Making E-commerce Easy

Met Pavithra K Mehta from Service Space a couple of days back and got to know of this organization which has its very own take on how commerce can be simplified. Something worth sharing.

http://www.helpothers.org/
The concept is one what they call “pay-it-forward”. So the idea is that you do a complete random act of niceness towards a total stranger and somehow let them know that all they have to do is to not repay the act of kindness, but to in-turn do another random act of niceness to someone else.

The idea pretty much stems from the concept of living in abundance; in a world where you have more than enough to do that small-something-extra for someone else when its not expected, and not in exchange for any monetary benefit. Think paying toll for the car behind at a toll booth, or paying for coffee for the table next to you at a cafe. And doing it anonymously if possible. The core idea: spread random niceness. It doesn’t cost much. And in a world so driven by commerce, it’s a refreshing difference.

Talk about commerce that makes you smile!

In the Ecommerce business you quickly realize that lots of Marketing Managers compartmentalize strategies for TV, radio, print, strategy, print, online, mobile and social. Very often they have different teams working in different ‘silos’ to work on these different channels. I cannot tell you how often the online / etailing division just seems to be out there on its own, with nowhere the same kind of emphasis that say mass media gets, or even social gets.

Whats so often missed is a seamless strategy that just focuses on the consumer irrespective of the medium.

Its nice to say that convergence is the keyword and all that jazz, but very few execute it in a seamless manner which follows a customer
from awareness through mass media,
making it easy to research and review the brand and its products and services online with helpful reviews and videos,
and being present in the relevant search online when customers search for the products and services,
and then making it easy on the mobile to find the products and services closest on a geographical basis or in an online medium
and lastly being able to influence others about your brand on the social medium.

The strategies need not be built around the channels, but all around the consumer and thats easier said than done.

At Tenovia with 10Commerce we’re pushing ourselves and our customers to make things more consumer centric at all touchpoints that we interact with our customer’s customers on: Online, Mobile, Social, and Direct. Okay so thats the self publicity bit. Its our blog after all.

Came across an awesome youtube post that showcases the strategy used by Tesco to promote its online shopping business in the extremely competitive Koream online grocery market.

Any takers for the same in the Indian Grocery chains? Spencer’s Daily / More / Reliance Fresh / anyone?

Comscore recently published its report on Global ecommerce related internet traffic throwing up some really interesting data. Amazon accounted for 20% of the worldwide ecommerce traffic. Ebay accounted for 16%. And here is the surprising one: Alibaba.com accounted for 11% of the global ecommerce traffic. That 11% translates to a whopping 160 million unique visitors.

Alibaba.com is the company which owns Taobao.com, China’s version of Ebay, and almost owns 75% of the Chinese Ecommerce market with it. Approximately USD 60 billion worth of transactions happened on Taobao.com in 2010.

In China, in the online space, C2C is significantly larger than B2C. However, overall ecommerce business is approximately worth USD 110 billion for 2011 – 12. And the other players having a stake in the pie are Paipai.com, 360buy.com, DangDang.com and Xiu.com The Ecommerce industry is growing at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 90%. AT Kearny estimates that by 2014 it would be a USD 175 billion market. With numbers like that you have to take notice of the possibilities that await a market with a population of 1.3 billion, and a middle class of 200 million and some 160 million internet users.

I recently met a very senior IBM executive, based out of Shanghai and he was telling me how almost everyone in his office buys groceries online and gets it delivered at an hour time slot convenient to them, typically the hour before the end of the office hours. You know the ecommerce market penetration is super high when people are buying groceries online.

A big part of the Chinese ecommerce growth has also been also due to the Logistics industry growing along side it. In the 4 large cities in China, that is, in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu same day deliveries are increasing quite rapidly. However, the logistics is nowhere near the same efficiency levels when it comes to tier 2 and tier 3 cities, where rising income levels is fueling ecommerce.

So the large ecommerce players are investing a lot of money in bigger warehouses and some are venturing into starting their own distribution systems. Some are in the process of buying out a few of these logistics companies. Whats heartening is that the ecommerce companies are realizing that logistics can make-or-break their businesses, and are seeing it as a huge competitive advantage in the time to come.

In India, I believe we’re probably 3 – 4 years behind the Chinese ecommerce market in terms of the ecommerce environment to mature to the levels that we see in China today. However, there is a sheer possibility of serious innovation in the Indian ecommerce market in terms of scaling up rapidly and the entire eco-system growing with the knowledge of learnings from global markets.

It is indeed an exciting time to be in this market. Can’t wait to get all my grocery shopping done on my android phone on my way home from work, and the order being delivered to me within the hour. That would keep the Mrs happy.

Referred Report:  http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/8/Amazon_Sites_Visited_by_1_in_5_Global_Internet_Users_in_June

Murali Balan is the CEO of Tenovia Solutions, an Ecommerce product and services company. Its product, 10Commerce, can be viewed at 10Commerce.com. 

Very interesting article which was Forbes’ cover story for their July issue.

http://business.in.com/article/boardroom/ecommerce-in-india-the-second-coming/27042/1

Just attended a Proto.in event yesterday in Mahabalipuram, which mostly consisted of panel discussions featuring VCs from leading Venture Capital and PE companies, and founders of exciting start-ups.

One point stuck out quite a bit from the event. Rahul Khanna, MD, Canaan Partners (a $3 Billion global fund with a presence in India) shared the following statistics about the deals in the Indian Ecommerce industry:

Jan 07 – Dec 10 => 3 year period => Number of deals: 28; Deal Size: $60  million
Jan 10 – June 11 => 1.5 year period => Number of deals: 32; Deal Size: $102 million

So the last 1.5 years has seen more deals than the previous 3, and the deal sizes have been approximately twice as well. (Maybe the numbers might be off a few million here and there, but basically the point remains).

That statistic should be a boost in the arm for those folks who have started their Ecommerce ventures in India.

The Nielson Company recently came out with its research report which showed how users use their mobile devices. With there being such a dog fight about attracting customers online, I think its time that the Indian Retailers start using mobile Commerce as another medium to engage the customer.

The landscape of Supply Chain in E-tailing is drastically changing for the better. Here is a look at some of the improvements taking place at the leading online retailers in India.

Large distribution centers: Improves order fulfilment with higher inventory levels that are directly under your control compared to a 3^rd party.

Improved technologies: Deeper integrations with supplier inventory reduces the chances of received orders not getting fulfilled because of stock unavailability.

Better tools and systems: Better scanners, conveyer belts, automated packaging systems, automated labelling systems have decreased the time taken at multiple points of procuring and packaging.

Smarter Analytics: Predictive analysis is being used increasingly to anticipate customer order patterns and stock accordingly.

Production Panning: Increasingly, Ecommerce companies, who are more aggregators than manufacturers, are planning their sales and promotions and going directly to the manufacturers with a set of orders and an delivery schedule based on demand. This backward integration has not only cut out the middlemen, but also given better controls to the Ecommerce companies.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service: The TATAs own a company called Drive India, which basically provides large scale infrastructure to any company that requires it. I believe this IaaS model will grow in the Ecommerce industry.

Better talent: As the Indian Ecommerce market matures and customer orders increase and the investments pour in, better talent is getting attracted to the sector. And with the influx of better talent, the supply chain built around the Ecommerce trade is constantly improving in quality.

Was at Coonoor (a gorgeous-sleepy hill station town in the Nilgiris) over the weekend, and was amazed at how the entire town, and increasingly the entire region, is saying no to plastic.

They have the same retail chains who dole out plastic bags across India, providing cloth / paper bags at the checkout counters. Incredible. Amazing what a little firm initiative from the local government can do.

Makes me wonder when the same focus is going to come into the world of Ecommerce. Today some of the leading online retailers are still dumping the customer with excessive non-sustainable packaging. Its time all of us in the industry looked into this and did something about it.

I’m starting today by trying to find vendors who supply sustainable packaging materials so that I can recommend them to our clients.

I’m convinced that it will make a difference for the customers as well to know that the company that they shop with is green. It should be a differentiator and for those e-retailers complying with it should be making some noise about it.

Never before has so much attention been given to the shopping cart as now. With the customer’s mail box getting flooded with coupons from deal sites, the customer has become a lot more price conscious. Getting a customer to come to your site, and be excited enough by your product to add it to the cart is great. But to get the customer to carry that cart all the way through checkout is a completely different ball game.

The E-commerce game revolves around the cart. With conversion rates at E-commerce stores ranging between 1% – 7%, and each percentage point becomes ever so important. There are many things that can be done to fix the cart. Here’s a look at what some of the leading etailers in India are doing to keep their shopping carts conversion rates high. We looked at flipkart.com, ebay.in, infibeam.com, shopping.rediff.com, and myntra.com. Here are the findings:

1. Infibeam.com

I loved the bit where they point out the availability of Cash-on-Delivery as a payment option for the items in the cart. I like how “Proceed to checkout” is the main highlighted button, whereas everything else is in a lighter colour, such the “continue shopping” button.

2. Flipkart.com

The blue-eyed boys of Indian Ecommerce have a fairly straight-forward shopping cart. Its one of the few that show the cart in a ajax pop-up. (Landmarkonthenet.com also does the same). The ajax part is nice, because it doesn’t wait for a page to load. However, I believe that this can somehow reduce the conversion rate.

3. Rediff.com

Rediff’s cart is probably the simplest no-frills cart amongst the major retailers. Not what I would recommend. The only good part perhaps is that they have no other element in the page.

4. Ebay.in

Fantastic cart. My favourite. Not surprisingly its probably the one of the most successful site in the Indian Ecommerce market, and I’m excluding their auction related sales. Its got a bunch of options that a customer might want to see including help through live chat, product thumbnails, payment options, discount / savings information, next steps, and very importantly, it does a very good job of cross-selling.

5. FutureBazaar.com

Probably the most expensive platform in the history of Indian Ecommerce yet. Their cart doesn’t disappoint. Its got almost all the elements laid out well. I think their design could be much better, but they seem to get most check marks as far as the cart essentials go. I like them showing the progressive steps of the cart along with the live chat help icon.

Also like the fact that they provide a very prominent place to add any coupon details. Many site leave this to the final page before they provide this option. I think the earlier you allow your customers to see the benefit the better it is.

Also they do a good job of cross-selling, which is so crucial. If you can even get 10% of your customers to add something from the suggested list, thats a huge revenue.

Murali Balan is a Director at Tenovia, and shares Tenovia’s mission of helping businesses do business online. He has around 10 years of experience in Ecommerce technologies and business practices.