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The Curious Case of Coffee in Startups

by Paul Joseph February 21, 2012 Featured

Because of its unfailing ability to increase office productivity, the employee of the year award once again goes to… Mr. Coffee Machine. This thought cracked me up as I sipped my third cuppa freshly brewed hot cappuccino, delivered to my desk in an attractive paper cup that read “Gloria Jeans”. It’s amazing how the fuel to keep every employee going, especially in the stressful environments of a small startup, is this brewed beverage with a dark, acidic aroma prepared from the roasted seeds of a coffee plant. “Incidentally,” says Neha Sharma, “the idea of starting up “ Fruitz Koncepts ” came out over a round of coffee and I whole-heartedly believe that it is one beverage that has helped me and my team bring out an exhaustive list of launching and execution work with long schedules after coming back from a tiring job!” She continues, “I think I could never conduct an early morning meeting with my team – unless I have a strong coffee.” So why has coffee-consumption become such an integral part of the startup culture? Studies suggest a direct correlation between the high stress levels in the startup game and the distressing quality of that coffee bean. Building a successful company is aeonian, not a sprint, and dealing with stress is part of this aeonic matrix. It would take you days contemplating on how to go about your business models, nights putting business plans to word docs, hours in the shower wondering if those business plans have churned out right and then days again reworking on them. So first, you don’t get sleep. Then, when you do hit the sack, it takes you hours to fall asleep. The mind is always in hyperactive mode and no matter how time pressed and worked out you may be, it just won’t turn off! “When we first moved into TBI@BITS (our office space back in campus), we immediately sensed that something’s missing in the office. And eureka! We ordered a Coffee Maker online,” says Ankit Gupta, founder on Innovese. “Coffee soon got into the culture at Innovese, our office-space was in the institute building far far away, and also Pilani is famous for its negative degree celsius winters. It was special – brewing in the cold nights and brainstorming with a hot sweet cup of coffee.  We also had some of our friends visiting us at nights to have coffee together at our place, which at times made our night-outs easy and helped stay awake. Coffee-break is great. It’s imperative for night-outs, which unarguably, are the most efficient working hours for a start-up. We still have those white cups with good-luck messages written by our friends who visited us for coffee! A lot ‘seriously’ happens over coffee.” The caffeine found in coffee acts as a stimulant and improves concentration levels. Something that helps a startup team brainstorm and innovate together. Just the smell of coffee is so intoxicating! It is so rich, warm, inviting, relaxing and invigorating all at once, that it feels like the instant cure to soothe the high anxiety levels at your workplace. Studies advocate just the aroma of coffee might reduce your stress level by altering the activity of genes in your brain. But the question is – how do you make this a matter of convenience during work hours? Sangeeta Banerjee of AppartmentAdda.com has with her own experience, along with her husband and co-founder Venkat Kandaswamy’s addiction to coffee, finally worked out on what is the easiest and best coffee setup for a startup. She tells me what she tried, and what worked: 1.              Morphy Richards Espresso Machine. Pros : Affordable Coffee Maker, fresh brewed coffee, you can experiment with coffee grounds.  Also, fills a small office with caffeine aroma when brewing. Cons : Too much hassle of brewing, cleaning the pot. The bitter oils get accumulated in the machine and without regular cleaning of the internals, coffee loses taste over time. Also, the brew is to be made in one go for everyone – since not everyone enjoys the brewing ritual, and people don’t have a choice of coffee time. Not good for a busy startup team! 2.              Order from a Gourmet Coffee Shop Pros : Can get variety and quality Cons: Not affordable for daily consumption 3.              Order from a typical Iyengar Bakery Pros: Very Affordable. Cons : Cannot get it delivered to office without a large number of employees. Also, no choice of sugar or milk. 4.              Water Cooler with Hot and Cold option. Pros : You anyway need a water cooler. Can just get the hot water in your coffee mug and mix good instant coffee with sugar and milk powder.  Each one can make their cuppa exactly when they need.  Also with the variety of high end instant coffee available now, this is just the right option.  In summer you have the option for a cold coffee with the same set up; can stock up with high-end instant cappuccino sachets as well. Cons : No coffee aroma in office. One question that makes us so curious about coffee is, “Does coffee help you deal with stress or does it increase stress?” Studies have been forever flip-flopping on whether coffee is bad or good for the health.  Eventhough in the short-term caffeine gives us an energy boost and increases our levels of alertness, in the long-term it hinders the system and causes fatigue. It’s an artificial stimulant and therefore our ability to deal with stress is reduced. So what conclusion do we reach with these paradoxical findings? Simple. Monitor your intake. Don’t drown yourself in a pot of coffee. For obvious reasons, too much of anything is bad. About 3 to 4 cups of coffee is considered moderate. You may consider   cup of green-tea or just some cookies or healthy snacks to much on in order to curb the restlessness, what they call “caffeine withdrawal symptoms”. Of course, besides the spinning chair you sit on, coffee is the best thing that could have happened to your workplace. Infact, they say, the café world mourned the death of Steve Jobs the most. Without his iPads and MacBooks, coffee shops couldn’t have made more business out of budding, confused and anxious entrepreneurs! One may conveniently conclude, a lot of success stories have been fuelled by the power of… coffee. And if one still fails, there’s always beer. – Abhilasha Dafria.

Tagged as: bizarre, disclaimer, guest-columns, kiran-kumar, lose-something, microsoft, non-tech entrepreneurs, password, social-media, windows-azure

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Indian Entrepreneurs Need a Hug

by Paul Joseph February 14, 2012 Featured

Scene #1 . Picture this. Barbeque party, Silicon Valley, the US of A. The who’s who of the corporate world. You. An I-Banker. And he- the entrepreneur. So who attracts the crowd? Well, he does. An entrepreneur, successful or failed, and with that, I mean ‘in attempts’, is a much celebrated person than the corporate-world guys with a big pay-cheque in the US. The US Census reported 2,356 people switching to entrepreneurship per day. “Per day”. Now that is a phenomenally huge figure we are looking at when we say ‘per day’. The  report also goes about to mention that even though not all of these succeed, their entrepreneurial efforts make up 78% of US small businesses, while the overall income is estimated at a whopping $951 billion per annum! Scene #2 . Back to India. The liberalization of the economy in the 1990s has cemented the road for many to become entrepreneurs. The possibilities created by today’s comprehensive awareness together with the unfettering of indigenous ventures, has laid a fertile ground for entrepreneurship to thrive on in India. Just to throw some supportive statistics, India is the fifth largest economy in the world and has the third largest GDP in the entire continent of Asia. It is also the second largest among emerging nations. Even then, there is an obvious contradiction. How encouraging and celebrated is the Indian entrepreneurship scene? Protik Roychowdhury, co-founder of croak.it says, “Hardly.” “Entrepreneurship related problems in India arise due to the mindsets of the people. Taking risks is not at all encouraged, atleast in middle class families, where a doctor or an engineer is all that parents can see in their children. Sadly, and forgive me for being cliché, but our education system and our society teaches us to be spokes in the wheel instead of being the wheel itself! I have seen people with great ideas stuck in jobs they don’t like!” Protik graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 2011 and started his own successful online-media venture by the end of the year. “What I have learnt from my experience is that people around you are always going to be skeptical, raise questions, bog you down or dampen your spirit. You won’t be lucky enough to be given the license to do what you want, just as much as you wish you did.” Needless to say, Indians have great entrepreneurial competence. But what motivates the Indian Entrepreneur? Primarily, an entrepreneur is driven by his or her own desire. He has the fire in him to amble on the unfamiliar path. However, there are other important external factors that affect him positively or negatively. “Market opportunity” is one such important factor. To recognize the niche and understand the need to serve it triggers the entrepreneurial decision of building one’s own venture. Once the market is identified, and there is a will to startup, that’s when the other socio-cultural factors come into picture. And that’s where the bad news lies . The society and government are not very motivating towards entrepreneurship. A typisch trait of the Indian society is that of being risk averse. People attain a sense of security in a long-term employment, such as government, corporate jobs  or campus-placements. And just like they say about charity, encouragement begins at home. Shwetank Jain, an XLRI graduate founded his company P2Power , during his engineering days. When he skipped his college placements to materialize his dreams, his parents did not quite encourage the idea. “Are you crazy? Do you even know what you are getting into? Who else is with you? It’s easier said than done!” is how they’d react. And all he had to say was “I dont know, I will figure out! No one is with me. That’s what I really want to do!” That’s how it all started with nothing except faith. “I just took a big leap of faith driven by pure passion. Things were never the same post that. No one could stop me from proving myself to anyone.” he speaks in retrospect. More often than not, the social stigma surrounding entrepreneurship nips it in the bud. Students who skip campus placements to tread on their own visions are often questioned by their family and social-groups. Bluegape.com founder Sahil Baghla recollects, “I was very much convinced that even if my startup weren’t profitable or won’t be able to raise any investment, I would work on bluegape for next 2 years. So I went to my parents and said- Give me 2 years as I believe I can build a company where 100 rockstars will be working with me to make something great, otherwise I will do whatever you want me to do.” Within six months they were profitable as well raised funding from Times Incubation. Besides, there aren’t many support groups, institutions or organisations to motivate entrepreneurship in India. Not that they need a training course to become an entrepreneur per se, but they do want to be coached and mentored. Even though the eco-system is now evolving, the Government needs to encourage people to become entrepreneurs, as business owners and founders could deliver noteworthy benefits to the economy in the long-term. Once an entrepreneur has cracked a successful business-model, he shall go and work with other start-ups down the track, and thereby shore up in developing a business community. “While the funding scene in India, especially the seed and early stage, is not comparable to US yet, it has been getting better. One aspect where it lacks behind significantly is the support for products that are a technology play. On one side, everybody complains about the lack of technological innovation from India, but on the other, investors are not ready to support early stage technology and ask for a reasonable degree of market success – while fully knowing that cutting-edge technology usually has a longer lead cycle before it can succeed commercially.” says Amarpreet Kalkat, founder of CIAFO. “For our product Frrole , more than one VC/Angel has told us that ‘we would be better off looking for funding in Silicon Valley than here in India.’ It’s very sad that we don’t see a higher number of technologists-turned-investors emerging, whose perspective is closer to that of the Valley investors, as of today.” The Indian market needs to fill in this lack of encouragement in order to boom. In India, the journey is not respected. Everyone questions, eyeballs roll. Encouragement from family is not there and financial support is hard. The Indian entrepreneurs don’t get the same protection like in US, and our bankruptcy laws are also unfavorably different. Even worse, a failed startup is deemed as a résumé black-spot. Which means, the plan A bombs the Plan B. So my only modest appeal to the government, the society, the family, the friends, the in-laws, husbands, the wives and girlfriends- , please understand that you are needed by his/her side. It doesn’t mean you share their vision, nor their passion. But just let them know that it’s okay to be an entrepreneur. That it’s okay to walk the unbeaten road, take a calculated risk and put it into something productive. Respect and honour the courage. Award the journey and not just the end-result. Because it’s an opportunity of not once in a decade, but once in a lifetime. So even though the society needs him, he needs you. Get up. Give him a hug. -Abhilasha Dafria

Tagged as: accounting, disclaimer, guest-columns, indian, lose-something, management, marketing, password, paypal, popular-on-cloudstory-in, social-networking

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Geeks for a Valentine? Flirt, Date and Fall in Love at DateIITians

by Paul Joseph February 11, 2012 Featured

Let’s be frank about it. Geeks are socially perceived to be infamously unsocial. They are said to have big brains, but a small heart. Millions try to find love every moment of the day by logging into a social network. But how many of them think about falling in love with the person whose brains went behind making the network? Three budding entrepreneurs from IIT Kharagpur are playing cupids to geeks across the country with their social dating site dateIITians.com.  And if you are thinking it is probably another of those social networking sites that will spam your inbox with the unwarranted “Do u like friendship with me” messages, you will be in for a pleasant surprise.  After all, dating an IITian cannot be so non-technical. dateIITians is all about meeting and socializing with geeks and techies through social networking by imitating real life scenarios, from expressing ‘crush’ to sending gifts. In less than a month from its launch in January 22, over 200, 000 people have visited the website and 7,000 have registered for it. The site was earlier exclusive for only IITians and IIMites, but has now opened its heart to all. And if you are thinking why would an IITian or an IIM person, who represent the most intellectual community of our society, need a networking site to find a date? The contrasting male-female ratio in most of the engineering colleges should give you the answer. “One day we were discussing about each other’s love-life and one of us just casually commented ‘Why don’t you start a special website where IITians can hook up with each other?” Layak Singh, one of the founders of dateIITians tells YourStory about how the idea was planted. The trio, Layak Singh, Kingshuk Bairagi and Nikhil Kaushik are friends from three different departments at IIT Kharagpur and have been working on the development of the website since April last year. “People see IITians to be total geeks, who don’t have any social life. This image needs to be changed! Besides it is not just about finding a date, it is about finding the right person with whom you can have a meaningful conversation on subjects you both enjoy,” Layak explains. While, love may not have any barriers, in dateIITians one must cross three steps to get to their mates.  After adding someone as your buddy, you can request for flirting with him or her. If your flirt request gets accepted, you can then express crush on that person. And if love strikes, you can go on to propose that person and go on a date. No one likes to date a fake person, and that’s why dateIITians have created three strict levels of identity verification process. Also, the team plans to release a point rating system soon that will allow users to collect points based on the amount of interaction they have with their buddies on the site. Later, they can redeem their points into cash and opt for either sending free gifts to their loved ones or convert their membership to premium ones. The team is working on its revenue model based on members subscribing to the premium services like becoming a featured member, or by sending gifts to their loved ones. They are also looking at online advertising, sponsorships for beauty contest or events and by mobile or web based applications related to entertainment or dating/social media. We want to reach out to as many Indians as possible, helping them connect and bond with the geeky community of IITs, IIMs and NITs. “Our main target is to reach up to 0.1 million users in this year by going to all the premium colleges or universities. We are setting up the local college or universities representative to marketing our idea and reach to the students,” an optimistic Layak tells YS. “We are seeking a good investor right now, who will help us control our operations and development, so that we can focus more on the development and less on the financial and operational aspect,” adds Layak. The website is now blushing ahead of Valentine’s Day as their recent content application of “Who will be your valentine” have struck the chord in many young hearts.  The contest will have exciting prizes for winer and will close on 13th Feb 2012.The  So this Valentine’s day if you think you don’t have a chance, you might just find love waiting for you in dateIITians.com. Author: Krishnakali Sengupta

Tagged as: accounting, amazon, disclaimer, Featured, guest-columns, indian, lose-something, password, startup, technology

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Search, Compare and Buy on Comparethebazaar.com

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

Want to shop online but have no idea which e-shopping portal brings you the best products at the best prices? Comparethebazaar is here to solve your problem! Search, compare and buy. That’s the motto of Comparthebazaar, a free online service that allows its customers to compare a wide range of products and services (hotels, flights, bus reservations, books, electronic devices, you name it and they claim to have it!) and find the one most suited to their needs. And they don’t just stop there, they also re-direct you to the chosen website, where you can buy your pick and seal the deal! Rasesh Sheth, Founder, Comparethebazaar (and Interactive cubes, a web development firm) has had several years of experience in UK, in the e-commerce business.  “I started Comparethebazaar because, today, the e-commerce business is growing by leaps and bounds in the India,” says Rasesh. Ask them how they create a unique shopping experience, and Rasesh says, “Comparethebazaar does not sell the products directly, it initiates selling so it’s not just an e-business.” A user often gets confused in the sea of online retailers. On Comparethebazaar a consumer can compare prices, select the best deals across product categories, and analyze products and the vendor as well. The ‘Deals’ model, on Comparethebazaar, is classified into Group-buying deals, Product deals, Travel deals and Fashion deals where we showcase all our products/services by segregating each deal into different cities, which ultimately helps the consumer to track all relevant deals in a given city and hence save time and effort. Besides comparing shopping options a user can also compare of flights, hotels and bus reservations.  There are plans in place to expand into different internet verticals like insurance, money, utilities etc. where people can not only compare and buy, but save as well. Comparethebazaar generates revenue through commissions from merchants, click referrals from merchants, store builder options for small retailers and from banner ads and internet marketing. “We have reached the stage where we have more than 400 alliances from both online and offline merchants. We have already got around 10,000 registrations. Along with that, the site is getting a monthly traffic of 40,000 to 45,000, and it’s growing,” concludes Rasesh.

Tagged as: disclaimer, employee, guest-columns, lose-something, profile-details, search, social-networking, startup, startups, technology

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InMobi Undergoes A Makeover

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

InMobi , a well-known mobile ad network, has rebranded. According to a release on their official blog this rebranding exercise was done to “demonstrate our successful transition from a regional mobile ad network, to a true global leader in mobile technology.” Palo Alto, CA, based 1185Design worked with InMobi to develop the new brand identity. They believe that the new design will better represent the energy and impact of the InMobi mobile ad network. On their blog you can find a presentation which shows how the brand has evolved since InMobi’s inception in 2007. You can also help InMobi in celebrating their ‘new look’. You can buy an InMobi t-shirt with the new logo and click a photo while wearing it and email it to them. InMobi will post the pic on their blog. Check out the brand evolution presentation here . You can buy an InMobi t-shirt here .

Tagged as: accounting, biggest-country, disclaimer, guest columnists, indian, lose-something, patents, popular-on-cloudstory-in, random-member, social, social-networking

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What does a good Series AA (seed term sheet) look like? – Part1: Liquidation Preferences

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

I have several entrepreneurs asking me for templates of our “series AA” or seed series term sheet. Unfortunately, most of our deals are convertible debt (for companies based in the US, even though they have Indian entities). There is only 1 company we have invested in that is incorporated in Indian alone. I asked a few fellow angel investors to understand what terms and conditions they were seeing in their term sheets. I also got 5 term sheets from recently funded web and eCommerce startups. Some important points that you should keep in mind before you read this post. There is no “standard” term sheet. The reason for that is all deals are unique, dependent on the supply – demand characteristics between the startups and angel investors. If any of your investors say “That’s what the lawyers told me to put in the agreement. Its industry standard practice”, realize that there is nothing the lawyers can or cannot do without the consent of the investors. Everything is negotiable. Just because other startups are able to get favorable terms does not mean you will get the same terms. Numbers and percentages are purely representational, not standard. “Good” in the title of this post means, both entrepreneur and angel friendly, and one that’s not skewed towards one party. In India seed rounds funding as convertible notes are rare and not the common practice. Liquidation preferences are one of the key areas for entrepreneurs & angels to discuss and negotiate Liquidation preference: This means when there is an exit (company gets sold or goes public) what distribution of the proceeds goes to the investors as preferential payment (meaning, they get paid first) before any other shareholder. Let’s take an example. If you raise 1Cr with a pre-money valuation of 4Cr, your investors will own 20% of the company after their investment – 1cr divided by 5Cr (which is the valuation of the company post their money). Now after 18 months another company decides to buy your company for 4 Cr (it’s a aqui-hire – hiring for resources). Since the investors own 20% of the company, with NO liquidation preferences they would get (20% of 4 CR) which is 80L. The other share holders will get 1.2 Cr (which includes founders). If they had liquidation preferences (with a rate of return they mention in your term sheet), they will get 1 Cr plus their ROI, which might be 1 CR, plus 20% (example rate) and the other share holders will get 80L. I think providing liquidation preferences to the amount of capital put into the company makes some sense, because you want investors to at the least get their money back if they can, but anything more than that is negotiable. A good term sheet will maintain liquidation preferences to the amount of capital invested at the most.

Tagged as: accounting, biggest-country, disclaimer, entrepreneurs, guest-columns, indian, lose-something, password, profile-details, social, startup

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Junglee Is Hiring!

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

Do you want to part of a Junglee team? Then there is great news for you! Junglee.com is hiring. Amazon’s india-specific offering Junglee.com has been making a lot of noise online , since its launch a week back. Now Junglee is looking to expand its presence in the Indian market and is hiring new team members. The Junglee.com “We are hiring” page says, “We hire the brightest minds and offer them an environment in which they can invent and innovate to improve the experience for our customers. Every day, we are solving complex technical and business problems with ingenuity and simplicity. We have an ambitious vision and we’ve only just begun. Join us and see what’s next!” Currently, Junglee is not selling products directly to consumers rather they are just listing products from various online and offline retailers. With the amount of interest the site has been able to generate, we can be rest assured that bigger plans are in place for the near future. Calvin Nguyen, part of the User Experience team says, “Customer centric is not just lip service at Amazon – it’s an obsession.”

Tagged as: biggest-country, disclaimer, employee, guest columnists, indian, patents, social-networking, startup, technology

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Myntra.com Targets Rs 500 crores Revenue for the Next Fiscal

by Paul Joseph February 10, 2012 Featured

Myntra.com , one of the largest online retailers of fashion and lifestyle products in India, is aiming revenues of Rs 500 crores in the 2012-13 financial year. The company which entered the lifestyle and fashion retailing segment in December 2010 has registered a ten-fold growth in 2011 and is growing fast in the e-commerce space in India. Mukesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, Myntra said, “Myntra has undergone phenomenal growth in the last 12 months. We have been consistently doubling every 4 months and have now reached a scale where we ship up to 10,000 products every day. We are planning to cross revenue of Rs 500 crores in FY 12-13, which will further strengthen Myntra’s position in the lifestyle category. This is an exciting category with the total market size projected to be over $100 billion in 5 years with mid single digit portion being online, making this, possibly the largest online category in India.” He further added, “We have built a large catalog in the fashion and lifestyle category with over 200 brands, have extensive supply-chain capabilities including world-class warehouses in multiple cities and our own logistics network in large cities. We will continue to invest aggressively in our technology platform, supply-chain and the Myntra brand to rapidly scale the business.” The e-commerce company has received overall funding of $40 million through top-tier VCs like Tiger Global, IndoUS, IDG and Accel Partners.

Tagged as: accounting, disclaimer, employee, entrepreneurs, guest columnists, guest-columns, indian, lose-something, patents, press releases, random-member, social

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Hacking for Social Good: Indian Engineers modify Microsoft Kinect to Help the Blind

by Paul Joseph February 9, 2012 Featured

3 engineers from India have modified Microsoft’s Kinect, a motion sensing input device to create ‘viSparsh’ to help the blind reports IBN . Jatin Sharma, Tushar Chugh and Rolly Seth are part of the Young India Fellowship. The Young India Fellowship has been designed and is delivered in collaboration with University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) through an MoU with the School of Engineering and Applied Science (Penn Engineering). The viSparsh belt senses any obstacles and vibrates to intimate the user. The first stage of development is already over, Jatin Sharma told IANS. “We’re now at stage two. We have proved the usability; now our focus is on minimising the weight of the system and enhancing the battery backup,” said Sharma. Below is a brief video describing the concept and working of viSparsh –

Tagged as: accounting, disclaimer, employee, hacking, indian, microsoft, news/newsflash, password, patents, startup, technology

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Growth of E-commerce in the Indian Market

by Paul Joseph February 9, 2012 Featured

I experienced buying grocery online first time in year 2006 from Tesco Stores in UK and the idea hit me so much that I shopped online almost every week on eBay for next one quarter. Year 2006 was probably not too early to adopt shopping online, but I see people still thinking it safe to visit shops rather than buying from web portals. One of the recent surveys on adaptability of online shopping amongst Indians; confirms that 75% of online purchase happens in India on tour and travel related websites. I believe, credit goes to Indian Railways for making it so large for the travel industry. Buyers and Entrepreneurs have different queries and concerns when it comes to e-commerce. Some of those are valid and others are simply myths. Users’ queries and concerns about e-shopping Buyers think that shopping online is insecure because their card details may be saved by vendors on their portals and they may use that information later. This is a myth. Nothing of such sort happens. Transaction happens through secured payment gateways, which are kind of extended third party bank partners. Some of the well-established payment gateways in the Indian market are CCAvenue, BillDesk, PayU, ICICI Payment Gateway, HDFC Payment Gateway, etc. Another concern is that products delivered may not be of the quality promised by the portal. This may hold valid for perishable products, but it is very much safe if we buy packaged food online. I buy my monthly grocery online and I have never encountered such problems ever. Otherwise also, online vendors are vigilant enough to take such concerns on priority and they commit to replace such items with immediate effect. For any reason, if the transaction does not happen successfully, then there is a fear of losing the money paid. This is also a myth. The whole process is systematized. If transaction fails, in between, due to website failure or due to low internet speed or for any other reason and if amount gets debited from your account, intimation appears immediately and the money is reverted back to your bank account within 48 working hours. Though I would suggest saving the failure reference no, in such cases, for future communication with service providers or your bank. Clients like to shop from outlets, where they can shop on credit. This is relaxing on customers’ budgets. Same facility can be availed while shopping online too. Use your credit cards wisely for shopping online and you may avail credit period of maximum 50 days. Even on the payment due date, you can divide your payments in EMIs. Shoes, apparels or other such accessories shopped online may not fit in size or might carry some other similar concerns. This should not be a problem if the user is already using similar products of the same brand. In case user still faces such a problem, then vendors’ policies are lenient enough to change items. Benefits of shopping online To end user: No traveling, no parking struggles, saves fuel and parking money, no need to stand in queues for paying bills, healthier way to shop, can place orders while traveling using m-commerce. Better options and choices. There are portals which facilitate users to compare prices and discounts available at different vendors. To shop owner: No need to invest in real estate, reduces pain of maintaining huge inventories, easier accountancy, can collect orders 24/7/365 days, prevents stationary and staff expenses, can provide better customer service, can server bigger customer base and it allows them to receive payments faster. Social benefits: Prevents pollution and crowd on roads, saves energy (Fuel, Electricity and Manpower). Real problems in growth of Indian online market High installation and service charges of payment gateway companies: Currently installation charges of different PG companies range from INR-30000 to 40000 and on top of this based on different payment modes and plans, these companies charge 3% to 7% commission on every online transaction. Web developer also charges fee for integrating online payment facility on vendor’s portal. This whole investment is too high to convince a vendor to open his online shop for an experiment. Reduction in this investment cost is mandatory for online shopping success in India. Lower internet speed: Indians are still using low speed internet services for their home use because availing higher speed, needs costlier plans. This prevents people from opting online shopping. Red tapeism in providing credit cards to people: I am sure that not every household in Indian metro cities carries at least one credit card. I understand that banks have their own reasons to keep a check on distributing cards, but efforts to increase credit cards user base will obviously help in growth of Indian online market. Lack of knowledge about using the services: I know some friends who had bitter experience of using Credit Cards, because they missed paying their dues on time. Proper knowledge about how can users use credit cards for efficient shopping or how can they use debit cards or Netbanking for online shopping, if they do not like to use credit cards, will certainly encourage e-commerce in India. There is a long list of questions from entrepreneur too. I’ll talk about them in my next article on “e-commerce growth in Indian market – II” I am sure a time will come soon when physical shops shall be used only for displaying working demos of products and people will prefer buying everything online only.

Tagged as: accounting, ashish mittal, disclaimer, electronics, employee, indian, microsoft, password, unsexy-startups

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