New Delhi: The e-commerce industry has been growing at a fast pace. With larger penetration of the internet in tier 2 cities and beyond, e-tailers are able to fulfil the consumers demand more conveniently. In order to increase the customer base, the need for more sellers have emerged on e-commerce platform. Although, with several technological innovations, small sellers are getting a chance to reach a larger consumer base through online platforms across the country.

But the majority of the sellers are not Tech Savvy and from various regions with different language understanding, it is a difficult task to onboard new sellers and retain them with the online platform for a longer time. Though a lot of efforts have been put in this area.

Softbank-backed online platform Meesho, like several other homegrown players, is also working on onboarding sellers from tier 3 and tier 4 regions.

New Delhi: Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), government’s e-commerce platform is initiating an outreach program where it will host events across the country, inviting sellers and MSMEs for interactive sessions on ONDC and how it can help accelerate their business, the company said in a media release.

This session will be conducted in association with NRAI (National Restaurant Association of India) on 17 Oct 2022, at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi and in Chandigarh on 18 Oct 2022. Its first session will be held for restaurants, food entrepreneurs, and cloud kitchens.

The introductory session intends to facilitate an open interaction with network participants, both active and also those in the advanced stages of integration with ONDC. This will help attendees understand the ONDC set-up better and how it can accelerate their business growth in the new open and democratised e-commerce ecosystem.

Ecommerce in India is expected to grow at a rate of 25-30% annually for the next five years, with a steady increase in user base that is estimated to beat the second largest ecommerce shopper base – United States – in the next one or two years, according to a report by consultancy firm Bain & Co and homegrown e-tailer Flipkart.

The online shopper base in India, which was at 180-190 million in 2021, will also increase to about 400-450 million users by 2027 when the industry is estimated to be valued at over $150 billion. The report pegged the ecommerce market at $50 billion this year, up 40% from last year.

The government’s e-commerce platform, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), is set to extend beta testing across select pin codes in Delhi early next month in the groceries, and food and beverages segments, according to network participants. 

ONDC is likely to pick areas where the logistics is strong and pin codes where there are at least four active sellers in a two-kilometre radius, the people, who did not wish to be named, said.

The platform launched across 16 pin codes in Bengaluru on September 30.

Electronics, fashion, and home decoration segments will also be opened up to the public by the end of this year, the network participants said.

NEW YORK: Amazon will hire 150,000 full-time, part-time and seasonal employees across its warehouses ahead of the holiday season.

The announcement, made Thursday, shows the e-commerce behemoth is taking a less conservative approach to its holiday planning than Walmart, which said last month it would hire 40,000 U.S. workers for the holidays, compared to 150,000 in 2021.

Amazon, which typically beefs up its operations during the holidays, was looking for the same number of seasonal employees last year.

E-commerce firms are estimated to have registered a 27% growth, clocking sales worth Rs 40,000 crore, during the recently concluded seven-day festive season sale, a report said on Thursday. Flipkart Group, including Myntra, Shopsy etc, maintains its leadership position, while Meesho is the second- largest contributor in order volume, the report by Redseer Strategy Consulting said. 

“With the conclusion of Festive Sale 1, the online retail platforms have seen a robust 27 per cent year-on-year growth, clocking a sale of $5.7 billion or Rs 40,000 crore,” the report said.

The firm has done an analysis of Festive Sale week 1 including sale events conducted by all online retail platforms between September 22 and 30, and for platforms that did not run a sale during any of these dates, the report considered business as usual order volumes.

Bengaluru: Myntra, one of India’s leading fashion, beauty and lifestyle destinations, on Monday said its third and the biggest edition of ‘Big Fashion Festival’ (BFF) saw a record 1.2 million new customers from across the country. As customers shopped in plenty for fashion, beauty and lifestyle products during the event, the ‘Myntra Big Fashion Festival’ saw over 45 percent of visitors coming from tier 2 and 3 cities.

The top non-metro cities during BFF were Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Dehradun, Jammu, Imphal, Mysore, Siliguri, Udaipur, Cuttack, and Jalandhar.

The third edition of BFF offered access to 1.5 million styles, 1.5X more compared to the previous edition, enabling a diverse set of over 6,000 brands to cater to the festive shopping needs of the entire family, said the ecommerce platform. The event saw the fastest order getting delivered in around 240 minutes.

Bengaluru: Amazon on Friday rolled out its live commerce feature ‘Amazon Live’ in India where customers can directly interact with content creators and social media influencers and buy products from links provided during their livestreams.

With Amazon Live, Amazon.in will run 15 live streams every day from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.

More than 150 content creators are livestreaming during the ongoing Amazon Great Indian Festival, informed the company.

“Through Amazon Live, Amazon India aims to connect the influencers with customers at scale, enabling them to make informed purchases, ” said Kishore Thota, Director, Customer Experience & Marketing, Amazon India.

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) on Friday put out a paper on its website on grievance redressal for the public to respond before October 31.

This comes on a day when it went live in some high-density areas in Bengaluru.

The paper says Seller Apps must ensure that the product description is accurate and complete. They must also ensure that the terms and conditions for returns/refunds/cancellations are clearly declared.

Third, they must clearly specify the price declared by the seller (which cannot be greater than the maximum retail price), separate from any other charges such as convenience fees, packing charges etc. Fourth, the fulfilment terms such as delivery time and delivery charges must be clearly mentioned.

New Delhi: The commerce and industry ministry’s initiative to help small retailers and reduce the dominance of e-commerce giants, Open Network for Digital Commerce will be opened to the public in Bengaluru from Friday as part of its beta testing process. “Bengaluru consumers to get a whole new shopping experience! Beta testing of the Govt’s revolutionary Open Network For Digital Commerce to begin from tomorrow. It is democratic, cost-effective and and empowers buyers and small businesses,” commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said in a tweet.

The ministry in April launched the pilot phase of the open network for digital commerce, a UPI-type protocol, in five cities – Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong and Coimbatore. People were allowed to do transactions in these cities. 

As many as 20 organisations of national repute have confirmed investments of Rs. 255 crore into ONDC. Lenders such as State Bank of India, UCO Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Bank of Baroda have already committed investments.

The Department of Empowerment of People with Disabilities (DEPwD) has signed an agreement with Amazon India and the Skill Council for People with Disabilities to jointly provide skill training and employment opportunities in e-commerce sector. The memorandum of understanding was signed in the presence of Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Virendra Kumar.

According to officials, the role of the Skill Council for People with Disabilities would be to manage candidate lifecycle through SCPwD Partner Management System (PMS) portal, conduct training programmes for identified trainers, training centre validation in line with DEPwD guidelines, placement support and monitoring of candidates placed with Flipkart and in organisations beyond Amazon through Skill Grid, SCPwD Placement Portal.

The role of Amazon India would be to work jointly with DEPwD and the Skill Council for People with Disabilities (SCPwD) on a structured skilling programme for inclusion and assimilation that can help in not just hiring people with disabilities but also for nurturing and creating an equitable environment for their growth.

E-commerce firms have sold goods worth Rs 24,500 crore (USD 3.5-billion) in the first four days of the festive season sales, a report said on Tuesday. According to the report by strategy consultancy firm Redseer, during this period each minute as many as 1,100 mobile phones amounting to around Rs 11,000 crore were sold on large e-commerce platforms, driven by the premium phones.

Besides, fashion saw a 4.5x jump in terms of Daily Average GMV (gross merchandise value) compared to business-as-usual (BAU) days to reach Rs 5,500 crore in the first four days, it added.

“For the first 4 days (Sep 22-25) of the on-going festive Sale event 1, e-commerce platforms have clocked in a sale of Rs 24.5k crore or USD 3.5-billion, contributing to 60 per cent of the projected GMV for festive sale 1,” Redseer said.

Online grocer BigBasket has begun the process for a new round of funding that is likely to value the Tata Digital-owned firm at around $3-3.5 billion, said three people briefed on the matter.

BigBasket’s latest financing is likely to come from Tata Digital and existing shareholders. While the size of the round hasn’t been finalised, it’s likely to be in the range of $200 million or more, the people said.

Bengaluru-based BigBasket’s holding company Supermarket Grocery, of which Tata owns 62%, filed documents with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) recently about plans to increase the authorised share capital of the firm, typically an indication of a fresh cash infusion on the cards.

New Delhi: E-commerce firm Amazon India on Saturday said it has recorded a two–fold jump in its customer base from tier 2 and 3 cities during the first 36 hours of its festive season sale. Tier 2 and 3 cities accounted for 75 per cent of the total customer base of the e-commerce major during its ‘Great Indian Festival’ sale, an Amazon India spokesperson told PTI.

“75 per cent of the customers came from tier 2 and tier 3 cities. We saw 2 times more customers from Tier 2 and 3 cities compared to last year,” the spokesperson said.

The festive season sale of the company started from September 23 and will end before Diwali next month. The company gave 24 hours early access to Prime members.

Bengaluru: E-commerce major Flipkart on Friday said that it witnessed highest-ever number of concurrent users with 1.6 million users per second as it kicked off the ninth edition of its ‘Big Billion Days 2022’ festive sales, driven by shoppers from tier 2 and smaller cities.

The number of Flipkart Plus customers using Early Access during the sale also saw a healthy growth as compared to last year’s event, according to the company. 

Categories like laptops, smartwatches and true wireless wearables witnessed the highest demand, while makeup and fragrance category also saw high traction.

Increase in efficiency and reduction in logistics expenses with the newly-launched National Logistics Policy will benefit customers by making products available at lower cost, e-commerce company Flipkart said on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday unveiled the National Logistics Policy that seeks to address challenges facing the transport sector and bring down the logistics cost of businesses from 13-14 per cent to a single digit.

At a grand launch event, he had said the policy aims to expedite the last-mile delivery, helping businesses save time and money.

“The National Logistics Policy is a welcome move and this along with PM Gati Shakti plan will help build a more resilient logistics ecosystem in the country. Along with improving efficiency across the value chain, it will also result in a considerable reduction in logistics costs from their present level, thereby benefiting the end customer with lower costs, ” Flipkart Group Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Rajneesh Kumar said in a statement.

New Delhi: Recently launched multi-brand e-commerce platform, D2C Ecommerce on Wednesday announced its first acquisition, a fashion jewellery brand ‘AccessHer’. This acquisition marks the company’s foray into the jewellery and accessories space.

“This partnership gives us an opportunity of entering a new growing jewellery category and will help us scale the business to new heights by leveraging our existing capabilities,” said Manish Gupta CEO and founder, D2C Ecommerce. 

“We are excited to partner and be onboard as part of the core team at D2C Ecommerce. By joining hands with them, we plan to expand our business across the globe and establish the brand as the most preferred in the fashion jewellery and accessories category,” commented Gaurav Babel, founder, AccessHer.

Amazon India on Friday announced it has signed an agreement with Rajasthan Grameen Aajeevika Vikas Parishad (RGAVP), an autonomous society, established by the Government of Rajasthan. This has been done to support the growth of women artisans and Self Help Groups (SHGs) across the state. 

As per a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), a regional selection of products made by over 15,000 women entrepreneurs and SHGs associated with Rajeevika-RGAVP would be listed on the online marketplace, and made available to millions of Amazon India’s customers across the country, a company release said.

This initiative is driven by the intent to encourage digital inclusion, empowering the artisan and weaver community, and offering them economic opportunities by enabling them to become sellers on Amazon, the release said.

Kolkata: Softbank-backed e-commerce firm Meesho on Tuesday announced that it has digitised more than 30,000 small businesses from West Bengal on the platform. The company also said in a statement that it has roped in Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president and former national team skipper Sourav Ganguly for its marketing campaign during the upcoming festive season.

“Meesho has witnessed a significant increase in the number of MSMEs from West Bengal joining the platform in the past year. Top categories preferred by the suppliers in the region include apparel, personal care & wellness, consumer electronics and home decor,” the statement said.

The e-commerce firm recently added Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia to its platform with an eye on 377 million potential regional users.

Jammu: In a bid to provide market linkage to local artisans, authorities in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri have taken an initiative of listing handicraft products on e-commerce platforms, an official said on Monday. The products listed on online marketplaces like Amazon and GeM included ‘chikri woodcraft’, which has been practised for over a century with Thana Mandi area of Rajouri being its major centre, the official said.

He said wood from chikri tree is used in the making of a number of articles. This particular wood is light honey in colour and contains no grains.

“One of the famous objects made with the chikri wood is the double-sided combhaving extremely fine teeth. This variety of comb exhibits a delicate ‘jali’ (mesh) work,” the official said.

He said the products were launched on Amazon by the District Development Commissioner Rajouri, Vikas Kundal, in presence of a group of artisans who welcomed the initiative aimed at improving their living.

New Delhi: Digital financial services firm Paytm on Tuesday said it partnered with Samsung stores across India to facilitate smart payments as well as its loan service Paytm Postpaid through deployment of point of sale devices. The partnership will enable consumers purchasing Samsung devices — laptops, smartphones, television, smart watches etc — from any authorised store in the country to pay through Paytm payment instruments, including UPI, wallet, buy now pay later scheme, debit cards and credit cards.

“We continue to drive innovation in the offline payments market and with our PoS (Point of Sale) devices, merchants are able to drive higher customer loyalty. The partnership with Samsung stores will enable us to further extend the convenience of smart payments to a larger customer base,” said Bhavesh Gupta, Paytm CEO – Lending and Head Payments.

Paytm through its postpaid or buy-now-pay-later service will provide credit limit of up to Rs 60,000 per month. It will also give customers an option to avail personal loan of up to Rs 2 lakh through financial institution partners of Paytm, according to the company statement.

Paytm claims to be the leader in offline payments, having deployed 4.1 million devices across the country as of July 2022.

NEW DELHI: Months after running pilots in seven cities, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is planning to expand its operations by adding 75 more cities by August and other categories including electronics, garments, home decor and agricultural products. 

In addition, the UPI-type platform that the government is pushing to democratise retail and take on the might of Amazon, Flipkart and other e-commerce giants, will work with Common Services Centres (CSCs) to foray into village-level assisted buying, said sources. CSC has operations in around four lakh villages across India.

“While we started our pilot projects with retail and food that are difficult last-mile segments, we are now looking to aggressively expand our operations in terms of the number markets we operate in and the entities that are logged in to the network,” T Koshy, CEO at ONDC, told TOI.

Reliance Retail-owned Grab.in, a last-mile logistics provider, has integrated its platform with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network, according to a senior executive at the company. Grab.in is a subsidiary of Reliance Retail which holds around an 80% stake in the company.

Mumbai-based Grab.in was acquired by Reliance Industries in 2019 and is now housed under Reliance Retail.

While Reliance Retail-backed Dunzo is already on the ONDC as one of the logistics partners, Grab’s entry marks Reliance’s formal entry into the much-hyped network, pitched as a disruptor to break the dominance of ecommerce companies Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart by bringing unorganised retailers online.

Softbank-backed e-commerce firm Meesho has added eight new vernacular languages to its platform with an eye on 377 million potential users across different regions, the company said on Friday. Meesho has added Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia to its platform to target regional users.

With this, Meesho customers can select their preferred language for accessing the account and product information, placing and tracking orders, and making payments on android phones.

“It is important to note that around 50% of our users are new to e-commerce and have probably never transacted on such platforms before. By introducing vernacular languages on the platform, Meesho aims to eliminate language barriers.

MUMBAI: ONDC has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SIDBI for coordination of functions of institutions engaged in similar activities. The partnership is aimed to change the landscape of MSMEs by bringing them into the ONDC network and accelerating their participation in e-commerce. 

The association between ONDC and SIDBI will establish a programmatic approach for MSMEs where sessions will be held first to educate them about ONDC, then masterclass sessions on ONDC protocol and MVP definition, followed by incentivised accelerator programs and finishing with participants and their ecosystems going live and being able to transact.

The MoU, signed by Sivasubramanian Ramann, CMD, SIDBI and T Koshy, MD&CEO, ONDC, provides for several collaborative efforts by SIDBI and ONDC in helping MSMEs access open network e-commerce platform proposed by ONDC.

About a quarter of the new customers for the entire Flipkart group comes from its one-year-old social commerce app, Shopsy, a senior executive at the ecommerce firm said.

The group has several apps, including the Flipkart app, Myntra, payments app PhonePe and travel service app Cleartrip.

“We had set an audacious target of 100 million users to be on the platform by the end of the year and we are well on course to achieve that,” Prakash Sikaria, Flipkart’s senior vice president (growth and monetisation), told ET.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has said that an e-commerce platform permitting a third-party seller to “latch on” to the name or mark and product listings of another seller on its platform is “nothing but riding piggyback” and cannot be allowed. Justice Prathiba M Singh said that “latching on” is a mode of encashing upon the reputation of another entity and the consent and authorisation of the brand owner as well as the listing owner would be required before such conduct is permitted.

The court’s observations were made on a lawsuit by an online clothes seller against an e-commerce platform.

The plaintiff alleged that the defendant’s platform allowed third-party sellers to “latch on” to its product listings.

Reliance Industries (RIL) has started onboarding independent sellers and direct to consumer (D2C) brands for its separate marketplace platform, which will be called JioMarket, and is set to unveil it in the coming weeks so it can start operations during the festive season sale, multiple sources aware of the matter said.

JioMarket is expected to have more than one million products at launch and a presence across 30,000 pin codes, one of the people mentioned above said.

“With this, Reliance is aiming to disrupt the ecommerce marketplace ecosystem in the same way Jio disrupted telecom or Jiomart disrupted egrocery,” said the communication sent to sellers.

Reliance Retail-owned Grab.in, a last-mile logistics provider, has integrated its platform with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) network, according to a senior executive at the company. Grab.in is a subsidiary of Reliance Retail which holds around an 80% stake in the company.

Mumbai-based Grab.in was acquired by Reliance Industries in 2019 and is now housed under Reliance Retail.

While Reliance Retail-backed Dunzo is already on the ONDC as one of the logistics partners, Grab’s entry marks Reliance’s formal entry into the much-hyped network, pitched as a disruptor to break the dominance of ecommerce companies Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart by bringing unorganised retailers online.

Ecommerce firm Amazon has invested Rs 375 crore in its Indian logistics arm, Amazon Transportation Services, according to filings sourced from business intelligence platform Tofler.

The cash infusion happened on June 16 through Amazon’s entities in Singapore and Mauritius – Amazon Corporate Holding Pvt Ltd and Amazon.com.incs Ltd.

The investment comes at a time when Amazon is onboarding more local sellers on its marketplace.

Mumbai: E-commerce company Flipkart has entered the audiobooks category through a partnership with audio streaming platform Pocket FM. With the collaboration, Flipkart would provide exclusive and licensed audiobooks through Pocket FM to its customer base of over 400 million, a release said on Tuesday.

In India, it is estimated that there are 25 million people who listen to audiobooks.

Kanchan Mishra, Business Head for FMCG, Home and General Merchandise at Flipkart, said audiobooks have gained prominence during the pandemic and the collaboration will help authors publish their work on its platform with the aid of audiobooks.

It will also help the e-commerce company as it continues to address its users’ appetite for regional content, he added.

Pocket FM, which officially launched its audiobook platform in March this year, sells over 1,20,000 audiobooks every month, according to the release.

U.S. online sales during Amazon.com Inc’s Prime Day shopping event jumped 8.5% from last year to nearly $12 billion, as inflation-hit Americans pounced on discounted essentials and electronics, showed data from Adobe’s Digital Economy Index.

Amazon said on Thursday the two-day shopping event, on July 12 and 13, was its biggest ever globally, with members of its Prime loyalty program purchasing more than 300 million items, or 100,000 products a minute.

Shoppers have been hit hard by decades high-inflation in recent months, which retailers including Walmart Inc and Target Corp said has led to restrained purchases of discretionary products.

Bengaluru: Ecommerce firm Flipkart has quietly entered the home services business, starting with AC servicing, people aware of the matter said.

It is providing the service through Jeeves, an after-sales services company it had acquired several years back. The service is live in cities like Bengaluru and Kolkata and will soon be expanded to other top Indian cities.

Flipkart’s home services business is likely to also include washing machine repairs and other similar offerings going forward, covering the product categories sold on the e commerce platform, the people said.

The turnover of Common Service Centres (CSC)’s Grameen e-store has jumped nearly 100% on year in 2021-22 to `581 crore, sources told ET. Grameen e-stores had reported a turnover of `259 crore in the financial year 2020-21.

“In 2021-22, we enabled and turned more than 3.16 lakh village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) of CSC to turn into Grameen e-store. Of that, nearly 1.25 lakh were regularly active and placed orders for various products from distributors,” a senior government official said.

The Grameen e-store, which was started as a hyperlocal rural delivery unit after the first nationwide lockdown of March 2020, has grown to partner with various companies in the fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, automobiles, and other consumer segments. As of now, these stores have tie-ups with several companies including Tata Motors, Tata Consumer, the Tata Group electronic chain Croma, Nokia, Pepsi, Mahindra Electric, Royal Enfield, Crompton, Symphony, and Whirlpool.

NEW DELHI: Instant grocery startup Zepto may foray into the online pharmacy space, which would pit the nine month old company against the likes of Tata’s 1mg, Reliance’s Netmeds and Pharmeasy. The development comes even as the Mumbai-headquartered 10-minute delivery app is planning to scale up the pilot of its “cafe” business that allows Zepto users to order hot tea and coffee along with snacks. 

“It’s probably a category we will be excited about in the future,” Aadit Palicha, founder at Zepto, told TOI. “There will be a lot of innovation that will need to be done in the space. This is something we will focus on in the medium to long term and probably not in the short term.”

Started by two 19-year-old Stanford dropouts, Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto operates in India’s booming quick commerce space and competes with well-entrenched rivals such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Reliance-backed Dunzo, Tata’s Big Bazaar and Zomato’s Blinkit. 

The presence of open network for digital commerce, a Unified Payments Interface-type protocol, will be gradually expanded to more cities after the successful launch of its pilot phase, Union Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

Open network for digital commerce (ONDC) is a set of standards for voluntary adoption by sellers or logistics providers or payment gateways. The objective is to democratise the fast-growing e-commerce sector in the country to help small retailers and reduce the dominance of online retail giants.

It provides small retailers the freedom to choose any logistics player and seller platform based on different parameters like location and rates.

For the past 24 months or so, most Indian consumers have witnessed an era of absolute servitude where their preferred goods get door delivered. While e-commerce in India is over a decade and a half old (in a real sense), the pandemic situation changed everything. From grocery to household items, piping hot parathas to to crispy dosas, everything is now available for doorstep delivery. 

What used to once take 30-45 mins for delivery is now being delivered in 10-20 mins. “Zepto”, the new wonder kind on the block created this “quick commerce” model to ensure that the goods are delivered in the fastest instance – by setting up mini-warehouses in neighborhood clusters, thereby making quick milk-runs possible. The cost of doing business – for such a large operation – has been quietly buried, keeping the motive of efficient customer service as top priority. Investors continue to chant praises on the model and competitors in the delivery space have left no stone unturned. So much so that a much older player “Grofers” has even changed its business name to “Blinkit” to denote its urgency model. Swiggy and Dunzo have also delved into the space while Zomato, the listed entity has acquired a significant stake in Blinkit to build efficiency.

Most recently, we heard news of 10-min delivery of cooked food – from biriyanis to chai, tiffin items or snacks, to be delivered in 10 minutes, much to the chagrin of the cops who are already infuriated with the rash and reckless riding skills of many delivery “partners” – a moniker for the innumerous gig economy workers who change colors of their t-shirt to suit and meet demand from consumers (or the apps from where they order). The CEO of one such delivery platform had to go public through his social media platform to explain the model is not as “risky and dangerous” as it was perceived. And that the company would ensure utmost precaution was taken. This theory has not been well accepted by the cops as well as the public at large.

LUCKNOW: In its journey of less than a decade in India, US e-commerce company Amazon has pledged to create one million jobs in the country by 2025.

On Tuesday, the company’s director for last mile operations (India), Karuna Shankar Pande, said: “The target on board cannot be achieved without intensifying work in Uttar Pradesh.” 

Adding that Amazon already has significant presence in UP through its fulfilment centres—Lucknow, Agra and Gorakhpur have a cumulative storage space of over 3 million cubic feet—and a huge sorting centre in the state capital, he said that the company has over 1 lakh sellers including artisans, small business owners, women entrepreneurs and start-up originators in the state.

New Delhi: The size of the fashion e-commerce market in India, which is currently around $8-10 billion, is set to grow 35 per cent to around $30 billion in the next five years, according to Myntra Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nandita Sinha. 

“Today the contribution of e-commerce to most of the fashion businesses is 10-12 per cent. This will grow to 30 per cent. That means almost one-third of fashion in India in the next five years will be sold online or through digital platforms,” she said speaking at the ETRetailTech Summit 2022 in Mumbai.

She said the Indian e-commerce industry is going through a “transformational” growth phase and talked about the rise of channel-less retail. “As businesses, fashion, and retail digitizes and it leads to the scale of 30 per cent being digital sales, all channels will coexist in a very symbiotic relationship for each of the channels to grow, and contribute in a meaningful way,” she said.

NEW DELHI: Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) will provide equal opportunities to small retailers to enjoy the benefits of digital world and permit them to trade on a common platform, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

On April 29, the government launched the pilot phase of ONDC, a UPI-type protocol, in five cities. It was aimed at democratising the fast growing e-commerce sector, helping small retailers and reducing the dominance of online retail giants.

Goyal said that small retailers’ very existence could have come under threat with the growing influence of large format e-commerce companies, which are indulging in several irregular practices and are under investigations by the Directorate of Enforcement.

Bengaluru: The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) can onboard the entire farm value chain with the help of the National Bank for Agriculture and and Rural Development (NABARD), commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

The farm value chain includes Farmer Producers’ Organisations (FPOs), mandis, processors, exporters, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and small retailers.

Goyal was speaking virtually at the launch of a three-day grand Hackathon of ONDC and NABARD where early-stage startups will participate in solving problems for bringing ecommerce to agriculture technology. Winners stand to get rewards worth ₹1.2 crore at the Hackathon.

New Delhi: The government’s decision to exempt suppliers on e-commerce having less than Rs 40 lakh turnover will boost online sales of goods, industry players said on Wednesday. The GST Council has decided to ease the process for intra-state supplies made through e-commerce portals.

Now such suppliers will not have to obtain GST registration, if their turnover is lower than Rs 40 lakh and Rs 20 lakh for goods and services, respectively. This would come into effect from January 1, 2023.

Meesho founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said that the step brings much-needed parity between offline and online businesses.

Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal suggested that the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) – the Indian government’s initiative to promote open networks for the exchange of goods and services over digital platforms — should be made available in regional languages.

Goyal’s suggestions came during his meeting with various industry stakeholders to review the progress of the initiative. He also stressed that must work with industry associations to bring faster adoption to the network.

Thampy Koshy, chief executive at ONDC, told ET on Friday that over 150 entities have signed up with the network to integrate their apps, and all of them will be going live in the upcoming months.

Bengaluru: The local arm of US ecommerce major Amazon, which completed nine years of operations in India, will increase its focus on local stores and social commerce to tap into the “next 500 million consumers” in India, Manish Tiwary, country manager, India consumer business, at Amazon India, said in an interaction with ET.

There is a set of people that will require a local influencer to help them shop. If you see the first part of the journey, the metro penetration moved faster. In the social commerce piece — where an uncle or an aunt or a cousin living in your building actually helps you shop — we feel very good about how we can scale it up,” he said.

Tiwary was recently promoted to oversee all of Amazon India’s day-to-day operations with Amit Agarwal now being given an additional emerging markets role along with India, which ET reported on March 1. The Seattle-headquartered etailer said it was now looking to onboard more physical stores on its India platform to increase the number of goods that can be delivered quickly to customers. Tiwary said Amazon could deliver within two days in 93% of the pin codes, it is present in India.

New Delhi: Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has the potential to digitize the entire value chain and create an open, inclusive and competitive digital commerce marketplace by promoting interoperability, said Sanjeev Athreeya, head of retail and consumer practice, Thoughtworks in India in an interaction with ETRetail.

The government launched the pilot of ONDC in April across five cities. ONDC is said to democratize e-commerce in India as a potential alternative to giants such as Amazon and Flipkart dominating the market.

Talking about ONDC, Athreeya said it is an initiative to empower the smallest and farthest business owners with access to digital commerce tools in a platform.

New Delhi: E-commerce platforms are now the fastest growing medium for digital ads in India, with a $6-8 billion opportunity by 2030, according to a new report.

The growth in product e-commerce user base is expected to be faster than search and social media platforms, with 300-350 million new online shoppers from tier 2 markets expected by 2030.

India’s digital ads market is expected to touch $35 billion in the same time-period and e-commerce platforms will be one of the biggest contributors enabling this upward spiral, according to homegrown strategy consulting firm Redseer.

Bengaluru: Myntra, one of India’s leading fashion, beauty and lifestyle destinations, on Monday said that the 16th edition of its flagship EORS-16 (End of Reason Sale) witnessed over 70 per cent growth in traffic over business as usual (BAU) on Day One.

India shopped a record-breaking 50 lakh products in the first 24 hours of Myntra’s EORS sale that is being held from June 11-16.

On Day One, 2.6 million items were shipped within the first 24 hours of the  event.

Kolkata: Discounts for consumer electronics have returned on e-commerce platforms after a gap of two years as sales of televisions, smartphones and refrigerators have slowed down.

While in bigger towns and cities, pent up demand has been exhausted and consumers have diverted their expenditure to travel and eating out, for consumers in smaller towns and rural areas, overall inflationary pressure has eaten away their discretionary spends.

“Discounts have made a comeback and will continue till the festive season since brands have to create demand and grow their business,” said Pradeep Jain, managing director of Jaina Group, which retails Karbonn and Sansui brands.

NEW DELHI: Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) will provide equal opportunities to small retailers to enjoy the benefits of digital world and permit them to trade on a common platform, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Friday.

On April 29, the government launched the pilot phase of ONDC, a UPI-type protocol, in five cities. It was aimed at democratising the fast growing e-commerce sector, helping small retailers and reducing the dominance of online retail giants.

Goyal said that small retailers’ very existence could have come under threat with the growing influence of large format e-commerce companies, which are indulging in several irregular practices and are under investigations by  the Directorate of Enforcement.

NEW DELHI: India’s government in April launched its Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) as a prospective alternative to dominant global giants Amazon.com and Walmart in its fast-growing e-commerce market.

New Delhi: The investigation arm of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is reviewing documents that suggest financial dealings between leading ecommerce companies and their preferred sellers, people with knowledge of the matter said.

It has now sought more time from the commission to review these documents, found during the raids last month, following allegations of violation of competition law by ecommerce majors Amazon and Flipkart.

Originally, the Director General was to complete its investigation by the first week of June.

Bengaluru: Homegrown ecommerce firm Flipkart, majority owned by Walmart Inc, has promoted many executives and inducted two key executives as senior vice presidents (SVPs), according to an internal memo that ET has reviewed.

Bharath Ram and Guddeti Bharath Reddy have been elevated as SVPs, while Sharon Pais, who was moved to Myntra as its chief business officer, has been made a VP.

Ram joined Flipkart in March 2020 and led user acquisition and retention in Flipkart’s entire tech and product team, known internally as One Tech.

Bengaluru: Mumbai-based Shweta Patole started work as a delivery agent in 2020 when she needed to support her family after her father’s demise.Working with Blue Dart on the morning shift—the only woman on the team—she delivered between 50 and 70 parcels a day and took home Rs 15,000-16,000 a month, till severe back pain finally caught up with her.

In March this year, she decided to give up her job. Now she’s not working anywhere but another delivery job is a strict no-no. “It’s too taxing on me,” she said.

Patole represents a growing problem that companies are struggling with: a lack of diversity in last-mile delivery, which continues to be an overwhelmingly male bastion.

NEW DELHI: Alphabet Inc’s Google is in talks with the Indian government to integrate its shopping services with the country’s open e-commerce network ONDC, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Late last month India soft-launched its Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as the government tries to end the dominance of US companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market.

The government estimates the e-commerce market was worth more than $55 billion in gross merchandise value in 2021 and will grow to $350 billion by the end of this decade.

NEW DELHI: Alphabet Inc’s Google is in talks with the Indian government to integrate its shopping services with the country’s open e-commerce network ONDC, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Late last month India soft-launched its Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as the government tries to end the dominance of US companies Amazon.com and Walmart in the fast-growing e-commerce market.

The government estimates the e-commerce market was worth more than $55 billion in gross merchandise value in 2021 and will grow to $350 billion by the end of this decade.

Bengaluru: Fashion and beauty ecommerce company Myntra said it has launched an express delivery feature called M-Express on its app, for deliveries in 24 to 48 hours.

Products eligible for express delivery will have an “M-Express” tag in the listing. This is similar to Amazon’s Prime and Flipkart’s Plus fulfilment.

The company said the feature eventually cover 300,000 products in over 1,300 pincodes. Currently, it is available to customers in metro cities, with around 30% of products eligible for express delivery.

Bengaluru: Fashion and beauty ecommerce company Myntra said it has launched an express delivery feature called M-Express on its app, for deliveries in 24 to 48 hours.

Products eligible for express delivery will have an “M-Express” tag in the listing. This is similar to Amazon’s Prime and Flipkart’s Plus fulfilment.

The company said the feature eventually cover 300,000 products in over 1,300 pincodes. Currently, it is available to customers in metro cities, with around 30% of products eligible for express delivery.

Bengaluru: Fashion and beauty ecommerce company Myntra said it has launched an express delivery feature called M-Express on its app, for deliveries in 24 to 48 hours.

Products eligible for express delivery will have an “M-Express” tag in the listing. This is similar to Amazon’s Prime and Flipkart’s Plus fulfilment.

The company said the feature eventually cover 300,000 products in over 1,300 pincodes. Currently, it is available to customers in metro cities, with around 30% of products eligible for express delivery.

Bengaluru: Fashion and beauty ecommerce company Myntra said it has launched an express delivery feature called M-Express on its app, for deliveries in 24 to 48 hours.

Products eligible for express delivery will have an “M-Express” tag in the listing. This is similar to Amazon’s Prime and Flipkart’s Plus fulfilment.

The company said the feature eventually cover 300,000 products in over 1,300 pincodes. Currently, it is available to customers in metro cities, with around 30% of products eligible for express delivery.

NEW DELHI: Instant grocery startup Zepto may foray into the online pharmacy space , which would pit the ninemonth old company against the likes of Tata’s 1mg, Reliance’s Netmeds and Pharmeasy. The development comes even as the Mumbai-headquartered 10-minute delivery app is planning to scale up the pilot of its “cafe” business that allows Zepto users to order hot tea and coffee along with snacks.
“It’s probably a category we will be excited about in the future,” Aadit Palicha, founder at Zepto, told TOI. “There will be a lot of innovation that will need to be done in the space. This is something we will focus on in the medium to long term and probably not in the short term.”
Started by two 19-year-old Stanford dropouts, Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, Zepto operates in India’s booming quick commerce space and competes with well- entrenched rivals such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Reliance-backed Dunzo, Tata’s Bazaar and Zomato’s Blinkit.

Bengaluru: Ecommerce firm Flipkart has quietly entered the home services business, starting with AC servicing, people aware of the matter said.

It is providing the service through Jeeves, an after-sales services company it had acquired several years back. The service is live in cities like Bengaluru and Kolkata and will soon be expanded to other top Indian cities.

Flipkart’s home services business is likely to also include washing machine repairs and other similar offerings going forward, covering the product categories sold on the ecommerce platform, the people said.

New Delhi: Amazon India’s smartphone business grew 30% in 2021, nearly double that of 2020, driven by customers in small towns who are choosing premium smartphones above ₹20,000, a top company official said.

Signalling changing consumer trends post pandemic, Nishant Sardana, category leader, smartphones and accessories at the ecommerce major, told ET that the growth in units in 2021 was led by mid- premium smartphones in the ₹20,000-30,000 and ₹30,000-50,000 segment, which saw more than 50% on-year growth, driven by post-Covid requirement for high- performance smartphones.

“Over the last year, we have seen customers gravitate towards smartphones which are ideal for multitasking, which can manage work, entertainment, and day to-day use cases as well,” Sardana said. He added that customers are opting for performance-centric smartphones with a better processor and larger RAM.

New Delhi: E-commerce marketplace Flipkart on Thursday said it has experienced a strong adoption of ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ credit facility, where user base has doubled to over six million within seven months. The company, in a statement, said ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ offers affordability as well as a convenient shopping experience to customers and is witnessing an upward trend in monthly sign-ups.

“Flipkart Pay Later crosses 6 million customers witnessing a strong adoption and growth in seven months,” it said.

Having recently expanded its offerings ‘Flipkart Pay Later’ provides customers credit up to Rs 1 lakh, depending on the user’s credit profile.

BENGALURU: At its flagship annual summit Amazon Smbhav, Amazon India announced the launch of Smart Commerce – a new initiative to transform local stores into digital dukaans, and accelerate its pledge to digitize one crore small businesses by 2025. Over 1.5 lakh neighborhood stores are already selling online using Amazon.in.

With Smart Commerce, stores can now digitize their offline operations, provide enhanced in-store shopping experience to their walk-in customers, and create their own online storefronts to serve customers directly. Stores of any size can now take advantage of best of Amazon’s shopping innovations, logistics, digital payments and more to provide a reliable and trustworthy experience to their customers no matter where they are — in their physical store, directly through their own online storefront, or on Amazon.in.

Smart Commerce will also release its first set of solution to help local stores digitize billing and inventory management, and deliver an enhanced in-store experience to their customers. This will be followed by the launch of capabilities enabling them to create their own online storefront within minutes, and serve their customers through a simple voice and chat-based shopping experience.

Singapore-based Sea Ltd on Tuesday beat quarterly sales estimates and posted a smaller-than-expected quarterly loss, driven by strength in its core e-commerce as well as digital payments business.
Sea shares rose 13% amid a rally in major U.S-listed Chinese technology stocks on hopes of Beijing easing its regulatory crackdown on the internet sector.
Sea, which operates Shopee, SeaMoney and gaming unit Garena, said first-quarter e-commerce revenue grew 64.4%.

Bengaluru: E-commerce giant Amazon on Sunday said it has cumulatively created over 11.6 lakh direct and indirect jobs in India so far, and is on track to reach the target of creating 20 lakh direct and indirect jobs by 2025.
“We have cumulatively created over 11.6 lakh jobs, enabled nearly $5 billion in exports and digitised over 40 lakh MSMEs in India,” said Manish Tiwary, Country Manager, India Consumer Business Amazon India.
These jobs are across industries like IT, e-commerce, logistics, manufacturing, content creation, skill development and more.

Reliance Industries has started roping in independent sellers on its ecommerce platform, JioMart, as a precursor to creating a separate marketplace where it will eventually house all third-party sellers, two industry executives aware of the plans said.
Reliance’s move is to prepare itself for the government’s proposed ecommerce policy, which is likely to prohibit marketplace operators from having their related parties or associated enterprises as sellers on their platforms. The Tatas and a few others are reportedly opposed to such a condition, but Reliance is said to be in favour of it and wants to support independent sellers through a separate platform, the executives said.
The proposed platform, whose name is yet to be decided, will have the ‘Jio’ branding, like the existing JioMart. JioMart will continue as the ecommerce arm of Reliance Retail for all its own brands and formats after this new marketplace comes up.

Canada’s Shopify said on Thursday it would buy U.S.-based logistics firm Deliverr in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $2.1 billion, in a move to help mitigate supply chain snarls that have plagued the e-commerce sector.
U.S-listed shares of the company, which helps merchants set up online shops and provides other services including delivery, were down 10% in premarket trading.
Global e-commerce growth has eased from the frenetic pace seen during the pandemic when brick-and-mortar retailers set up an online presence to reach stuck-at-home customers.

E-commerce company Amazon expects cumulative exports from its platform in India to reach USD 20 billion by 2025, a senior company official said on Wednesday. In January 2020, the company had set a target to facilitate export worth USD 10 billion by 2025.

“In January 2020, we had taken a pledge to enable USD 10 billion in cumulative exports from India by 2025 with our global Selling program.

“Excited by the momentum in businesses joining the global selling program and by the growing demand for Made in India products across the world, I am super excited to announce that we are doubling down and raising our pledge to enable USD 20 billion in cumulative exports by 2025,” Amazon senior vice president for India and emerging markets Amit Agarwal said.

New Delhi: E-commerce startup Meesho aims to reach 200 million signed up users by December 2022, a spokesperson told ETRetail.

To accelerate its digital transformation journey, the firm has partnered with Google Cloud, according to an announcement released today.

Through this collaboration, Meesho looks to build an AI-first supplier experience, better user acquisition strategies and a personalized shopping experience for the next billion e-commerce users in the country.

Bengaluru: Ecommerce platform Flipkart said it has made changes to its marketplace policy and added new features to attract new sellers.
The changes include reducing the payment settlement cycle from 15 days to 7-10 days, 10-minute seller onboarding, and guaranteed returns through sales from advertisements placed on Flipkart.
“There are two segments here — new sellers and existing sellers,” Jagjeet Harode, senior director and head, marketplace, Flipkart, told ET . “You will see a massive influx of new sellers coming on to the platform. The number of entrepreneurs who want to sell online could almost double if we simplify the onboarding process. The second part is to make our existing sellers perform better.”

Bengaluru: All the employees of Cloudtail and its parent firm Prione Business Services, numbering 1,000-1,200, are being moved to Amazon India and the process is likely to be completed by the end of May, a person privy to the matter told ET.

Prione CEO Pankaj Jathar had told company employees about the transition plan in a townhall meeting on April 12, the person said.

ET has reviewed slides of a presentation Jathar used at the meeting. 

Amazon.com Inc. says it plans to invest $1 billion in companies developing technologies in logistics, supply chain management and safety, as the retailer seeks to keep an eye on new ideas that might aid its core business. 

The Seattle company on Thursday said it was launching the Amazon Industrial innovation fund, a venture investment program that will back companies “of all stages” working  on technology to increase e-commerce delivery speeds and improve the experience of workers in warehousing and logistics. Amazon didn’t specify how many companies it aimed to invest in, or a timeline for the program.

Alex Ceballos Encarnacion, vice president of worldwide corporate development, said in an Amazon blog post that target companies may work with Amazon, or opt to grow on their own. “We’re excited to help advance these technologies as online shopping becomes even more important to people who are looking for more convenience and time savings,” he said.

New Delhi: E-commerce company Flipkart on Thursday said it opened a fulfilment centre at Haringhata in West Bengal spread over 110 acres with potential to create 11,000 direct and indirect jobs in the area. The facility was inaugurated virtually during the Bengal Global Business Summit (BGBS) by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee, the company said in a statement.
“It is a matter of immense pride that West Bengal will now house one of the largest fulfilment centres in the country as India’s e-commerce logistics industry takes a stride with the establishment of Flipkart’s state-of-the-art futuristic fulfilment centre in Haringhata. I congratulate the entire team of Flipkart in achieving this feat which will significantly contribute to the economic development of the region and its citizens,” Banerjee was quoted as having said in the statement.
The tech-enabled facility will support around 20,000 sellers from the state and north-east region.

The newly launched Tata Neu, the “super app” from Tata Digital, is expected to benefit a host of small sellers supplying to the several brands housed within the app.
Elaborating on this, Pratik Pal, CEO, Tata Digital, said small retailers can expect more gains. “Some of the companies like BigBasket or Croma already have large B2B businesses.
Small sellers and retailers are already supplying to these brands. As our footprint increases and growth takes place, small sellers selling to large brands will also benefit in the same way,” he said during a recent conference held in Mumbai on April 14.
The super app from the group boasts of a combination of product commerce, service commerce and financial services rolled into a consumer-first integrated experience. Billed as a one-stop destination for all consumer needs, it also has a suite of financial offerings on offer, including UPI, bill payments, loans and insurance.

Washington: In his first letter to Amazon shareholders, CEO Andy Jassy offered a defense of the wages and benefits the company gives its warehouse workers while also vowing to improve injury rates inside the facilities. Jassy, who took over from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as CEO last July, wrote the company has researched and created a list of the top 100 “employee experience pain points” and is working to solve them.
“We’re also passionate about further improving safety in our fulfillment network, with a focus on reducing strains, sprains, falls, and repetitive stress injuries.’ he wrote.
The company is set to face two shareholder votes next month tied to workplace injuries.

Mumbai: CoutLoot, a social commerce platform, has announced the launch of a wholesale platform to connect millions of offline and online sellers directly to small and medium manufacturers across the country.
Through this platform, sellers and merchants can source fast-moving products and categories directly from the manufacturers, eliminating the need for middlemen and increasing profit. The platform would immediately help over 7 lakh sellers source their products faster and also boost their earnings three-fold.
Over the past year, Coutloot has helped over six lakh small street shops and sellers expand their business online and generate seven times more income. “The platform is tailor-made for smaller retailers and sellers coming from beyond the metro cities of India. The wholesale SAAS platform will be integrated with other platforms, short video apps, and logistics platforms to plug supply chain issues for every small Indian business or creator. The sellers would be able to source products directly from the manufacturers at smaller MoQs (minimum order quantity) at the right price through which they can order even with small working capital. It will also help them earn better margins,” Jasmeet Thind, co-founder, coutLoot said.

LONDON: Amazon.com Inc., the world’s biggest retailer, will face a shareholder vote calling for an independent audit of its treatment of warehouse workers after the top U.S. securities regulator turned down the company’s request to skip the resolution.
The decision means Amazon investors will get to vote on the issue for the first time, proponents said, taking advantage of guidance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in November that made it more supportive of votes on significant social issues.
Founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, Amazon has drawn increasing criticism in recent years for its treatment of workers, including claims of poor working conditions at its warehouses and its attempts to block workers unionising.

NEW DELHI: Walmart’s Indian e-commerce company Flipkart has internally raised its IPO valuation target by around a third to $60-70 billion, and now plans a U.S. listing in 2023 instead of this year, two sources with direct knowledge of the plan told Reuters.
Flipkart, which competes with Amazon.com Inc in India’s booming e-commerce space, had earlier set an IPO valuation goal of $50 billion,Reuters has reported.
The main reason for waiting for the IPO is due to Flipkart’s internal plan to boost valuations further by focussing on two of its relatively new businesses — online healthcare services and travel bookings, two of the sources with direct knowledge said.

NEW DELHI: E-commerce giant Flipkart said on Monday that it has constituted Flipkart Foundation with a focus on supporting improved market access for under-served communities, entrepreneurship, skill development, community development, livelihood opportunities, and environmental responsibility initiatives in India.
The Foundation aims to impact 20 million lives directly and indirectly over the next decade, Flipkart said in a statement.
The Foundation will carry forward Flipkart Group’s efforts towards bringing opportunities for ecosystem partners and convenience to stakeholders through a technology-led digital commerce model. This will enable it to drive inclusive growth with a mission to drive grass-root level, at-scale and institutionalised impact for sustainable livelihoods and growth opportunities in India for the underprivileged .

Bengaluru: Ecommerce major Flipkart has infused about $553 million into its marketplace business, according to recent regulatory filings made in Singapore. Additionally, it has pumped another $143 million in its healthcare unit Flipkart Health, these filings showed. With the new capital coming in, it takes the total cash infusion by Flipkart in to the two entities —Flipkart Marketplace Private Limited and Flipkart Health Private Limited—to nearly $700 million.
The fresh cash is being deployed at a time when Walmart-owned Flipkart is scaling many of its new businesses like epharmacy, travel, social commerce platform Shopsy and doubling down on its grocery business.
The Bengaluru-based company has also allotted new Esops (Employee stock owner programme), in Flipkart Private Limited, the filings showed.

Bengaluru: The rise in commercial fuel charges has now led to top logistics companies increasing their freight charges for ecommerce shipments. This may impact the end pricing for online consumers as sellers contemplate if they want to pass on the rising freight charges to the consumer.
Delhivery, one of the largest third-party ecommerce delivery companies, has decided to increase freight charges by 30% effective April 1 for “Delhivery Air and Surface”. Logistics aggregator Shiprocket, which works with Delhivery, told its clients of the steep increase in the charges from Friday. ET has reviewed the note. “This is on account of the steep rise being witnessed in commercial fuel charges over the recent weeks and other systemic factors in the logistics markets.”
The decision to increase freight charges comes at a time when petrol prices have crossed Rs 100 mark in several major cities. The price of diesel has also hit Rs 100 mark in Mumbai.

Bengaluru/Mumbai: In just about six months of starting operations in India, Singapore’s ecommerce firm Shopee has decided to shut its operations here, according to three people in the know. Shopee announced the development to its local team in a company-wide town hall on Monday, saying it will cease to operate in India immediately.
The etailer which competes with with the likes of Meesho, Flipkart and Amazon India, especially at the lower-end of the market, will shutter its business effective effective March 29, according to sources aware of the matter.
The company communicated this to merchants who sell on its platform on Monday.

Bengaluru: Flipkart has started delivering groceries in 45 minutes in parts of Bengaluru, halving its quick delivery service time from 90 minutes, ET has learnt.

The country’s leading ecommerce platform plans to scale up the 45-minute grocery delivery service known as Flipkart Quick to more cities next month, a company insider said.

Flipkart declined to comment.

An affiliate of e-commerce major Amazon India has signed on 2.5 million sq ft of warehouse space in the last four months across Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Bengaluru to ramp up operations in the country.

The US-based e-commerce firm is also in talks with Blackstone Group’s logistics development platform, Horizon Industrial Parks, to lease half a million sq ft of warehouse space in Delhi and Alipore.

“Amazon is looking to set up a built-to-suit facility. The deal is expected to take at least two months. The proposed in-city warehouse will come up on a part of the 36 acres land bought by Blackstone in Delhi from TARC in a deal valued at Rs 295 crore,” said two people aware of the matter.

New Delhi: Amazon on Monday faced the ire of a section of Indian social media users over merchandising some products, including apparel and food items, that feature images of the Indian flag, with some saying that using the tricolour in such a way was an insult and a violation of the country’s flag code.
In a late evening statement, Amazon said it remains committed to take necessary action against sellers who may have listed any non-compliant products.
Netizens shared pictures of items like apparel, cups, keychains and chocolates that feature images or imprint of the tricolour on Amazon.in website, and sought a ban on these items. Hashtags like #AmazonInsultsNationalFlag were trending on twitter.

New Delhi: Amazon India on Wednesday said it has signed a memorandum of understanding with the NIF Incubation and Entrepreneurship Council (NIFientreC) to accelerate grassroots innovation, local economy and improve livelihoods across rural India. NIFientreC is a technology business incubator hosted by the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
The partnership aims to encourage innovation and create livelihood opportunities for lakhs of people across India, a statement said.
As part of this programme, NIFientreC – with Amazon’s help – will bring together experts from various fields, particularly from the direct-to-customer (D2C) industry to hold masterclasses, workshops, and other interactive training programmes on all aspects of product distribution and its availability for the end-user in the most convenient ways, it added.

What should be an ordinary commercial dispute between Amazon.com Inc. and the founders of a near-bankrupt retailer is shining a harsh light on the quality of  legal and regulatory protection investors actually receive in India.
The long drawn-out saga has thrown up two questions for prospective investors, or those who already have business interests in India. First, what does a go-ahead from the country’s antitrust authority even mean if an entire chain of investment based on that approval has to be unwound or reversed after two years? Second, can one rely on international arbitration to enforce Indian contracts, or will local courts get involved and throw a spanner into alternative dispute-resolution mechanisms?
Last month, Amazon was fined $26.7 million by the Indian competition watchdog. Worse, its $192 million capital infusion in Future Coupons Pvt. — a 2019 transaction — was put “in abeyance” for being economical with disclosures. The commission said it was denied an opportunity “to assess the effects of the actual combination,” which gave Amazon strategic rights over publicly traded Future Retail Ltd. Never mind that those “effects,” even if the trustbuster did get a chance to study them, are unlikely to have included concentration of power in the retail industry, for the simple reason that Amazon is not a retailer in India. It’s an electronic marketplace for buyers and sellers.

BENTONVILLE/BENGALURU: Walmart is inviting select Indian sellers to apply to join walmart Marketplace, a curated sellers community that serves more than 120 million US shoppers each month. This initiative expands on over 20 years of Walmart’s engagement with Indian exporters. India is already one of Walmart’s top sourcing markets, and company has set a goal of exporting $10 billion from India each year by 2027.

Walmart is seeking new sellers from India as part of a global drive to attract international sellers and expand the Marketplace’s product assortment. Selected sellers will be able to take advantage of Walmart Fulfillment Services, which allows them to use Walmart’s warehousing and delivery infrastructure in the US, along with platform tools that help them streamline their operations and manage promotions and feedback. Walmart also shares US customer insights and global supply chain best practices and business planning strategies with its Marketplace sellers to help them succeed in that country.

“Building on our long history of partnership with Indian exporters, Walmart is now offering Indian businesses the opportunity to further their export dreams as Marketplace sellers. They will be able to leverage our global supply chain infrastructure and receive support to help them reach millions of daily customers in the US,” said Michelle Mi, Walmart Vice President, Emerging Markets and Business Development – Global Sourcing, in a statement.

Bengaluru: Meesho, an e-commerce company, has rolled out a ‘gender confirmation’ leave policy, under which employees looking to transition their gender can get up to one month of paid leave for gender reassignment surgery and other medical procedures.
The new policy is an addition to the Bengaluru-based company’s recent initiatives towards driving better inclusivity within the organisation. The firm, which entered the unicorn club last year with a valuation of over a billion dollars, is also looking to allow employees to include same-sex and live-in partners under their insurance coverage.
“Over the past six months or so, we have been revisiting our policies through a lens of inclusivity and changing them, or adding new ones, when required,” Ashish Singh, chief human resources officer at the Bengaluru-headquartered company which has 1,700-odd employees in India, told ET. “With this new policy, we want to support employees going through gender transition and ensure they have the required time off.”

Sales of daily essentials including packaged foods, soaps and hygiene products have surged on ecommerce platforms in the past seven days as states have imposed several curbs to check Covid-19 infections.
Limited operating hours at stores and consumers staying indoors following the surge in cases has also contributed to higher online sales, executives said. There has been a 10-15% increase across categories while online sales have doubled for items such as chocolates and beverages.
Companies said they were prepared to meet the surge in demand.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that in view of the coronavirus pandemic, it will not for the time being insist on physical appearance of people in connection with its probe against an Amazon subsidiary under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). The oral assurance was given by Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, appearing for the central agency, on petitions by Amazon Wholesale (India) Pvt Ltd and Amazon Seller Services Pvt Ltd challenging the jurisdiction of the ED and its officers to investigate the first company and seek information pertaining to Amazon’s ongoing arbitration with the future group.
Justice Rekha Palli listed the case for further hearing on January 12 and asked the senior lawyer for the agency to “advise officers that if they want any information, they will do so through video conferencing”.
“Because of COVID-19, we will hold our hand (on insistence on physical appearance),” said Raju.

Bengaluru: Amazon Seller Services, which runs the Amazon India marketplace, reported a 49% rise in revenue from operations to Rs 16,200 crore for FY21, up from Rs 10,847.6 crore a year ago. Losses stood at Rs 4,748 crore, down from Rs 5,849 crore in FY20. The numbers were sourced through business intelligence platform tofler.

Amazon Wholesale (India) is another key unit of the US company’s local operations in the country, even though the entity has been scaling down operations following tighter foreign direct investment (FDI) norms for ecommerce companies owned by foreign firms. This unit reported a drop of around 7% in revenue from operations at Rs 3,131 crore compared with Rs 3,384 crore in FY20.
Amazon Wholesale India’s operational revenue had fallen 70% in FY20 from FY19. 

There is never a dull day in the Indian e-commerce sector.
For ecommerce, the main theme was centred around the sector’s recovery after the devastating  second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Unlike 2020’s sharp recovery in sales post the first wave, this time the bounce-back was gradual, and etailers were testing consumer appetite with select sale events.
Around this time in June, the government came out with a draft law for ecommerce with a wide-ranging impact triggering an immediate protest from industry players, barring the offline traders. The development did not go down well with the likes of Amazon India and Flipkart as well as the older conglomerates like the Tata group.

The government will soon circulate revised versions of the ecommerce policy and ecommerce rules to spell out comprehensive guidelines for all online transaction , covering all digital commerce and service providers, including marketplaces, ride-hailing companies, ticketing and payment companies, said people aware of the development. The idea is that the two drafts will be released at the same time and be in sync with each other, reducing the scope for misunderstanding.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) under the ministry of commerce will release the draft ecommerce policy, which will lay down the ground rules for online trade and address gaps in overall digital commerce policy. The ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution will release the draft ecommerce rules aimed at ensuring consumer interest is protected.
“Bringing out both (policy and rules) at the same time will ensure greater synergy and more clarity for the industry,” said one of the people cited.

The RSS-affiliated Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has demanded that the government should immediately withdraw the permissions given to e-commerce giants Amazon and flipkart walmart to operate in India as these firms are “blatantly contravening rules”.
In a resolution passed at its national conclave recently, the outfit also said a CBI probe should be ordered into the operations of Amazon, Flipkart-Walmart and other multinational e-commerce companies, while alleging that these firms are doing business in India “blatantly” violating the FDI (foreign direct investment) regulations.
“Foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail trade is regulated through the FDI policy. Foreign players cannot have an inventory-based model to operate (in India). They are also barred from influencing prices by cash-burning models. Multinational e-commerce companies such as Amazon and Walmart-Flipkart are blatantly contravening rules and operating uncontrolled in India,” the SJM claimed in the resolution passed at its 15th national conclave in Gwalior on December 26.

New Delhi: Digital commerce platform Meesho on Thursday said 71 per cent of the new users coming to its platform were from tier III cities and beyond, including cities like Malkangiri, Baikunthpur, Munnar, and Mahua. Sharing trends seen during 2021 on its platform, Meesho said it had witnessed a 15x growth in direct-to-platform customers over the previous year.
“Meesho witnessed 15x growth in direct-to-platform customers over the previous year. In 2021, 71 per cent of all new users came from Tier 3+ regions like Malkangiri – Orissa, Baikunthpur – Chhattisgarh, Munnar – Kerala, Mankachar – Assam, Khalari – Jharkhand, Lalganj – Uttar Pradesh, and Mahua – Bihar,” it said.
Meesho added that it now aims to reach 100 million monthly transacting users by December 2022 and increase its roster to over 50 million products.

The Confederation of All India Traders on Thursday said any approval from Competition Commission of IndiaI for Amazon to buy shares of Catamaran in Prione Business services will be a gross violation of the FDI Policy, as it would lead to a complete control over a seller on marketplace platform.
The trader’s body said that the approval will convert Amazon from being a marketplace platform to inventory based platform, which is strictly prohibited under the FDI policy.
Amazon on Wednesday announced it would acquire Catamaran’s stake stake in Prione Business Services.

Bengaluru: Ecommerce major Amazon and Catamaran Ventures, the investment office of Infosys cofounder NR Narayana Murthy, said in a joint statement that the former will acquire the latter’s stake in Prione, which houses Cloudtail , one of the largest sellers on Amazon In India.
This is subject to regulatory approval, for which Amazon has made a filing with the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a person aware of the matter said.
In August, the two companies mutually decided to not continue their joint venture beyond the end of its current term ending on May 19, 2022.

CityMall is preparing to launch fresh grocery deliveries in the next quarter, people aware of the matter told ET, at a time when non-metro cities are turning into a big focus area for new-age e-commerce startups.
This is the second attempt by CityMall to enter the fresh groceries space.
The startup had struggled with supply chain issues despite attracting demand the first time around, a person aware of its plans said.

New Delhi: The Confederation of All India Traders on Sunday urged the Centre to take immediate action against e-commerce giant Amazon by asking it to suspend its e-commerce portal portal.
The traders’ body’s letter to the Centre comes just two days after the Competition Commission of India (CCI) imposed a penalty of Rs 202 crore on Amazon and suspended its approval for its deal with Future Coupons.
“Since this act (by Amazon) violates FEMA and FDI policy, the Enforcement Directorate has nothing more to do – the evidence is right before it in the form of CCI order, therefore the ED should take immediate action against Amazon,” it said in the letter.

Bengaluru: Flipkart on Tuesday said it has started offering groceries as a category on its five-month-old social commerce platform Shopsy.
Groceries on Shopsy will be available across 700 cities, spanning over 5,800 pincodes. It will have 6,000 products across 230 categories such as staples, fast-moving consumer goods, and other dry groceries, matching the selection and range available on Flipkart Grocery. The platform will offer a flat 5% commission margin to its resellers.
When Flipkart launched Shopsy in July, the company said that it would not offer groceries.

San Francisco: Tech giant Amazon is reportedly planning to expand its grocery delivery business and could partner with supermarkets in the US and Europe to offer same- day delivery.
The company has spent much of the last year trialling a product known internally as Amazon Fresh Marketplace, Engadget reported on Tuesday, citing the information.
The service allows UK Prime subscribers to order groceries from two major supermarket brands, with same-day delivery fulfilled by the company’s Flex drivers.

Amazon India on Wednesday said it now has over 10 lakh sellers on its platform with more than 4.5 lakh new merchants joining the platform in the past two years. More than 90 per cent of the sellers on Amazon.in are local small and medium businesses (SMBs) and over half of these sellers on the marketplace come from tier-II and -III cities, according to a statement.
Since January 2020, over 4.5 lakh new sellers have joined Amazon.in
Of these, over one lakh are local offline retailers and neighbourhood stores than have been onboarded on the Amazon marketplace through the Local Shops on Amazon programme, it added.

Youth-focused direct-to-consumer (D2C) firm Bewakoof is adding a marketplace business called Bazaar to its platform.
The company, which makes personalised and quirky brands under the same name, plans to host around 150 brand on its platform but will also continue to be listed as a brand on other marketplaces , cofounder and chief executive Prabhkiran Singh told ET in an exclusive interview.
“This marketplace is launched with an aim to help customers discover unique, creative and fun brands which tend to get lost in large marketplaces algorithms,” Singh said.

Ninjacart, a supply chain company for fresh produce, has raised $145 million from Flipkart and its US-based parent Walmart Inc., in what the Indian e-commerce firm claimed was the biggest deal in India’s agritech space.
This is the third time Flipkart is investing in Ninjacart.
ET was the first to report on the likely transaction that would peg Ninjacart’s valuation at $750-800 million. The deal comes at a time when Flipkart is scaling its 90-minute online grocery business — Flipkart Quick — to 200 cities by the end of 2022.

Ecommerce major Flipkart is merging its customer and marketing departments with growth and monetisation, all of which will be headed by senior Flipkart executive Prakash Sikaria, according to an internal company email sent by CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.
With this Sikaria, a senior vice-president at Flipkart, has been given additional responsibilities which entails leading key segments like growth, marketing and new businesses, people aware of the matter said.
The changes are effective from January 1, 2022, according to the email, reviewed by ET. 

Meesho has recorded nine million women entrepreneurs on the platform. Women entrepreneurs on the platform also saw a 2.5X year-on-year growth in orders in 2021. The company supports women entreprenuers in their quest for financial independence through the company’s reselling business model.

Nearly 600 million people in India are still not connected to the internet, with a majority of them from non- metros. Meesho entrepreneurs are focusing on this market by influencing demand, and providing value-conscious customers access to affordable products.
More than 60% of Meesho’s entrepreneurs are from Tier 3 markets like Dimapur, Faizabad and Haldwani, Meesho. Apparels, personal care, kitchen and home decor are the highest-selling product categories on the platform.

Digital payments and financial services firm Paytm is expecting to increase revenue and monetisation methods on its platform in the next few quarters, according to a top company official. Paytm Chairman and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma during an earnings call with analysts in the US said the company is seeing scale in system deployment and non-UPI revenue, where merchant gives revenue charges, MDR (merchants discount rate) for payments and credit led financial service, and provides the company with the next level of monetisation.
“We believe, we in the next few quarters will be able to not just expand revenue but increase more number of monetisation methods and subsequently increase contribution margins in due course. Our team, myself and everyone is super energised seeing the opportunity in front of us and we are committed to executing and delivering great results forward quarters,” Sharma said.

Snapdeal, the Indian online retailer backed by SoftBank Group Corp. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., plans to file preliminary documents for an initial public offering of as much as $250 million in the next few weeks, according to people familiar with the matter.
The e-commerce giant aims to go public in early 2022 after filing the draft red herring prospectus, or DRHP, the people said, asking not to be identified talking about a private matter. Snapdeal, once considered the fiercest rival to Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.’s Flipkart in the world’s fastest-growing major online arena, plans to raise at least $200 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, they added.
The company didn’t immediately provide comment on its filing plans or other financial details. 

Indians can now use WhatsApp to order groceries from billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s  JioMart via a new “tap and chat” option, as his Reliance Industries Ltd. challenges the domination of Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart.

Delivery is free and there’s no minimum order value, according to JioMart users who got WhatsApp shopping invites with a 90-second tutorial and catalog. Among the daily essentials on offer are fruits, vegetables, cereal, toothpaste and cooking staples like paneer cottage cheese and chickpea flour. Customers can fill their shopping baskets within the app and pay either via JioMart or in cash when receiving their order.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd., which obliterated rivals in India’s telecommunications sector by selling $2 data plans and free voice calls, is deploying a very similar tactic — cutthroat pricing — to gain an edge in the country’s increasingly competitive e-commerce space.

Bhopal: Trouble for e-commerce website — Amazon, seems not to be ending soon in Madhya Pradesh as state Home Minister Narottam Mishra has directed the police to lodge yet another FIR against the company for selling “poison” online.
The leading e-commerce website ran into a fresh trouble after it was reported that an 18-year-old boy in Indore died after consuming “poison” which the deceases had purchased through Amazon.

Mishra said the teenager’s parents met him in Indore and told that their son had purchased “poison” through Amazon in July this year.

BENGALURU: Udaan announced that its Food & FMCG Business achieved over 95% YoY growth in October fuelled by its Mega Bharat Sale for kirana shops and and small retailers across the country. The FMCG business witnessed a YoY growth of over 115% with major demands coming from Bharat.
During the festive month the platform witnessed a 75% jump in retailer participation and over 90% repeat purchase coming from existing buyers. The platform also witnessed participation from buyers from Tier 2, 3 cities with north India leading in overall sales.

Udaan’s Food Business – comprising of FMCG, staples, and fresh products 
offers over 20,000 products across grocery, beverages, cereals, pulses, spices, edible oils, home & personal care, fresh and dairy categories across major cities.

NEW DELHI: Social commerce startup Meesho is finalising a financing round of nearly $1 billion that may take its valuation to around $8 billion, three people in know of the matter told TOI.

The latest talk of a fund-raise comes after the Bengaluru-headquartered company’s valuation doubled to $4.9 billion n September, when investors led by US asset manager Fidelity and B Capital pumped in $570 million. Social commerce uses online platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to promote and sell products & serices.

In April, Meesho was valued at $2.1 billion, when it raised $300 million from SoftBank’s Vision Fund. The new round may get finalised in January. A questionnaire emailed to a Meesho spokesperson did not elicit a response till time of going to the press.

Amazon India on Sunday said over 70,000 Indian exporters, who are part of its Global Selling programme, will offer millions of ‘Made in India’ products to global customers during the annual Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) sale. The Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale starts on November 25 and ends on November 29.

Indian exporters are launching over 52,000 new products on Amazon’s global websites for the upcoming holiday season, according to a statement.

Amazon customers globally will be able to discover and enjoy a range of products across categories, including Home and Kitchen, STEM Toys, Apparel, Health and Personal Care, Office Products, Jewellery, Beauty and Furniture by exporters across India, it added.

New Delhi: Digital commerce platform Meesho on Friday said it has introduced an annual ‘MeeSOP’ programme, wherein every full-time employee will be able to convert upto 25 per cent of their annual CTC into ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). Under the programme, every full-time employee – irrespective of their tenure in the company or their seniority will be able to convert a maximum of 25 per cent of their annual CTC into ESOPs – subject to a minimum of Rs 50,000, a statement said.

“Our repeated and periodic buybacks ensure our employees continue to grow with us. The MeeSOP program takes this commitment further, breaking hierarchies to make every employee an owner, and providing more avenues for wealth creation,” Meesho founder and CEO Vidit Aatrey said.

As the company hires more talent, it will continue to provide its team with the means to realise their personal and financial goals, he said.

The combined sales of Appario Retail, Cloudtail India and More Retail – who are sellers on the Amazon India marketplace and in whose holding company Amazon have a sizeable stake — have crossed Rs 36,000 crore in 2020-21, growing, by 38% over the previous fiscal, confirming the surge in e-commerce sales during the pandemic fiscal year.

Cloudtail’s and Appario’s revenue surged by over 46% to Rs 16,639 crore and Rs 14,628 crore respectively in FY21, while that of food and grocery retail chain More Retail declined by 1% to Rs 4763 crore, as per latest regulatory disclosures to the Registrar of Companies and sourced from business intelligence platforms AltInfo and Tofler.

However, More Retail said the company has adopted INDAS 116 whereby the financials are not comparable and the company grew by 1.5% in FY21 over last year and EBT was Rs 100.66 crore against Rs 9.54 crore of previous fiscal. More Retail reduced net losses from Rs 175 crore to Rs 78 crore in FY21.

Online wholesale marketplace Faire said on Tuesday it has raised $400 million at a valuation of $12.4 billion in its third funding round in less than two years.

San Francisco-based Faire, which helps small retailers connect with small brands, last raised $260 million in June which valued the company at $7 billion.

The latest investment round was co-led by Durable Capital Partners, D1 Capital Partners and Dragoneer.

“It’s probably safe to say that we are unlikely to raise as frequently over the  next 12 months as we did in the last 12 months as we feel really well-capitalized, ” Jeff Kolovson, co-founder and chief operating officer, said in an interview.

New Delhi: Cloudtail India – one of the largest sellers on the Amazon India marketplace – clocked over 45.7 per cent rise in revenue to Rs 16,639.04 crore, while its profits more than doubled to Rs 182.70 crore in the financial year 2020-21 over the previous fiscal, as per regulatory documents. Cloudtail a wholly-owned subsidiary of Prione Business Services – is one of the biggest sellers on Amazon.in.

Prione Business Services is a joint venture between NR Narayana Murthy’s  Catamaran Ventures and Amazon, wherein the American e-commerce giant holds 24 per cent share.

In August this year, Amazon and NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran had said they have mutually decided to not continue their joint venture – Prione Business Services – beyond May 2022.

New Delhi: US-based e-commerce giant Amazon has infused fresh capital to the tune of Rs 1,460 crore into one of its India units, Amazon Seller Services, according to regulatory documents. Amazon Corporate Holdings Pvt Ltd, Singapore and Amazon.com Inc Ltd, Mauritius have made the Rs 1,460 crore investment in the unit, documents filed with the corporate affairs ministry and shared by market intelligence firm Tofler showed.

Amazon Seller Services operates the company’s marketplace that helps sellers to  sell their products online in India and internationally.

The board of directors of Amazon Seller Services passed the resolution at their meeting on October 29, 2021.

E-commerce major Amazon on Friday said it has completed the integration of its grocery stores Fresh and Pantry into a single unified store called ‘Amazon Fresh. The new store, available across over 300 cities in India, continues to offer customers unbeatable savings, a wide selection of products, and fast and convenient delivery options in one single online destination, a statement said.

“In February this year, we announced the integration of the Pantry store into Fresh in select cities…Today, we’ve completed the integration of both stores into a single online store called Amazon Fresh across 300-plus cities in India. Customers will continue to enjoy super value savings, a wide selection of products, and convenient delivery options,” Amazon India Director (Category Management) Siddharth Nambiar said.

He added that customers will also get an upgraded shopping experience, with a dedicated app-in-app for grocery, and convenient features like personalised widgets and reminders.

BEIJING: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd recorded 540.3 billion yuan ($84.54) billion in orders, or “gross merchandise value” (GMV), over its 11-day Singles’ Day sales event, marking a roughly 14% increase from the year prior.

The results come as overall consumption in China slows, and cap a relatively muted version of a sales festival that Alibaba once aggressively promoted.

Before the sales period began, analysts had said they expected Alibaba to report only a minor increase in GMV this year, citing slowing retail sales, supply shortages, power disruptions and COVID-19 lockdowns.

NEW DELHI: Paytm’s initial public offering (IPO), being touted as the biggest in India’s corporate history, was subscribed 36 per cent on Tuesday, the second  day of bidding.

It received bids for 1.74 crore equity shares against offer size of 4.83 crore shares.

The portion set aside for retail investors was subscribed 1.07 times, while he reserved portion of non-institutional investors was subscribed only 3 per per cent. Qualified institutional buyers have put in bids for 29 per cent shares of the portion set aside for them.

The rural development ministry has tied up with e-commerce giant Flipkart to sell products made by millions of artisans under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) program on the e-commerce platform. The move will help artisans reach out 10 crore of Flipkart’s existing customers thus substantially scaling their outreach.

“India’s homegrown e-commerce marketplace Flipkart has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ministry of rural development for Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) program,” the rural development ministry said in a statement.

New Delhi: Amazon India on Sunday said it has seen the highest number of customers shopping on its platform “than ever before”, with 79 per cent of new customers coming from tier II and III towns like Ernakulam and Guntur. Amazon.in, which kickstarted its Great Indian Festival 2021 on October 2 with Prime Early Access and went live for all customers on October 3, said more than 10 lakh customers purchased a smartphone from the platform for the first time during the festive sale.

Paytm has on Wednesday fixed the price band for its forthcoming IPO at Rs 2,080- 2,150 per share.

The mega IPO will hit the primary market on November 8. The company has decided to increase the IPO size to Rs 18,300 crore from Rs 16,600 crore, citing good response in the roadshows. The issue will be the biggest IPO in India’s corporate history.

The e-commerce business of luxury department store Saks Fifth Avenue is preparing for an initial public (IPO) offering and targeting a $6 billion valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing sources.

The company is interviewing potential underwriters this week for an IPO that could take place in the first half of next year, according to the report.

Saks said it does not comment on rumors or speculation in a statement to Reuters.

Washington/New Delhi: After a report accused Amazon of secretly exploiting internal data from its marketplace to copy products sold by other companies and manipulate search results, a group of US Senators has announced plans to introduce a nondiscrimination bill that could rejig Amazon’s online marketplace.

The American Choice and Innovation Online Act, led by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), would prevent platforms like Amazon, Apple and Google from using their online dominance to disadvantage other firms, reports The Verge.

“When dominant tech companies exclude rivals & kill competition, it hurts small businesses and can increase costs for YOU,” Klobuchar said in a tweet on Thursday.

Online retail major Flipkart, which acquired a 100% stake in Cleartrip, one of the oldest travel booking portals in India, has appointed a new CEO for the business. Ayyappan R, who has been the chief business officer at Flipkart-owned fashion e-commerce platform Myntra, has been elevated to a new position as CEO of Cleartrip, according to sources aware of the matter.

Stuart Crighton, who cofounded the travel venture with Hrush Bhatt and Matthew Spacie in 2006, will move to a new role where he will lead Cleartrip International, sources added. Ayyappan R’s role in Myntra will be taken over by Sharon Pais.

This is the first significant restructuring at Cleartrip being made by Flipkart after the web retailer acquired the travel portal in April this year aimed to diversify and strengthen its overall offerings.

Around 6 a.m. each morning, more than 150 women troop into a multilevel warehouse in the suburbs of Chennai, a coastal city in southern India. To the humming whir of giant overhead fans, they scurry around the vast metal-covered depot, sorting parcels by zip code and tossing them into giant cage-like bins, wheeling around enormous package-laden trolleys, and loading boxes on conveyor belts.
“Let’s rock, guys!” a male voice blares in English over the PA system.

The scene at Walmart Inc.’s Chennai unit is typical of warehouses across the country, staffed by hundreds of thousands of workers who work at fever pitch ahead of the Diwali holiday season, which kicked off this month and runs through Nov. 4 — the zenith of India’s annual shopping calendar.

This year, the weeks-long festive season is more important than ever for Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart’s Flipkart as they seek to upend India’s retail market. It’s the first Diwali since two brutal Covid outbreaks confined millions of Indians to their homes and forced them online, many for the first time. Internet sales are still a fraction of India’s $1 trillion retail market, but a strong showing this season would pave the way for the U.S. giants’ longer-term success.

The consumer affairs ministry has cautioned e-commerce companies of action if they don’t put out the details and contact numbers of their executives on their portals/platforms to address consumer grievances.

In a recent circular, the ministry said the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has come to know that some e-commerce entities are not displaying details of sellers, mandated as per the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020, on their platform.

The circular said, “Any person found violating the rules may face action under the Act, if, after investigation, the central authority has reason to believe that the practices are found unfair and prejudicial to consumers’ interest. Hence, industry associations are hereby requested to give wide publicity to the provisions of the ibid rules and to impress upon their members to ensure compliance of the rules to ensure adequate redressal mechanism is accessible to consumers while purchasing goods or services using e-commerce.”

Paytm is in talks with sovereign wealth funds and financial firms to become anchor investors in its upcoming blockbuster initial public offering (IPO), according to people familiar with the matter.

State-backed wealth investors Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Singapore’s GIC Pte are among those weighing bidding to participate in the Paytm IPO, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. Global financial firms such as BlackRock Inc. and Nomura Holdings Inc. are also in discussions to bid, the people said.

One97 Communications Ltd., as Paytm is formally known, is considering seeking a valuation of $20-22 billion based on initial investor feedback, they said. There are already more than enough bids to cover the shares allocated for anchor investment in the IPO, the people said.

Amazon.com Inc has been accused of violating Colorado state law by failing to pay warehouse workers for time spent undergoing COVID-19 screenings before clocking in at work.

Jennifer Vincenzetti, who worked at two Amazon warehouses in Colorado Springs, filed a proposed class action in Colorado federal court on Tuesday claiming the company made workers wait in long lines to answer questions and have their temperatures checked.

Seattle-based Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon on Wednesday opened its first general store outside the United States in a mall in Britain, selling the online retailer’s most popular products including books, toys, games and consumer electronics. The U.S. company said the store, called “4-star“ because it sells products rated 4 stars or above by customers, reflects what customers are regularly buying and enjoying. The retailer says it uses data from its online business to select which products are popular with local shoppers and that the instore display will change regularly.

Amazon launched the general store model in 2018 in the US where it already has several dozen outlets.

The company said the launch at the Bluewater Shopping Center in Kent, southeast of London, had been planned for two years, prior to the pandemic.

 Digital commerce platform Meesho on Tuesday said it has onboarded over one lakh new sellers ahead of its four-day festive sale that kicks off on October 6, and expects 3X more daily orders from customers in tier II cities. Meesho’s flagship sale event – The Maha Indian Shopping League – will be held from October 6-9, 2021 that will connect customers to about 2.5 lakh sellers and over 700 product categories.

“Our maiden ‘Maha Indian Shopping League’ looks to reimagine conventional festive sale experiences and add to the tier II-plus users’ celebrations…We’ve added one lakh sellers and expanded our product roster to over 700 categories, right ahead of the sale,” Meesho Vice President and GM – Business Utkrishta Kumar told PTI.

Kumar added that with this, Meesho is now expecting 3X more daily orders during the festive season compared to September-exit BAU (business as usual).

As the festive season sales begin, Flipkart is set to retain its lead in smartphone and fashion categories while Amazon will rely on Prime members in the October-December period, shows new data.

Since its launch in 2014, Flipkart has led spending during the festive month due to its strength in the smartphone and fashion categories, which account for over 50 per cent of total online retail sales in India.

According to global market research firm Forrester, Amazon is focusing on its Prime members to buy in more categories and buy more frequently during this month.

Ecommerce marketplaces Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart are expected to generate $9.2 billion in gross sales during the 2021 festive month, up 42% year-on-year from the same period last year when it was $6.5 billion, according to data from market research firm Forrester Research that was shared exclusively with ET.

Forrester has estimated that the online e-tailers would clock as much as $6.4 billion, or 70% of total sales in the festive month, during the next one week. The flagship sales will begin from October 3.

Ecommerce sales have been rapidly increasing each year from about $3.6 billion in 2018, reflecting the growing penetration of online commerce.

In a letter to the minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal, Amazon said it has zero tolerance for corruption that the US online retailer has initiated an investigation into its legal representatives in India after a whistle-blower accused them of bribing government officials.

The company also clarified that it’s legal fees for fiscal ending March 2020 was Rs 52 crore and not Rs 8546 crore unlike certain news reports.

“Last week some media outlets began reporting that Amazon’s India operations spent a combined Rs 8456 crore in “legal fees” During 2019 and 2020, making these claims, the article cited “public filings” made by Amazon.. . .. the quoted amount was ,” the letter dated September 28 said.

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday said it will deploy over 2,000 electric vehicles in its delivery fleet prior to the festive season and the Big Billion Days. “These 2,000 electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers have been deployed across 90 cities in India and will help deliver smiles this festive season sustainably,” a statement said.

Earlier this year, Flipkart had committed to deploying 25,000 EVs in its supply chain by 2030 towards its transition to 100 per cent fleet electrification as part of its collaboration with The Climate Group’s EV100 campaign.

Flipkart Head – Sustainability and Social Responsibility Mahesh Pratap Singh said the festive season is about creating progressive value for all stakeholders.

Over the weekend, the two largest ecommerce platforms in India – Flipkart and Amazon India – did something unusual.

Walmart-owned Flipkart said it had advanced its flagship Big Billion Days festive season sales event to October 3 from October 7 earlier, after Amazon announced that it would begin its month-long festive sale from October 4.

Then, on Sunday morning, Amazon India said it, too, would start the sale from October 3, taking its fight with the homegrown rival head on.

A day after Flipkart advanced its festive day sale, rival Amazon India has also made a similar move by announcing the start of its sale event Great Indian Festival (GIF) from October 3. The competition between the two giants is expected to be intense, similar to previous years, as both will see their festive sale now starting on October 3.

 E-commerce giant Amazon has announced that it has launched a new large warehouse in Pune and Mumbai, and has expanded another Mumbai facility, taking the tally of such facilities across Maharashtra to 10, with a total capacity of nine million cubic feet.

The new warehouse, which Amazon calls “fulfillment centers”, is located at Varale. A spokesperson called its investment in the state “significant”, while not disclosing the amount. In a statement, Amazon claimed that the new centers will also help MSMEs units expand their customer base.

Amazon India on Thursday said it has created more than 1.1 lakh seasonal job opportunities across its operations network, ahead of the festive season. These opportunities include direct and indirect jobs across India in cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, and Chennai among others, a statement said.

The majority of these new hires have joined Amazon‘s existing network of associates and will support them to pick, pack, ship, and deliver customer orders, it added.

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday said it is introducing a separate marketplace model ‘Flipkart Xtra‘ to offer flexible earning opportunities to individuals, service agencies and technicians. Through the ‘Flipkart Xtra’ app on Google Play Store, Flipkart will provide a simple and seamless on boarding experience to interested individuals.

After background verification, individuals will be able to onboard themselves for various roles, including delivery executives to start with, and service partners or technicians in the coming months, a statement said.

New Delhi: A number of sellers on Amazon.in’s marketplace are planning to launch new products and invest in seasonal hiring to meet the increase in demand during the upcoming festive season, a study by the e-commerce platform said on Tuesday. Amazon India shared findings of a study it commissioned (conducted by Nielsen) to understand the expectations of small and medium businesses (SMBs) selling on its marketplace from the upcoming festive season.

Amazon India on Monday said it will expand its regional language offering further with the launch of voice shopping experience in Hindi in the coming weeks.

The e-commerce platform has also announced that customers can now access Amazon.in in Marathi and Bengali, in addition to the five previously available languages – Hindi, English, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu.

Chinese brands on Amazon were given a rude shock when Amazon took the call of removing them from its platform. According to a report by The Verge, after five months of a global crackdown, Amazon has banned 600 Chinese brands. Amazon says that these brands were violating Amazon’s policies — the ones around review abuse. 

Gifts for reviews: What these brands did
A report by The Wall Street Journal had earlier stated how some Chinese brands offered gift cards to consumers in exchange for positive reviews. In a statement to The Verge, the company said, “Amazon works hard to build a great experience in our store so that customers can shop with confidence and sellers have the opportunity to grow their business amid healthy competition.