Marketing Fizz

Use of white colour in iOS7 is frustrating

2013-09-20T21:16:00.001-07:00

Downloaded iOS 7 on my iPhone 4S yesterday, I'm must say I'm bit disappointed with iOS 7 for one point that it has converted my phone background colours specially transistions, photos, keypad, control panel, App Store, emails, to white colour, camera, messages, clock, uthough I like the translucent looks of home screen, it would have been amazing if I could had colour options just like windows phone.

Moreover there is attempt to make iPhone more vibrant, but since there is extensive use of white and lighter tones which require more battery, don't wonder if your battery drains more than usual, this also means more power consumption of power across the world.

One surprise from the pack was inclusion of symbol rupee in the default keypad. Other than that I find iOS not pleasant to eyes. Also people with iPhone 4 may not download this operating system because of performance issues.

Rise Of SnapDeal in India's ECommerce

2013-07-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

Over the past decade, e-commerce, simply defined as the process of buying and selling via the internet, has played a pivotal role in the rise of several firms in India. One such firm is SnapDeal. This article elucidates the journey of SnapDeal from being a group buying website to becoming the largest online marketplace in India cleverly by leveraging the technological edge of the ever-growing e-commerce space.

Founder
SnapDeal is an ecommerce company headquartered in New Delhi, India. This online retail firm was founded by Karun Bahl, a Wharton graduate and Rohit Bansal, alumnus of IIT Delhi, in February 2010.

Offerings
Offers a wide range of products and services from thousands of national, international and regional brands with a wide assortment of products across categories like mobiles, electronics, fashion accessories, apparel and footwear, kids, home and kitchen, sports, books, restaurants, entertainment and spas amongst others.

SnapDeal enables small and medium sized retailers to cost effectively acquire hundreds of customers by offering discount deals at their establishments through its online e-commerce platform. This leads to cost savings on the marketing side and leads to more brand awareness.

Earlier Concept
Essentially a Group buying or crowd bargaining site which offered deals and discounts on restaurants, spas, car wash, etc. SnapDeal charged a marketing fee from the retailer for every deal sold on the portal. SnapDeal’s idea was to give consumers a better price through deals if they purchase in greater numbers; and that was the basic premise of group buying websites that had emerged in India and in other parts of the world.

According to Bahl, Jasper-owned group buying sites in general accumulated 350,000 registered users in just over six months of operations. This was proved right when Google's DoubleClick advertising arm posted the number of unique visitors for Indian group buying site SnapDeal as 290,000 for the end of August 2010. The seven-month-old venture's revenues were increasing at 150 per cent month-on-month.

Offering discounts of up to 95 per cent, SnapDeal.com used to its advantage the huge pile of distress inventory accumulated by retailers. It featured more than 2,000 retailers such as Ferns & Petals, Indiahikes, Fitness Studio, Bikanervala, Future Bazaar and XtremeSports Bar. The company received 2,000 vouchers from one merchant in a day sometimes and was able to offer one new deal a day from each of the 30 cities it has a presence in. Each deal stayed on the site for not more than three days.

According to Mr. Bahl, retailers of these services suffered from distress perishable inventory of as high as 80 per cent, and it worked for them to give heavy discounts to be able to offload the inventory within the expiry period.

By the end of November 2010, the e-commerce phenomenon in India had a new Poster boy - from obscurity 9 months back to becoming one of India's most visited sites SnapDeal.com had come a long way in a short span.

By December 2010, SnapDeal was offering deals in four areas including dining, personal care, entertainment and travel.

There was a tremendous response from various merchants as well. 90% of the service providers who had been featured on SnapDeal.com wanted to use the service again to attract customers. For the local retail services, it acted as a powerful performance based marketing channel to acquire new customers, while reaching out to a large base of prospective customers, without spending anything upfront on branding or advertising. And this channel was not restricted to small businesses alone. For instance, Carnation, which is Mr. Jagdish Khattar's one-stop-shop retailer for cars, acquired 5000+ customers through SnapDeal in a span of 3 days. Many other merchants have had similar experiences. The e-commerce platform had worked wonders not only for SnapDeal, but also for many of its clients who were able to attract a huge set of new customers.

In less than one year, it reached a subscriber base of 1 million attracting a $12 million investment round, led by Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners. And the subsequent round of funding a few months later helped it raise another $ 40 million.

Mobile commerce also proved to be an asset for SnapDeal. Another reason for the site’s rapid growth in 2011 came from its recently launched products deals business, in which SnapDeal sold branded lifestyle products, like fashion accessories, electronics, apparel, etc. at significant discounts. The products business was doubling each month and within three months accounted for 15 percent of SnapDeal’s total business. Its big idea was to move into products by taking its existing experience in local deals and combining it with a wide array of personalized product deals, especially in lifestyle e-commerce. This was the first step for SnapDeal towards the transformation to an online marketplace.

In 2012, SnapDeal announced its foray into the ‘brand stores’ concept in which the company aimed to be an enabler for the thousands of local retailers who couldn’t reach out to the growing masses buying online. Each store had a login and a password for managing the assortment. Brands were able to decide the look and feel of their page, customize product selection, and manage promotions and exclusive launches. The SnapDeal platform was akin to multiple single-brand stores, many of these international. Regulatory issues would not apply to SnapDeal, as it was a marketing platform like eBay, and transactions carried out here were between merchants and customers; hence, following a ‘Zero Inventory’ model.

The company also broadened its 200-category strong product portfolio — from one with mobile phones and laptops to one that offers fashion apparel as well. Now, it has moved from being India’s largest group buying website to being a competitor of the Indian online retail major Flipkart.

Zero Inventory model
Company does not hold inventory which has become important for any company operating in India as India has large supply side, which gives SnapDeal opportunity to collaborate with this unorganized and large supply side without making investments in Inventory. Also for large inventory one needs to hire thousands of people. Large logistics area and high operating costs are incurred. Marketplace model also benefits when a seller wants to sell his unsold items quickly, which otherwise on retail malls can take considerable time.

MARKETING STRATEGY

In the beginning, the only form of marketing for SnapDeal was through social media, mainly Facebook, Twitter and various blogs. Within 60 days, the company's Facebook community had more than 20,000 members. By the end of 2010, using radio, TV and even sponsorships, SnapDeal had managed to warm the hearts of an otherwise hard-to-sell internet-wary society. SnapDeal plans to drive marketing through ‘Analytics’ in order to move from mass media campaigns and focus more on data driven marketing techniques that ensure every rupee of marketing spend is measured. This helps them to analyze the buying behavior of the consumer and pitch a product to the target consumer accordingly.

As of now, the company's Facebook page has more than 1 million ‘Likes’ and also has several followers on Twitter and Google Plus. It runs several social media campaigns on these platforms by offering deals and also holds occasional contests to engage the social media users.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

Traffic Rankings

According to Alexa the web traffic analytics company SnapDeal is 37th most popular website in India and 557th in the world as on July 2013. Most of the users are male aged between 18 to 26 years.

Company is eyeing sales growth of over 2000 crore in 2013-2104.

SnapDeal Vs Flipkart

SnapDeal from the start of 2013 is catching up with India’s most popular ecommerce website Flipkart. Page views per user the metric which tells user engagement with the website is around 5.5 for SnapDeal (increase of 1.5 page view per user from 2012) if we take last 6 months average, same is around 8 for Flipkart. Average time spent per user on website has also increased from 5mins to little over 6 minutes which is a positive sign. There is good amount of competition between Flipkart and SnapDeal and users usually visit both of these websites before making a decision to buy.

Logistics

They also have a shipping platform called Safeship, which has integrated large number of local and national courier companies so that there is no burden on the sellers to find a courier service. Sellers can track and manage movement of product by themselves.

SnapDeal provides Cash on Delivery and EMI options which has got lot of favor from Indians as lot of them don’t have credit/debit cards, and those who have are skeptical of using them online. With the advent of interest free EMI option lot of Indians who don’t have immediate cash can use this option to pay principal and the interest in easy installments.

SnapDeal on Mobile

SnapDeal has launched its mobile app both on GooglePlay for free. Through this app user can easily see mobile version of website as an app on their smart phones, improved search lets you narrow down search using sort and refine.

SnapDeal hopes to increase its customer base as more and more people are using tablets and smart phones now days. App can identify user location and give customized deals for user of that city.

SnapDeal User Reviews for Products

Buyers can now review products by adding comments and stars against the items they purchase. Pros, Cons, and average rating lets the prospective buyers decide on various parameters before the make the purchase. Comments also engage buyers as they feel the part of the system and Indians are always good at reviewing.

Social Media Integration

Users can now share the products they like or buy on their favorite social networks like Facebook, Google Plus, and Twitter. These external links provide fresh web traffic to SnapDeal.

TrustPay

TrustPay protects customers with a 100% money back guarantee if there is any issue with product quality, size or delivery. TrustPay payment system can be used by other online retailers to connect to global payment systems of Visa/MasterCard. SnapDeal has filed for intellectual property protection for Trust pay because of the potential it has.

Most Lovable City: Online Campaign

SnapDeal initiated MyLoveCapital campaign where people voted for their most loved city on the eve of Valentine’s Day of 2013. Voting for the event began on February 4 and the website recorded votes from people across the country. Delhi emerged winner with 53,174 votes followed by Mumbai with 49,010 votes and Srinagar with 29,047 votes from all over India on its website mylovecapital.com. It was an endeavor to bring back positivity and love for our country, cities and its people.

To publicize the event various videos were also uploaded on YouTube. Anshuman, actor and singer, campaigned for Chandigarh and Delhi, while stars such as Saniamirza campaigned for Hyderabad.

MAJOR ACHIEVEMENTS

Acquisitions

SnapDeal, over a period, has made several acquisitions since its inception to build out its business. In June 2010, SnapDeal acquired the Bangalore based group buying site Grabbon and that site now redirects to SnapDeal.com. In April 2012, SnapDeal acquired esportsbuy.com, an online sports goods, and fitness equipment and accessories retailer based out of Delhi. Most recently, in May 2013, SnapDeal acquired Shopo.in, an online marketplace for Indian handcraft products.

India's Top 10 'Busiest brands
In February 2012, SnapDeal.com was ranked 7th in India in the Afaq's annual poll for buzz making brands, that the consumers found exciting enough to talk about.

Funding

Over the years, SnapDeal has received a few rounds of funding. In 2011, it had risen over $50 million in two rounds of funding – from Bessemer Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners – as well as from the existing investor Indo-US Venture Partners. SnapDeal has recently raised a total of $90 million from the two strategic investors - eBay and Recruit Co - and six venture funds and other individual investors in 2013. A second round of investments has been led by Intel Capital, ru-Net and Saama Capital and renowned angel investors including founders of US-based gourmet supermarket store Freshmarket.

CONCLUSION

Taking note of the way SnapDeal is expanding its reach and winning hearts, the future definitely looks very bright for the brand. Apart from geographic expansion, SnapDeal.com has forayed into new categories which have shown excellent traction in the brief period since launch. The two relatively newer categories introduced were – products and travel.

The product categories have turned out to be the growth drivers for SnapDeal and include very attractive deals, typically 50 per cent off on products such as mobile phones, electronic gadgets branded fashion products, sunglasses wallets, and among others. In the case of travel, SnapDeal.com features the best leisure and business travel destinations across India at national best prices.

Competition for the brand though on face seems to be growing with the emergence and existence of other websites like ebay, tradus etc. Apart from these competitors, SnapDeal now competes neck to neck with India’s largest online retailer , Flipkart and with the world’s largest group buying websites, Groupon and Living Social.

One of the important aspect going from here would be to ensure quality of products and services to consumers, quality control in terms of filtering fake products from sellers. Customer feedback would be very important, as famously quoted by Amazon founder even 10% increase in customer satisfaction can give you nine fold increase in your sales and brand power. With entry of Amazon.in in India and recent $200 million funding of Flipkart from PE funds, competition would be intense.

References

1. July 10, 2010 : ‘Click More, Save More’, Hindustan Times
2. August 15, 2010 : ‘Net Gain’, Telegraph
3. September 2010 : ‘SnapDeal now achieves another milestone’, Moneymint.in
4. September 9, 2010 :‘Group Buying Sites: Strategy of the Future or Too Good to Be True?’, India Knowledge @ Wharton
5. November 26, 2010 : ’Netting Deals’, The Telegraph
6. February 1, 2011 : ‘E-tailing Wars - The race to the top of Online Shopping Industry is wide open’, Businessworld
7. May 31, 2013 : ‘SnapDeal acquires Shopo.in’, The Hindu Business Line
8. http://www.SnapDeal.com
9. http://www.alexa.com
10. June 24, 2013 : ‘Snapdeal launches platform for sellers keen to list products online’, Hindu Business line
11. June 3, 2013 : ‘Inventory based model is dead’, The Financial Express
12. April 12, 2013 : ‘The inventory model is dead’, Mint
13. April 23, 2013 : ‘Snapdeal eyes Alibaba-like growth with new pay system’, Business Standard
14. February 13, 2013 : ’ Delhi voted Love Capital’, DNA

Bruno and our fight with distemper

2013-06-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

I just can't forget the date my sister bought a new Labrador to our home. I picked him up with my one hand from underneath his chest, It was amazing feeling to have one more dog in our house. After lot of contemplation on what to name him, I quizzed myself with funny names but all my suggestions were rejected altogether, and my mom named him Bruno.

Bruno just arrived 1.5 months

Bruno was bought by my sister from Ludhiana, he was pure breed and as expected from a lab was very friendly, pleasing and naughty. We were amazed to find his appetite for food and enthusiasm, there was never a dull moment with him. Special attention was given to his diet so he gets good nutrition, mostly home cooked food was given with dogfood as a snack.

Rainy season puts life out of gear in Delhi, torrential rains, poor drainage and sewage causes conditions of roads to deteriorate. Stagnant water is heaven for diseases and viruses. Its gets difficult to poo your dog anywhere because all you can see is filth and water.

It was bad day for Bruno (8 months then) he got sick with fever and stopped eating, after around 2 weeks of diagnosis from various dog clinics and vet hospital it was found he had canine distemper, which is a fatal disease with no cure. Despite having vaccination for the virus Bruno was infected with it. Since it is highly contagious he might have got it from some other dog through contact or from infected dog's poo.

Virus had reached the nervous system when it was firstly diagnosed. On recommendation of doctor we gave him Dr. Sears serum treatment though there was no possible reason to believe it would work from the numerous reading and research I did, but we had no other option and we were losing time. We went ahead with the course which lasted for three days.

Bruno health deteriorated he lost weight and twitching at his forehead started to become more prominent and painful. He would sometimes cry during night because of pain. Virus had moved to his nervous system and paws, which became hard. It was recommend by one of doctor to put him to sleep, but we wanted to give it a try to save him. We gave him Gardenal medicine, Multivitamins, Vitamin C, and high nutrition diet to help him fight disease and he did fight it for 1 month.

His hind legs became weak and he couldn't move. Virus had caused paralysis to hind legs also he lost control over poo. It was hard to see him suffer and It is then we decided to let him go, it was extremely painful experience to watch doctor inject lethal injection into his veins, and he left us in meagre 3 seconds.

Sorry Bruno we couldn't save you, you will always in our prayers and we will always love you, Rest in peace babu.

Is Olive Oil any Better After all ?

2013-06-21T12:03:00.002-07:00

Production of Olive oil has shot up in India by 50% year on year, in 2011 it was 4000 tonnes and in 2102 it was 6000 tonnes, I always insisted my mom to use Olive oil whenever possible be it omelettes or pizzas.

There are various reasons why people tend to like Olive oil, some of them I've jotted down, also each paragraph after heading shows the flaws in marketing heading itself.

Healthier Oil : Reduces heart disease, hypertension and Diabetes etc.

Indians suffer from lot of health related problems as mentioned above, this can be attributed to low physical exercise, pollution, busy lifestyle and food.

Though Olive oil is good there is no evidence to support that Olive oil is better oil than already existing seed oil available in India for e.g. sunflower oil, soybean oil, mustard oil and coconut oil which we already use.

It is accepted belief that one should have locally and seasonally produced food products to match the nutritional requirements for that region and season. Since Olive oil is not produced in India, and is imported from Italy or similar European countries with different environment and climate, Olive oil might not be suited very well to Indian nutritional requirements.

Because of very high demand of Oilve oil around the globe it could easily be the case that Olives are genetically modified, which in turn increase chances of cancer.

Costlier Oil : Costlier the oil, better it is.

Available as Olive Pomace oil, olive oil and Virgin Olive oil in India. Olive Polmace oil is gaining importance as its price level is not as high as that of Olive oil and is stable at high temperatures.

Production cost in developed countries is high as compared to its India equivalents, lot of cost is added while oil is transported to India. Being in premium segment, oil attracts premium margins for retailers.

Cooking and Flavours : adds flavour

Indians usually cook food in oil, i.e. oil is heated before adding other ingredients, Olive oil cannot withstand such high temperatures and can lose its flavor at smoke point (which is achieved quickly). There is scarcity of information on correct usage of such oils.

Usually Virgin olive oil will add flavor to bland tasting food that Americans or Europeans eat, this is not the case with Indian we have too many spices that can easily overshadow subtle flavours of olive oil.

Market Segmentation To Target People

Urban middle class with decent disposable incomes.

Health conscious and informed.

Prepares food for themselves.

European way of living

Nationalist View

It is advised people not to fall to claims of Olive oil lobbies, who will project their products as superior than the locally produced oils. Lets support local Industry and reduce our dependence on imports. If salt, lemon and pepper can do wonders to our salads why add Oil ?