Sagar Malviya & Chaitali Chakravarty, The Economic Times Mumbai/New Delhi, 21 March 2016 Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba has approached Tata Sons for a possible partnership as it looks to set up shop in India later this year in a development that looks set to shake up the country's rapidly growing online retail market. Alibaba Group president Michael Evans and global managing director K Guru Gowrappan met Tata Group's Chairman Cyrus Mistry recently to discuss a partnership possibility. "It will take two quarters for Alibaba to finalise a joint venture partner. It may or may not go with the Tata Group…
The New Indian Express Chennai, 17 March 2016 Purchase of cars, bikes, or gold jewellery can give immense pleasure, but is a labourious exercise. E-commerce companies are trying to change just that.A host of high-value products be it SUVs, cars, diamonds, gold coins, two-wheelers including electric bikes are all up for grabs online. If the likes of Flipkart, Snapdeal or Amazon saw rise in sales of electronics or clothes during their formative years, version 2.0 of Indian e-commerce market is banking big on money guzzlers i.e., luxury products.“There is more flexibility in terms of the product categories and certainly e-tailers…
Richa Maheshwari, The Economic Times Bengaluru, 26 February 2016 Snapdeal and Amazon India lost market share in 2015, according to the research arm of Morgan Stanley, as online shopping options grew rapidly in India and established etailers cut back on discounts. But Flipkart managed to marginally increase its share and the Big Three, despite a fall in combined market share, accounted for more than 80% of the total market. A Morgan Stanley research report released earlier this month pegged Snapdeal's and Amazon India's market share in terms of gross merchandise value at 26% and 12%, respectively, in 2015. A similar…
Athira A. Nair and Vishal Krishna, Your Story Bengaluru, 25 February 2016 Online retail constitutes just one percent of India’s total retail. Yet, out of the country’s nine startup Unicorns, three are major online commerce players: Flipkart (valued at $15.5 billion), Snapdeal ($6.5 billion), and ShopClues ($1.1 billion). Estimated to touch $38 billion in 2016, Indian e-commerce industry has grown impressively. However, hurdles for its potential growth are many – most of which related to government norms. The tug-of-war between the physical retailers and online marketplaces mainly surrounds foreign direct investment (FDI). While the Centre in November 2015 permitted singe-brand…
Shinmin Bali, Financial Express Mumbai, 21 February 2016 Having created quite a stir at the time of their launch, hyperlocal companies are now witnessing a dampened mood. While several have folded up operations in some cities, others have downsized staff, tweaked the services they offer and even made alterations to their business models. A recent example is Grofers shutting down operations in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Kochi, Ludhiana, Mysuru, Nashik, Rajkot and Visakhapatnam. TinyOwl last year was in the news for a poorly-handled downsizing operation in Pune, with a dramatic hostage situation involving its co-founder Gaurav Choudhary. PepperTap also recently shut…
Geopolitical friction has again sparked renewed concerns over inflation and rising input costs for FMCG companies as @itmeansjustice @whysnavi write. @devangshu commented.
