.
Another aspect is the need for policy support. Regulations to ensure fair competition can prevent monopolisation by large retailers. Additionally, subsidies, tax benefits, and grants for infrastructure improvements can help small businesses adapt to changing market dynamics. With renewed support, kirana stores can continue to be the backbone of Indian retail.
Nonetheless, there will be some who’ll be left behind during this shift. Analysts at Elara Capital warn that the swift rise of quick-commerce platforms, combined with aggressive discounting, could wipe off 25-30% of traditional grocery stores.
(Published on NDTV Profit)
admin
September 12, 2024
By Richa Naidu and Dhwani Pandya, Reuters
London/Mumbai,12 September 2024
For years, the world’s biggest condom maker Reckitt Benckiser designed products and marketing to lure Indian men to its Durex brand. Now, it is pushing a growth strategy by betting on women and rural consumers.
India last year surpassed China to become the world’s most populous nation, but still fares poorly on the use of contraceptives. India’s government estimates only around 10% of men use condoms and for women, sterilization remains the popular form of contraception.
Social stigma surrounding sex – which some say stems from Victorian social norms established during British colonization – has for decades marginalized female pleasure in the Indian society.
But attitudes are changing and Reckitt is shifting marketing gears to take advantage of an upswing in condom use among Indian women – now a key target audience for Durex.
Around 9.5% of married Indian women cited using condoms during sex by 2021, almost double the use five years earlier, according to latest available government statistics. Among unmarried women, such use more than doubled to 27%.
Reckitt is reformulating products such as lubricants aimed at attracting women consumers, and has new marketing campaigns, Pankaj Duhan, Reckitt’s senior vice president of intimate wellness, told Reuters in an interview.
The Durex lubricants in India will use improved formulations to appeal to women and have been created after performing clinical studies to address concerns females face — 30% of Indian women experience some discomfort when having sex with their partner.
“We want to change this … That is why we are relaunching our lubes portfolio,” said Duhan. “The women tend to become a little bit more underserved consumer groups.”
The India condoms market is currently dominated by Mankind Pharma, which makes Manforce, followed by Reckitt and TTK Healthcare.
CHALLENGES
The British consumer goods firm faces some stiff challenges in its quest to carve out a lucrative slice of the female condom market and rural consumers, primarily with distribution and pricing – two areas industry watchers believe are key to success – but also in coaxing a still-largely conservative rural population to buy its products.
Moreover, competitors are making a pitch to women too, with Durex’s main rival and market leader Manforce tweaking its marketing — a recent ad stars a Bollywood actress talking about benefits of condoms and asking women to “go buy your own.”
“One challenge Reckitt may face is consistency of messaging,” said Devangshu Dutta, head of retail consultancy Third Eyesight, adding the company needs to figure out if it is targeting condoms for health, family planning, or pleasure as there could be different messaging for each type of shopper.
The growth opportunity is compelling – India’s condom market size is merely worth $210 million, compared to China’s $4.1 billion, but is forecast to grow at 7.4% compound annual rate between 2024 and 2030, according to Indian consulting firm 6Wresearch. The global market is worth $11.3 billion.
Growing the market will take some doing though, not least because of India’s vast size and millions of mom-and-pop stores require a widespread distributor network.
Currently, only about 10-15% of Durex’s sales in India come from rural areas, which is far more price sensitive than urban cities.
“Distribution is the big challenge simply because even though most consumer goods companies have made their way to all pincodes in the country, the question is maintaining availability at retail points,” said Dutta of Third Eyesight.
CHIPPING AWAY AT TABOOS
Sex education in the conservative country is also lagging, and there is a vast gulf between awareness and actual use of contraceptives.
Matt Godfrey, executive vice president for Asia Pacific at Monks ad agency, part of S4Capital, said marketing tweaks by the likes of Durex are a welcome change but condom use and sex education need to improve in India.
“There are significant societal and cultural aspects that need to be rapidly shifted to reverse the status quo,” he said.
In the eastern state of Odisha, for example, a small medical store of Sudam Padhan does not prominently display condoms as “people frown upon them”.
In India, it’s men who mostly buy condoms, but some like Pooja, a marketer in Mumbai, are trying to drive change. She made an “awkward” decision to buy condoms herself for the first time this year, saying “when I’m asking for a condom over the counter I am basically putting my health first”.
Still, in a telling sign of the somewhat taboo nature of the topic, the 31-year-old declined to share her last name as she is unmarried and feared societal admonition.
“An open conversation encouraging safe and responsible sex in India has been steadily progressing but needs to be continually supported” by brands including Durex, S4Capital’s Godfrey said.
Like many of its rivals, Reckitt has over the years largely focussed on Indian men, with many ads featuring women wearing skimpy clothes.
Rival Manforce Condoms features former pornstar Sunny Leone in videos, some labelled “EXCLUSIVE UNCENSORED”. Duhan said many of the condom ads “objectified women.”
But that’s changing. Durex earlier this year launched a risqué “Explorers Wanted” lubricants campaign in India which featured sensual shots of nude male body parts.
PRICING PAINS
Pricing is another big challenge, especially in stores in smaller towns and villages which are reluctant to stock condoms and lubes. Duhan said products have to be “extremely cheap” to sell in some rural areas, where many use free government-provided condoms.
Padhan, from the medical store in Odisha, doesn’t stock Durex “because they are costly and there’s no demand for them in rural areas,” and says most sales are of Ustad “Deluxe Condoms” made by a state-run firm.
Ustaad costs just 10 rupees (11 U.S. cents) for a pack of six. A pack of 10 Durex condoms starts retailing at around 250 rupees, with some priced above $6, and a similar pack of Manforce starts at $1.
But the smaller three-condom Durex pack starts retailing around 99 rupees, and Reckitt believes they will sell better in rural India.
“We are starting at the top (and) planning to get down to the rural areas,” Duhan said. “It’s a massive undertaking”.
(Reported and Published by Reuters)
admin
August 24, 2024
Writankar Mukherjee & Navneeta Nandan, Economic Times
24 August 2024
Quick-commerce operators such as Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart and Zepto are aggressively trying to lure away consumers from large ecommerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart by matching their prices across groceries and fast-selling general merchandise, triggering a price war in the home delivery space.
This is a departure from the earlier pricing strategy of quick-commerce players who typically charged 10-15% premium over average ecommerce marketplace prices for instant deliveries, industry executives said.
The strategy now is to win consumers from large ecommerce at a time when urban shoppers increasingly prefer faster and scheduled deliveries, they said.
An ET study of prices of 30 commonly used products in daily necessities, discretionary groceries and other categories, including electronics and toys, in both ecommerce and quick-commerce platforms reveal the pricing disparity has been bridged. “The pricing premium which quick commerce used to charge for instant deliveries is gone with these platforms now joining a race with large ecommerce to offer competitive pricing to shift consumer loyalties,” said B Krishna Rao, senior category head at biscuits major Parle Products.
It seems to be working. Quick commerce is the fastest growing channel for all leading fast-moving consumer goods companies, accounting for 30-40% of their total online retail sales, according to company disclosures in earning calls.
These platforms are also expanding their basket with larger FMCG packs to cater to monthly shopping needs but also non-groceries such as electronic products, home improvement, kitchen appliances, basic apparel, shoes and toys amongst others.
“Consumers have all the apps on their phones and all they want is quick deliveries at the best price,” said Rao of Parle Products.
The increasing competition is putting pressure on ecommerce majors to reduce delivery time.
‘Market acquisition cost’
Flipkart is even eyeing a quick-commerce foray by piloting a 10-minute delivery service called Minutes in some parts of Bengaluru.
Jayen Mehta, managing director of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation that owns the Amul brand, said now that people are buying regularly from quick commerce with an increase in their assortment, legacy ecommerce platforms like Big Basket and Amazon are trying to deliver faster and same day, which has increased competition pressure.
“At the end of the day, consumers compare across channels before buying. So, pricing equality has become important,” Mehta said. “But then, quick commerce has a delivery charge if the order is below a certain value,” he added.
But does their business model allow quick-commerce players to wage a sustained price war against ecommerce platforms?
Quick commerce model requires multiple dark stores to be set up in close vicinity in each market, while ecommerce players mostly make deliveries from centralised warehouses.
But then, quick commerce platforms right now are at a phase where ecommerce was 7-8 years back, said Devangshu Dutta, CEO of consulting firm Third Eyesight.
“Price matching by quick commerce is to acquire market share and is part of market acquisition cost even when it might not be profitable at a per unit transaction level,” he told ET. “They may have to sacrifice margins in the short term to get customers shopping more frequently.”
Blinkit chief executive Albinder Singh Dhindsa earlier this month said the advent of quick commerce has made people want things faster than they would have otherwise got from ecommerce.
“This has led to a direct share shift of a number of non-grocery use cases to quick commerce where customers were primarily reliant on ecommerce for buying these products,” he said in the Zomato-owned quick-commerce platform’s June quarter earnings release.
Dhindsa said quick-commerce platforms are gaining sales by incremental growth in consumption, shift in purchases from next day ecommerce deliveries and mid-premium retail chains.
Citing an example, he claimed the demand Blinkit has generated for online-first oral care brand Perfora is a testament that such brands’ growth and adoption on quick commerce is much faster than on ecommerce.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
March 18, 2024
Christina Moniz, Financial Express
March 18, 2024
It is not difficult to understand why e-commerce firm Flipkart wants a bite of the Q-commerce pie.
India’s quick commerce market has been growing year-on-year at 77% to reach $2.8 billion in GMV (gross merchandise value) in 2023, according to a Redseer report. In comparison, e-commerce has been growing at 14-15% year-on-year. No one would dispute that with instant deliveries of products and groceries in 10-20 minutes, quick commerce firms like the Zomato-owned Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart have changed the face of e-commerce and retail over the past few years.
While quick commerce thrives, none of the players in this ring are profitable yet. According to Devangshu Dutta, CEO at Third Eyesight, most quick commerce firms are in an expensive market acquisition phase and are at least a year away from profitability — perhaps longer. He expects that the unit economics for these companies will improve. “Some of the quick commerce players have created a substantial consumer base, which is growing in the frequency of transactions, moving to higher order values and transacting more products with potentially better margins,” says Dutta.
Both Zepto and Blinkit expect to turn profitable in FY25, as per their public statements.
So what are the primary challenges? “Traditional large e-commerce players face obstacles in facilitating last-mile deliveries, establishing dark stores, managing supply chains effectively, and navigating fierce market competition,” says Anshul Garg, managing partner & head, Publicis Commerce India.
The other key challenge for the late entrants is that customers seldom switch platforms. This is different from the way customers shop for products like electronics on e-commerce, where they compare prices/ deals across multiple e-commerce marketplaces. Brands like Flipkart need to define their playbook by maybe exploring categories other than grocery if they are to make a dent in this market.
As things stand, quick commerce has a mere 7% of the potential market. The total addressable market is estimated at $45 billion, higher than food delivery, as per JM Financial. Blinkit leads the market with a 46% share, followed by Swiggy Instamart at 27%, and Zepto at 21%.
Growing-up pangs
Kushal Bhatnagar, associate partner at Redseer Strategy Consultants, explains that there are broadly three ways that Q-commerce firms are working towards profitability. The first is by pushing higher priced items on their platforms and bumping up higher average order values. They’re also foraying into non-grocery segments such as cosmetics and headphones.
The other lever is ensuring dark store efficiencies. “While dark stores are an added cost, most platforms have a solid understanding of the demand across micro markets and are able to extract better profitability from each dark store. So the trend is positive, even if profitability is still to be achieved,” explains Bhatnagar.
For a dark store to deliver ROI and become profitable, it needs to cross 1,200-1,300 daily orders.
Some players like Zepto are also experimenting with a nominal platform fee of Rs. 2 per order, which they sometimes increase during peak times — by up to Rs. 10 — to gain from a surge in demand. Some are also implementing 12-15% fees for orders under Rs. 500, nudging customers to spend more.
Ad revenue is another important lever driving growth for these platforms, especially as D2C brands hop on board and advertise on them to reach GenZ and millennial consumers in metros and tier-I markets. Advertising revenue is around 3% of a platform’s GMV, and it is expected to keep growing.
FMCG and F&B are the top advertising categories on quick commerce currently but that can change as platforms move into higher value categories. “Quick commerce is also venturing into unconventional categories such as electronics, mobile and large appliances. If all goes according to plan, we can anticipate a significant shift in advertising contribution, given that these categories boast higher average selling prices, prompting advertisers to adopt a slightly more aggressive stance,” says Shashank Rathore, vice-president, e-commerce at Interactive Avenues (IPG Mediabrands India).
(Published in Financial Express)
