According to a new report in The Boston Consulting Group's Connected World series - The Indian Internet economy contributed Rs 3.2 trillion to the overall economy in 2010, representing 4.1 per cent of GDP, and is projected to rise to Rs 10.8 trillion by 2016.It found that by 2016 the total size of the G-20 Internet economy will be $4.2 trillion, equivalent to 5.3 per cent of GDP, up from $2.3 trillion or 4.1 per cent in 2010.India's Internet economy growth rate of 23.0 per cent places it as the second fastest across the G-20 and ahead of many other developing nations in the G-20, which are growing at an average of 17.8 per cent. Projected growth rates elsewhere are: 24.3 per cent in Argentina, 18.3 per cent in Russia and 15.6 per cent in Mexico. In 2010 developed markets contributed 76 per cent of the G-20's Internet economy; by 2016 that will fall to 66 per cent.Consumption is the principal driver of Internet GDP in most countries, typically representing more than 50 per cent of the total in 2010. It will remain the largest single driver through 2016. China and India stand out for their enormous Internet related exports - China in goods, India in services – which propel their internet-economy rankings toward the top of the chart," said Arvind Subramanian, a Mumbai-based BCG Partner. He further added, "In emerging countries like India, social media are fast becoming the internet medium and mobile the access medium of choice.Rajan Anandan, VP, Sales and Operations & MD, Google India, said, "India is seeing one of the fastest rates of internet adoption across the globe. We see emerging opportunities for innovation in areas like mobile, e-commerce and cloud and are committed to growing the market by offering more locally relevant services."Online Commerce In 2010, the share of total retail carried out online in India was only 0.9 per cent but is projected to reach 4.5 percent by 2016. What's more, the Internet influences only an additional 0.8 per cent of total retail from connected consumers researching online and purchasing offline ('ROPO'). These numbers compare to 3.1 percent for online sales and 4.0 per cent for ROPO in Brazil, 1.7 per cent and 4.8 per cent in Russia, and 5.0 per cent and 9.6 per cent in the USConsumer Value Consumers are the big winners of the Internet economy and BCG's study highlights just how essential it has become to everyday life and the value which consumers attach to it. Asked how much they would have to be paid to live without Internet access, Indian respondents said an average of Rs 21,436 per year, or 2.8 times what they pay for access and services. When asked whether they would forgo showering for a year in order to keep Internet access, 36 per cent of Indian online consumers said they would; 64 per cent said they would forgo chocolate; 63 per cent coffee; and 70 per cent would give up alcohol.
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When every corporate has a website why not a health-focused website as well? Medico.com, Inc., a global health-focused Internet company, took the initiative and launched its web portal Medico.in, a platform for consumers to find health information. Medico.in is free for users to share information, and to ask and answer questions.Elan Dekel, Founder and CEO of Medico.com Inc said "with the launch of Medico.in, we will be providing highly informative and locally relevant health information to our users across India. I hope our users in India will use our platform to share their knowledge and learn from the experiences of others with similar concerns. I expect the platform to be very valuable to our Indian audience".Medico is set to go beyond just being a health portal to include an engaging Q&A based community of local citizens, local healthcare providers and experts.Other than India, the portal is already running in Spain and Brazil. As a platform, Medico.in will be creating the ommunities and resources which would provide information on specific health topics as well as local concerns.
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Amazon's India arm — junglee.com — is finally all set to go live midnight (Wednesday-Thursday) after several delays. Junglee.com will be a marketplace with about 500 online retailers showcasing their products on the website. The marketplace will not just feature products from Indian e-commerce websites like timtara.com, bestylish.com, myntra.com or futurebazaar.com; but Amazon will also be seen bringing its global catalogue to India through junglee.com, a person close to the matter revealed. "Amazon is trying to build the biggest catalogue in the country with over 10 million products," he revealed on condition of anonymity. After several months of research, close eye on Alexa ranking, tight scrutiny of comscore data and dummy orders placed with e-retailers, Amazon India team signed up with about 500 players to be featured on junglee.com from an extensive list of 1,000 shortlisted retailers. "Amazon was clear that they will reach out to those people who will match certain parameters in terms of order fulfillment time, customer experience and quality of products," an e-commerce player tying up with Amazon revealed on condition of anonymity. The contract between Amazon and the e-commerce players will give Amazon the permission to pull product information from the data base of these websites and feature it on its market place. The marketplace will have user feedback and rating for every product and every player that has it on offer. All this and even more would be managed by Amazon for free. Unlike its strategy in the US, where Amazon charges the vendors for being featured on its website, it is offering this service without a cost to Indian e-commerce sites.A lot of e-commerce players are on board with Amazon with specific products only. They will keep some SKUs (stock keeping units) exclusive to their own websites. Timtara.com will be seen offering 2000-3000 SKUs to begin with. Amazon's e-commerce partners are expected to benefit from Amazon's traffic strength. Amazon.com already gets about 7 million unique visitors in a month from India. This will help Indian e-commerce players who have been bleeding because of very high customer acquisition cost in India. The company is also in talks to set up its first fulfillment centre in Mumbai and has not yet finalised the deal.California-based Junglee.com was acquired by amazon.com in August 1998. Back then junglee.com was a provider of advanced Web-based virtual database technology that helped shoppers search products on the Internet. Businessworld reported in December that Amazon will break ground in India with an eBay-like model until foreign direct investment (FDI) is allowed in retail and it gets regulatory approvals to have its own backend set up in India (see ‘A Click Away', BW, 5 September 2011). The company is first expected to test the Indian waters with its website junglee.com and once FDI regulations are eased out the company will roll out its full business with brand name amazon.in, according to sources. Current regulations do not bar foreign companies like amazon.com from extending back-end technology help to the e-commerce players and neither does it stop the foreign players from venturing into services like logistics. Hence, Junglee.com will gradually propose managing back-end services for e-commerce websites. It will be well within the gambit of amazon to open a logistics arm for junglee.com in future. For now Indian customers logging on to amazon.com website could find themselves being directed to junglee.com for buying certain products. Well, that is the only marketing or advertising one is going to see about junglee.com – amazon's short term India avatar – as the company continues to remain quiet and play the hush-hush game.
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Fertise, an e-commerce portal has joined hands with "Gharpay - a door step cash payment network company to introduce CBD - Cash Before Devievey. E-commerce Companies are looking at different ways and means to improve their working capital and cash flow which has given rise to CBD. It is an advance payment option to the customers to pay for the goods bought online. Mahesh Murthy, Founding Partner-SeedFund says "we are happy to see Fetise's innovation of CBD as a method to get the best of both worlds - to allow those without plastic money to get the benefits of online shopping, as well as to reduce the overall cost to users by reducing the cost of returns or undelivered goods".This is just another in a long line of innovations that the industry needs to form a financially prudent set of practices that allow e-commerce companies to be a profitable set of businesses. Currently, this service is rolled out in 14 cities and will soon be scaled up to pan India within three months time. Abhishek Shah, CEO of Fetise.com. says "the Cash on Delivery model is convenient for the customers however it is not really helping the e-commerce companies as some of the customers place an order online simply to test if the COD - cash on delivery model really works and return the goods at the last minute. This behaviour is also giving a headache to the e-commerce companies as return orders convert into absolute inventory if not sold quickly".Manoj Jaiswal who heads the SCM at Fetise says "As an ecommerce company Fetise will always look towards building a great efficiency and profit making venture. CBD can change a look of e-commerce industry, we are going live with professional companies who can explore and serve CBD payment option efficiently. This will help customers & Fetise for convenient shopping experience".
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Noida-based StoreMore.in's business is unique and quite apt for Indians who have an affinity for hoarding old objects that hold emotional value. A pen that grand father gave on graduation day, a trophy won in the fourth grade and a stereo bought from one's first salary which every mechanic has refused to repair. This website offers to store all those at a rupee a day (along with other packages) at their warehouse.StoreMore.in was founded by Amit Wilson and partner Nitin Dhawan in June 2011 — as a second thought soon after they launched Star Records Management in May 2010 — an office documents storage business for entities such as law firms, marketing companies or government departments. The service is currently available in Delhi and the NCR.The concept of self storage is very common outside India especially in the United Sates but to Wilson's mind, self storage in India is unworkable. He has a valid point! Indians are service oriented people looking for services at doorstep. Whether we order a pizza, a refrigerator or a kg of potatoes we want it to be delivered as per our convenience and that too for free!Wilson twisted the self storage concept and came up with an idea where you could store anything that can be fitted in the (15 x 12 x 10) inch box. All you have to do is place an order and a pick-up person turns up at your doorstep collects the boxes and takes it to the 3500 sq.ftwarehouse. Should you need any of the items, mail the company with the bar code number ofthe box, it would be delivered at the doorstep for Rs 200 every trip.The warehouse is fire proof and is secured by automated locking systems. Pest control is conducted every 15 days."The business concept sounds interesting to many and a lot of people tell us that our website looks great but when it comes to placing actual orders hardly one per cent of the total inquiries materialize into business," says Pooja Kothari, Wilson's business as well as life partner. StoreMore.in gets about 87 unique visitors and 156 page views everyday, according to hypestat.com.Currently, StoreMore does not store items that might be bigger than the size of the standard boxes on offer and Wilson is still in the process of deciphering a business model. "The challenge with household items is their varied shape and sizes, storing them require much more storage space and you cannot stack them one over the other like in the case of boxes," Wilson explained.He gradually wants to start storing steel trunks that are commonly found in Indian houses since they are huge and sturdy to store on one over the other, but he hasn't yet thought about storing big items like spare furniture or a spare television.The business concept is unique and since there is no competition in the industry, Wilson has the first mover advantage. He is already exploring opening franchises across India and is also in process of finalizing funding for the business. Storage has been a concern and will continue to be a major problem for businesses and also for individuals as real estate prices shoot up, and StoreMore business model can tap on to that shortage.However, StoreMore has taken long enough to narrow down to a business model – what to be stored, how to be stored and what prices to be charged for items that cannot be fitted into the standard boxes. Looking at international models of store houses or studying the packaging and shipping standards of US's fedex could come in handy for the company.
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For 24-year-old Tabish Ahsan, 2009 was not the best of years. The student of business administration was hoping for a well paying job in a reputed MNC but the aftershocks of 2008 meltdown left him without a job.After six months of struggle, Ahsan and his friend Saral Budhiraja came up with the idea of starting theshoespa.in and by July 2010 the site was up and running."Back then starting this business was more about necessity rather than passion," says Ahsan. "We had heard of such a service in Mumbai but no one offered it in Delhi-NCR. The investment required was not very high so we went ahead with the idea."Ahsan always wanted to get into a restaurant or café business but that he felt was too risky and required a lot of capital. A budget constraint and an easy marketing strategy drew him towards the idea of an online services business.Six months into the business, Budhiraja found a job and decided to quit the business. In the initial phase, both the business and the partnership found it rough going and Bhudhiraja opted out. Ahsan on the other hand was convinced that this unique business idea will click, though he too was often flooded with doubts. Ahsan held on to the business by buying off his partner's stake for about Rs 6 lakh – 50 per cent of the initial investment.Today Ahsan's revenues fluctuate between Rs 65,000 and Rs 2 lakh a month but he is still six months away from breaking even. Ahsan has come a long way since the early days! "There were days when I used to collect shoes on my own from customer's doorstep, repair them in my backyard," he remembers with a smile. "Then there were days when I had no orders at all," says Ahsan, who still takes all orders by himself over the phone, though for collection he has recruited three boys.The business has fluctuating margins complaints Ahsan. Collecting shoes from the doorstep, repairing it, paying the hired staff of 13 people and then dropping it back to customer doorstep is quite a burden on company's fragile shoulders. Not to forget the marketing expenses the business has to afford."One round of a certain place in Delhi could sometimes fetch us two pair of shoes or sometimes 10 or more," Ahsan says. After being in business for almost one year now, theshoespa gets monthly orders between 500-700.Though the company makes some money at the end of every month, Ahsan believes once the scale comes in, the margins will improve and that will be the time when Ahsan will start accepting a salary. Currently, he chooses to put back everything that he makes into the business.Though Ahsan survives without a fixed monthly salary for himself, he has hired 13 people and pay them salaries anywhere between Rs 6000 and Rs 10,000 a month, depending on the work profile and experience.Ahsan believes skilled workers, who specialize in chemicals and leathers, are hard to find and hence even in the early stage of business he had to keep the basic salary high for technicians fixing the shoes. "About 60 per cent of the job is still done by hand and thus more than a technique, the job is about skills," he says.Learning about repairing shoes wasn't an easy job for Ahsan as well. "This is such an unorganized field. You can't find a book in the market or a set formula on how to repair a shoe, it comes with experience and so we keep experimenting."Ahsan spent his initial few days observing and meeting experts who repair/ dry clean leather accessories in Agra, in Delhi's Karol Bagh area etc."Initially it was really disheartening to see our customer being disappointed even after doing everything possible we could have done on the shoe," Ahsan adds.The business is still restricted in and around Delhi and Ahsan is going slow on scaling up. Even though the idea is unique and there are only a handful providing this service in an organized way, there is still a need for rapid expansion. Ahsan now needs to stretch out to other areas and other markets of the country before someone replicates the idea.
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Google India's challenge — to set up in ‘15 minutes' a free functional website for each of the 76 lakh Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in the country. In India, only about four lakh small and medium businesses (SMBs) have a website, out of an estimated 80 lakh SMBs. The initiative is designed to bridge the information gap that exists online due to the lack of local Indian businesses on the Internet. SMBs in India often believe that getting online is too complex, costly and time-consuming; this perception prevents many SMBs from taking the first step towards building an online presence. But Google India is confident that it will be able to change the perception. "We have received tremendous response to this initiative in other countries," says Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer, Google Inc.This huge potential business is expected to be tapped by a nationwide initiative from Google India — ‘India Get Your Business Online'— that offers a free website, personalized domain and hosting. The domain is free for one year.Its immediate target is to capture five lakh SMBs to get them online in next three years through this programme. Google India will work with web hosting provider HostGator in this initiative. V.K. Agarwal, President, Federation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (FISME) said: "It is going to be a game changer." FISME with its network of 730 MSME associations will help the Indian Small businesses to make the most of this opportunity and benefit from this program.Encouraging the SMBs to adopt the online medium to expand their business, Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister for Rural Development said: "SMEs are the future business leaders of India," and for them to grow to become recognized Indian brands globally, presence on the Internet is absolutely essential.Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO, IndiaMART.com, welcomed the Google initiative saying it will certainly help in bringing more and more SMEs to test online shores and benefit from it. In addition, it will further build credibility of internet among them.He said this will enable SMEs to look beyond the traditional geographical boundaries of their local market, city, region or country. Even with paid options, these are still much more cost effective than traditional routes. Such initiatives will eventually build a stronger SME ecosystem. THE ONLINE MOVE Free: It's free to set up your website. The domain is free for 1 year, and it's free to maintain your website for 12 months. Quick: The website tool takes 15 minutes from sitting down to being found online Easy: You don't need to be a tech whiz to get started. All you need to start is your address, phone number, TAN/CIN or PAN to verify you as a business The website is simple because customers are looking for simple information online If you want to make your website work harder, you'll have access to steady stream of free tips and tools from the Getting Indian Business Online team and a free coupon of worth Rs. 2500 INR advertising trial from Google AdWords to help promote your site. Gives you your own .in domain You get a Google Apps account - free personalized email ids Other features include photos/logos, integration with social media platforms After the first year, SMBs can choose to pay a monthly pay-as-you-go to maintain their website using HostGator. At the end of the first year, they'll have to pay a nominal charge if they wish to renew their domain name. They can cancel their website at any time.
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For all the busy digeratis forever looking for one-stop applications spanning their internet and mobile gadgets, here's another one - the Evernote.Launched in 2008, Evernote is the note taking application that can be accessed anytime and anywhere over the internet. One can save or make documents, photos and videos in it. For documents, it has unlimited space. However, photos and videos have limited space till 60MB in free version and 1GB for Premium users. Plus side, there is no overall account limit.Started in California in 2007 by Stephan Pachikov, founder of ParaGraph and ParaScript and Phil Libin of CoreStreet, Evernote is planned as an extension of the human memory. Dmitry Stavisky, VP of International Operations, Evernote Dmitry Stavisky, VP of International Operation, Evernote says: "The idea came about because no one is satisfied with one's biological memory, we all forget things. Everyone wants a better memory. So we decided to build an external brain".Evernote service can be accessed using the web client (www.evernote.com) or native apps on many platforms, including: Windows, Mac OS X, iOS (iPhone, iPod, iPad), Android (smartphones and tablets, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, Palm WebOS."We love working with mobile carriers. A great example is DOCOMO and provider of comprehensive mobility solutions for Japan and overseas markets. DOCOMO has preinstalled Evernote on all of its Android devices, and Docomo provides one-year of Evernote Premium for free to its customers", added Stavisky.Over 14 million people use Evernote worldwide and the company is adding over one million new users every month. Of this, about 5 per cent are Premium users paying $5 a month for a more fully-featured version.How it is different from other similar applications? Evenrnote has a search function combined with tags which allows you to be as organised or disorganised as you like, and you'll still find the info you're looking for."Dropbox is an extension of your file system. The two don't actually compete, but are in fact complimentary", said Stavisky.The extra features come with the Premium account, the main ones being: Higher monthly upload of 1GB (overall account total has no maximum for free or Premium) Access to notebooks offline (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) when you are travelling outside of your mobile territory. For example, accessing applications on your phone while abroad or on roaming fees can quickly add up, Evernote Premium gives you a way around these fees. Editing of shared notebooks. Ability to search within scanned PDFs
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When 28-year-old Gaurav Shokeen and his 24-year-old cousin Vineet Dabas tossed up the idea of carwashwale.com before their families asking for initial investment, they were snubbed. "What kind of work is this? Will you clean dirty tyres and windows of cars after doing MBA?"After some initial struggle, the cousins managed to take carwashwale.com online in February 2011. The company provides doorstep services of exterior and interior cleaning of cars in and around Delhi and will soon extend its presence to Chandigarh.The car-cleaning-at-the-doorstep idea for carwashwale.com generates 100 queries a day, 30-40 get converted into firm calls and the founders claim this business to be highly profitable. According to Shokeen, the net profit is Rs 1.8 lakh on a Rs 3-lakh monthly revenue. The initial capex of Rs 10 lakh will be recovered within a year. "Looking at the scale of our business, the families are happy," smile Dabas and Shokeen. The company is also in talks for franchise operations in Lucknow, Coimbatore etc. The franchise will not just bring them royalty of 30-40 per cent of the revenue but also a one-time payment for lending the brand name. Next, it intends selling accessories such as door mats and car fresheners, gradually moving to basic services such as engine oil and seat cover replacements.A one-hour long pressure cleaning, buffing and minor scratch removal costs about Rs 700. Prices vary according to the kind of service you opt for."There is a huge demand for doorstep cleaning but not many people are aware of it and so the revenues are not stable," says Dabas. Gradually carwashwale.com will start offering membership plans so as to get a stable source of income and to get bulk payments.Though the company is ramping up at a great pace and is eyeing pan India presence through franchises, it faces huge competition from traditional car washing/servicing companies, who have started providing door-step services. These companies have the advantage of being established brands and thus carwashwale.com might have a tough time competing with the already established players in the space.It also has rivals in city-specific sites such as delhicarwashers.com and pegasusfacilities.com. The Chennai-based pegasusfacilities though is a broader business. The website is a one-stop shop for cleaning not just cars and motorbikes but also living room, bathroom, kitchen, even gas stove, chimney and exhaust fans. Founder Vijay Simha, started way back in 2000, and earns Rs 30 lakh a month. Simha,who has been providing these services only in Chennai, has now started looking at franchises and will take its business to Pondicherry by end of January 2012. However, scaling up to other cities is a puzzle he is yet to crack.
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According to a recent industry report from Google, the auto vertical has grown tremendously in the last two years in terms of searches and is growing faster than key vertical areas such as travel, consumer electronics and finance. Out of 100 million internet users in the country today, in 2009-10, 49 per cent of all auto related queries on Google were on vehicle shopping.Drawing examples from the report, Rajan Anandan, vice president and MD of Google India, said the online search trend for automobiles indicates the need for the marketers to be where the consumers are. For example, Ford India recently launched its new Fiesta sedan through live streaming of the event on social networking site Facebook, along with putting Fiesta contest winners' test drive videos online. "Fiesta promotion videos got 1,177,074 impressions on facebook and 81,254 twitters in the course of two weeks," says Nigel Wark, executive director of marketing, sales and service at Ford India said. The new Fiesta was launched on 14 July."We have seen over 150 per cent growth in revenues from the auto sector in 2010 and we expect the share of auto advertising spends on digital to grow significantly in the next few years," says Anandan.The report also cites that entry and mid-segment cars in the price range of (Rs 2 lakh to Rs 6 lakh) were the most searched. Diesel cars, which are big in demand, registered triple-digit growth in 2010. Search queries for diesel cars grew by 52 per cent in April to May 2011 while petrol prices were hiked by Rs 5 per litre. SUVs were the second-most searched car category, followed by luxury cars, which is the fastest growing car category. Search queries for bikes saw a more than 96 per cent increase in query volumes in 2010.The report on consumer search behaviour in the automobile sector has taken Google Search data from January 2010 to May 2011 and states that, "the auto vertical witnessed tremendous growth in online searches registering 84 per cent growth in 2010 over 2009 on Google Search.According to the report, the trend continues to show fast paced growth this year with the auto category showing a growth of 72 per cent in the first six months of 2011 over last year.The research also found that Indians are more research oriented for auto related purchases, with 65 per cent Indians using the Internet first to research before zeroing down on the vehicle of their choice. This is ahead of consumers in the US and Europe -- where only 62 per cent of users go to the web as their first point of research. Google, however, said that the base of Internet users would be larger in these markets.
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