Nobody saw it coming. Nobody wanted to. It was, after all, the summer of 1999. The spirit of the times was heady and a thousand entrepreneurs had bloomed. Fabmart and Firstandsecond.com wanted to be the Amazon — the giant book store — of India. Rediff was selling knick-knacks on its e-commerce channel. Sify too had joined the bandwagon. Apnaloan was promising to ‘sell’ loans online. Shaadi.com wanted to find your dream “other”. And then on April 4, 2000, Nasdaq crashed.
K. Vaitheeswaran, the CEO of Indiaplaza, remembers the moment vividly. Many venture funds of that vintage perished. Entrepreneurs were worse off. “There were almost 1,000 e-commerce businesses in India at that time. All of them closed down,” says Vaitheeswaran. In the space of six months, ‘dotcom’ had gone from meaning ‘hip, cool; inheritors’ to ‘naïve, paper tigers; lambs to the slaughter’. Hell had frozen over. But so much chaos, so much life had been unleashed.
Could something have survived — spirit, derring-do — the carnage?
Kapadvanj, a small settlement of 50,000 people, is an hour’s drive from Ahmedabad. It hasn’t changed much in the last 10 years. Yes, there are a few more cars and thanks to DTH and pay-per-view, the latest movies get screened much faster, but life moves at an easy pace. Of course, the Internet connection is much more reliable. And Rinkal Shah is all grown up now.
This 26-year-old Web designer’s house in Triveni Park has all the things you would find in a modern house: LCD TV, DTH set top box, laptop, refrigerator and of course Shah’s favourite, Nikon D5000 digital SLR.
Now that you are excited, let’s cool things down a little bit. The retailing sector in India is worth Rs. 500,000 crore. Out of this, Rs. 30,000 crore annually comes through that child of the Noughties, modern retail. When the Internet entrepreneurship and venture capital sector were dying in 2000, modern retail — Big Bazaar, Hypercity, Croma, Mobile Store — was coming to life. Shopper’s Stop and Crossword too acquired the form they sport today. And frankly, the entire online retailing sector of today — Flipkart, Yebhi, Letsbuy, Myntra, Cbazaar amongst many — put together don’t even add up to Rs. 1,500 crore in sales.
“We thought our biggest challenges would be to create a good Web site, provide a wide selection of books and provide excellent customer service,” says Binny Bansal, 28. Today their secret sauce is their in-house, delivery network. The scale is massive — 400 delivery employees at present and with a plan to scale that to 1,000 by the year-end. Of course, they can afford it thanks to the $31 million in venture capital they drew!
(This story appears in the 29 July, 2011 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
Commerce has one of the strongest buzz that we come across now a days. Specially after the success of Amazon and Flipkart, the domain is seen as a goldmine that can help in bringing the disruptive business models to increase profit and business. So what is the next in eCommerce? I tried to conceptualise and re-imagine it from a socio-integrated experience. Following are some insights and sample sides that present those attempts. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/article/20140814020443-9377042-flip-the-cart-reimagining-next-in-ecommerce
on Sep 1, 2014Nice picture indicating e commerce future
on Mar 19, 2012It is very good for buy the required quality goods. But many e commerce business do not yet deliver the consignment at our district place Wardha.
on Jan 30, 2012E-Commerce in india - Is the Indian customer ready to Flip the Cart Online? There is a recurring debate on the future of Indian E-Commerce and often time there is a comparison made between companies that sprung up during the dot com like Fabmart and Firstandsecond.com that wanted to be the Amazon of India and the companies of this day and age like Flipkart and LetsBuy that are at the forefront of the second innings of E-Commerce in India. The question is asked of this second inning being a dream innings for some of these companies or once again these companies end with the same fate. I present the logic below as to why the E-Commerce in India is ready to take off. Many of the companies that were started back then were by engineers turned entrepreneurs returning from US, they had worked in some of the great startups of that time Ebays and Amazons and thought by simply transporting the idea to their home country would eventually transport the money as well and they would be riding home the Corvettes like their American counterparts. Well as the history goes ... some 1000 such businesses that came up during that time eventually had to close down. The reason ?? Well there is no doubt the business idea of selling stuff online was a million dollar one and no doubt the people who were at the driving seat were some of the best (Elite Indian Brains) but there was a fundamental problem. Back home there were no Interstates and hence these superfast ideas met with the fate of driving a superfast car on Indian roads... aka a super crash. Well this time around we might not have the interstates but we sure do have the county roads (Growing population of All Time-Online Users) to support these Super Ideas (After all we just hosted the F1)
on Jan 19, 2012The digital technology has changed many things; the way we communicate, the way we work, the way we buy things. Today's young netizens do many amazing things that we Sr.citizens have no inclination to learn. Buying pizzas to selling shares, doing banking, buying tickets, planning holidays and paying bills online may be easy for the young netizens but not so for the 65 , though they too have a burning desire to be tech savvy. The problem is technology is aimed at younger generation only. Internet addiction is gripping our youngsters; they remain plugged in always. The moment the connection is lost or deprived of, they exhibit a sort of withdrawal symptom similar seen in alcohol addicts. This net-addiction is creating health problems too. Many good old habits like letter writing, buying books, keeping photo albums etc are disappearing fast. Senior Citizens are comfortable with reading a traditional newspaper, than opening Internet explorer for news. Everything on net. We have already about 71 million netizens. Today's specialized digital services should also be senior citizen friendly.
on Jul 27, 2011i would never buy a personal item like mobile, ipad or camera from a online store, try and buy gives me a better comfort level rather than buy and regret, besides many of my friends were short changed on battery ,chargers , most online stores buy from vendors who provide the cheapest prices, buying retail on can check out supplier with the help of MRP sticker, they also do not provide vat invoice, the govt should take notice and act stringently on them, i do not want to cheat my nation of it's rightful share
on Jul 26, 2011Promising, it all depends on how people in India would like to "feel" stuff before buying. Hopefully this will be a start of new eCommerce era in India
on Jul 25, 2011