Cash-short payment options grow

Quickly changing tack and game plan, online marketplaces and mobile wallets, 48 hours since the announcement of banning Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, have been busy pushing old and new digital payment options.

The aim is to hold on to their cash-based customer base, as well as maintaining their gross merchandise value targets.

Online mobile wallet major Paytm is adding a feature of geo-locating all the offline points where their wallet is accepted. Snapdeal is now accepting payments via their mobile wallet, Freecharge, on delivery of the product.

With the cash on delivery (COD) customer base accounting for 60 per cent of total transactions, online marketplaces are eager to retain this customer base but minus the hassle of getting the cash back into the company. So, instead of COD, they are opting for mobile wallet on delivery, so that people who have stopped shopping as they are staunch believers of COD can have the satisfaction of paying only when they get the product at their doorstep. This, it is hoped, would help online marketplaces get back the customers they fear losing.

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Amazon sells 15 mn units in 5-day sale, claims market leadership

Prime, the Amazon subscription-based loyalty programme, drove a third of all orders on its platform, its highest sales so far in India, during its five-day festive season sale which concluded on Wednesday.

The US-based e-tailer shipped a little over 15 million items to customers across the country and got tens of thousands of users to pay Rs 499 for its Prime membership. Overall, more customers bought Amazon’s Prime subscription than the best-selling smartphone on the platform.

Amazon in the US counts nearly half of all households as Prime Customers, who spend nearly double ($1,200) than regular users to buy goods on its platform.

“In the little over three years we’ve been in India, we’ve probably created the fastest ramp up for e-commerce in this eco-system. This Diwali (sale) was three times bigger than last Diwali. We’ve been growing at 150 per cent year-over-year even though the landscape was flat and Diwali saw an even bigger acceleration,” said Amit Agarwal, country manager.

Over the past week, Amazon and local leader Flipkart have been competing to garner higher share of the customer wallet, offering discounts, better product quality and faster delivery. Flipkart and smaller rival Snapdeal close their five-day sale on Thursday. The sale is expected to garner $1.5 billion (Rs 10,000 crore) across all e-commerce platforms.

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Snapdeal Gold helps company reduce cash on delivery

Gurgaon-based online marketplace giant Snapdeal has managed to bring down the cash on delivery (COD) component to 50 per cent, on the back of its free service upgrade Snapdeal Gold, which is available on orders paid for at time of buying.

The company said offers from banks led to a record increase in users selecting prepaid options. "In the first two days of the Snapdeal Unbox Diwali Sale, more than 50 per cent of users opted to pay by credit and debit cards, net banking and FreeCharge wallet to avail attractive bank offers, interest-free EMIs and free shipping," the company said.

COD is a major pain point for online marketplaces, as the percentage of return is higher. Also the logistics required for the cash to reach the company make it an expensive proposition. According to sources, the COD component before the firm launched Snapdeal Gold was around 70 per cent. The company believes by end of this year it would be able to bring down COD even further. "We are excited to see an overwhelming response to our newly-launched Snapdeal Gold service."

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SNAPDEAL’S INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE SALE

• ACs sold so far in the Diwali sale are enough to cool Burj Khalifa
   
• 55,000 Toolkits sold till now
   
• 1 DSLR bought in every 3 minutes on Day 2 of sale
   
• Hair straighteners were the highest sold products among personal grooming products on Day 3 of the sale
   
• Eye make-up products are the most selling cosmetic items
   
• More than 136,000 stationery kits donated to kids

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Race on as Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal eye $1.5 bn in festive sales

The most-watched online sales on Sunday were about Apple and pizza, property and Harry Potter, attracting first-time buyers from Sangli and Hisar, while not letting the regulars from Delhi and Mumbai leave.

In response to Amazon’s first day score card — 1.5 million units sold in 12 hours — on Saturday, rival Flipkart on Sunday raised the bar, pegging the number of units sold at 2.25 million in exactly 12 hours.

WHAT HAPPENED ON DAY I

Flipkart

• Flipkart and Myntra together sold 2.25 million units in the first 12 hours of the Big Billion Days
• Sold more Apple watches in 10 minutes than the total sale of Apple watches online and offline in a month
• Myntra clocked 3 times more revenue in the  first hour, compared to the 2015 edition

Amazon

• In the first 12 hours, managed to sell over 1.5 million units
• More than 100,000 units sold in less than the first 30 minutes
• Microwaves saw a 30-time spike in demand
• Consumer durables categories saw a 10-time growth
• Diapers and baby products have witnessed an increase of 12 times

Snapdeal

• At midnight, 180 orders booked per second
• By 4 pm, more than 1.1 million people had made purchases
• Orders went to nearly 52,000 sellers
• People from 2,800 cities and towns placed their orders
• Fastest delivery: An order for iPhone 5s  placed at 7.20 am on Oct 2 was delivered in Gurgaon at 8.10 am

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Flipkart grows user base to 100 million

Flipkart, India’s largest e-commerce marketplace, says it has expanded its consumer base by 33 per cent in the past six months to 100-million registered users, despite stiff competition by global rival Amazon, which has committed a massive $5 billion to capture the India market.

Flipkart says its 100-million registered user milestone represents 63 per cent of all broadband Internet subscribers in the country and that it is the first company to reach this milestone outside the US or China. It had announced breaching the 75-million user milestone in March this year. The figures exclude users of Myntra and Jabong, its fashion units that have a higher proportion of younger users.

In August last year, Alibaba-backed digital payments company Paytm had announced it had crossed the 100-million user mark.

“Since the time we sold the first book to our first customer in 2007 till today, our journey has always been about providing a superior shopping experience to our customers. This milestone has further energised us to ramp up our efforts and build a world-class shopping destination,” said Binny Bansal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Flipkart, in a statement.

This growth in users comes at a time of slower sales in India’s e-commerce market. It is estimated that online sales fell 19 per cent in the January-March 2016 quarter, while sales during the read full story

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THE 100-MILLION USER CLUB

Paytm: 125 million; crossed 100 million last August

Hike: 100 million

Facebook: 150 million; crossed 100 million in June 2015

Snapdeal: Has a current user base of 110-million plus, across Snapdeal and Freecharge platform