Wealth of Knowledge on E-Commerce with Dimers - Lets Discuss! - The Dimers Know it all Thread!!
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When I saw Yebhi’s CEO guy on CNBC, I asked myself, do I know anything less than what he does? Yebhi is targeting Rs.100 cr revenue this year and is managing 3 transactions every minute!
Dimers know it all – consumer psyche, what sells, who is the best at selling online, what did they do ‘right’ and the one’s who failed – what wrong did they do.. We know that Yebhi purchases crores worth of stock from Puma’s of the world at >70% off on MRP and sells it on different levels of discount..
What we don’t know is – websites that are not regular on DD, the biggest being Flipkart and to some extent Snapdeal (just came back) – they are getting hundreds of crores worth of investments.. Let’s share our thoughts
What we need to/can discuss:- Who Succeeded?
- Who failed?
- Who cheated, succeeded, failed but made a lot of money (ref: the ‘and you’ clan)
- What are the best practices of the winners?
- What else can work?
- Some out-of-the-box thinking e-commerce websites?
- The new boys in town – ShopClues, PepperFry etc – all setup by people in early 30’s and all
And zillion other things …
I wanted a discussion thread specially for people here to share knowledge that we have about this industry, what they feel is right, wrong, good, bad, ugly 
And it will benefit the one’s who have ventures in mind, if not now, then definitely going forward..
We know it all – warehousing, ‘MRP game’, coupon scandals, in-house branding scams, shipping best-practices, and so on..
Lets talk!
Btw – lets keep this alive – I will post about my online experiences in the last 5 years and how the models have evolved later today (pakka pakka 
)
@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Btw – lets keep this alive – I will post about my online experiences in the last 5 years and how the models have evolved later today (pakka pakka
Hey you better start your online store soon or else I will.. 
I will be one of your Merchant let me know the sign-up process.
rb bro all da best and i wonder who is voting this thread down
Ok here is my experience – and I would love to see other dimers adding/ modifying this
Internet Selling in India can be broadly classified into the following categories:
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War
2. Me King, Me Sipahi
3. Both Sipahi, No King
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
Details
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War – Example: Ebay
Ebay is the King with a brand, gets a lot of web traffic, doesn’t sell anything itself, and charges commissions on sales.
So broadly this is like a ‘franchisee model’ where you pay ebay the brand royalty. There are lacs of sellers and transactions worth hundreds of crores. Ebay invests in technology, customer service, subsidizing deals, marketing and promotion etc. It has developed a fool-proof system of ratings genuine for sellers which all by itself keeps the market clean to a great extent. It’s like renting a shop in Lajpat Nagar, you get a good place and pay rent (commission to ebay), you get visibility thanks to the place (ebay), you geberate your own word of mouth (seller ratings) and succeed.
2. Me King, Me Sipahi – Example: Yebhi
Here the seller has all the responsibility of sourcing, marketing, selling and keeps the profit. Yebhi procures material in bulk, sells at different discounts and plays with our heads by offering coupons. Some facts: Yebhi procured Puma apparels at >70% off on MRP (new + old stock). Puma apparel that you buy from Yebhi is all manufactured by small players in Delhi NCR (check the names yourself). Some of this is actually not meant to be sold in retail anyway. So Puma orders 10,000 t-shirts worth 200 bux and a manufacturer in Naraina delivers, it puts MRP is 999 and sells to Yebhi at 300 – Puma makes 10,000*100 i.e. 10 lacs and yebhi can now play around with discounts as it does. So here Puma is also just playing a role of the middleman and getting 100 bux as some kind of commission for renting out its brand. So people, here’s the news, you sometimes get ‘Online Only’ products. You might not get this is a Puma retail store. However, I believe that for electronics, Yebhi is dependent on vendors.
3. Both Sipahi, No King: Example: HomeShop18
HomeShop18 is a mix of above two. It has own sourcing too and also depends on vendors. You might wonder that how come all stuff is packed in HS18 boxes if vendor is supplying it? This is because to maintain quality packaging, HS18 pick the stuff from vendor and packs it itself after QC. But this reduces the risk as it is not required to maintain huge inventory. So in this kind of a model, you will find some products that HS18 sources and maintains inventory and some of the SKU’s are vendor listings.
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
There are some websites that don’t believe in a specific business model – like Snapdeal. It started as deal website, then got into products, some are vendor provided, some are owned. So they try out everything from time-to-time.
Marketing
How are these guys making money? What are the key strategies? Lets talk!
Do yo see a pop-up every time you open snapdeal, asking for ur id. Dude that id is very important for Snapdeal as total registered users and users reading your daily newsletter is a key determinant of success and also valuation.
So the pop-up culture is growing now, everyone wants your id.
Now the PE firms found out that getting new users is easy and they won’t blindly value your company based on that matrix. So they said, show me the number of unique users who have transacted on your website. Now Indian techies thought “Ab kya karen beta” and the Pay Re 1 to win iPad was born.
So many of us paid that one rupee right? or 50 rupees as MyDala points and what not. This still continues. That gives the website a lot of unique new users who transact
So the pop-ups and one rupee deals are traps we shouldn’t fall into.
Coupon Culture (to be continued)
viSH wrote:@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Btw – lets keep this alive – I will post about my online experiences in the last 5 years and how the models have evolved later today (pakka pakka
Hey you better start your online store soon or else I will..
I will be one of your Merchant let me know the sign-up process.
hehe .. bro for now it’ll be at a small scale.. but would love to start another one with you as my partner.
@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Ok here is my experience – and I would love to see other dimers adding/ modifying this
Internet Selling in India can be broadly classified into the following categories:
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War
2. Me King, Me Sipahi
3. Both Sipahi, No King
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
Details
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War – Example: Ebay
Ebay is the King with a brand, gets a lot of web traffic, doesn’t sell anything itself, and charges commissions on sales.
So broadly this is like a ‘franchisee model’ where you pay ebay the brand royalty. There are lacs of sellers and transactions worth hundreds of crores. Ebay invests in technology, customer service, subsidizing deals, marketing and promotion etc. It has developed a fool-proof system of ratings genuine for sellers which all by itself keeps the market clean to a great extent. It’s like renting a shop in Lajpat Nagar, you get a good place and pay rent (commission to ebay), you get visibility thanks to the place (ebay), you geberate your own word of mouth (seller ratings) and succeed.
2. Me King, Me Sipahi – Example: Yebhi
Here the seller has all the responsibility of sourcing, marketing, selling and keeps the profit. Yebhi procures material in bulk, sells at different discounts and plays with our heads by offering coupons. Some facts: Yebhi procured Puma apparels at >70% off on MRP (new + old stock). Puma apparel that you buy from Yebhi is all manufactured by small players in Delhi NCR (check the names yourself). Some of this is actually not meant to be sold in retail anyway. So Puma orders 10,000 t-shirts worth 200 bux and a manufacturer in Naraina delivers, it puts MRP is 999 and sells to Yebhi at 300 – Puma makes 10,000*100 i.e. 10 lacs and yebhi can now play around with discounts as it does. So here Puma is also just playing a role of the middleman and getting 100 bux as some kind of commission for renting out its brand. So people, here’s the news, you sometimes get ‘Online Only’ products. You might not get this is a Puma retail store. However, I believe that for electronics, Yebhi is dependent on vendors.
3. Both Sipahi, No King: Example: HomeShop18
HomeShop18 is a mix of above two. It has own sourcing too and also depends on vendors. You might wonder that how come all stuff is packed in HS18 boxes if vendor is supplying it? This is because to maintain quality packaging, HS18 pick the stuff from vendor and packs it itself after QC. But this reduces the risk as it is not required to maintain huge inventory. So in this kind of a model, you will find some products that HS18 sources and maintains inventory and some of the SKU’s are vendor listings.
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
There are some websites that don’t believe in a specific business model – like Snapdeal. It started as deal website, then got into products, some are vendor provided, some are owned. So they try out everything from time-to-time.
Marketing
How are these guys making money? What are the key strategies? Lets talk!
Do yo see a pop-up every time you open snapdeal, asking for ur id. Dude that id is very important for Snapdeal as total registered users and users reading your daily newsletter is a key determinant of success and also valuation.
So the pop-up culture is growing now, everyone wants your id.
Now the PE firms found out that getting new users is easy and they won’t blindly value your company based on that matrix. So they said, show me the number of unique users who have transacted on your website. Now Indian techies thought “Ab kya karen beta” and the Pay Re 1 to win iPad was born.
So many of us paid that one rupee right? or 50 rupees as MyDala points and what not. This still continues. That gives the website a lot of unique new users who transact
So the pop-ups and one rupee deals are traps we shouldn’t fall into.
Coupon Culture (to be continued)
wow rb bro that was real great post, explaining every thing about current e-com buzz, hats off to u for taking ur time and pain in compelling this ,+1 plz continue cheers
@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Ok here is my experience – and I would love to see other dimers adding/ modifying this
Internet Selling in India can be broadly classified into the following categories:
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War
2. Me King, Me Sipahi
3. Both Sipahi, No King
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
Details
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War – Example: Ebay
Ebay is the King with a brand, gets a lot of web traffic, doesn’t sell anything itself, and charges commissions on sales.
So broadly this is like a ‘franchisee model’ where you pay ebay the brand royalty. There are lacs of sellers and transactions worth hundreds of crores. Ebay invests in technology, customer service, subsidizing deals, marketing and promotion etc. It has developed a fool-proof system of ratings genuine for sellers which all by itself keeps the market clean to a great extent. It’s like renting a shop in Lajpat Nagar, you get a good place and pay rent (commission to ebay), you get visibility thanks to the place (ebay), you geberate your own word of mouth (seller ratings) and succeed.
2. Me King, Me Sipahi – Example: Yebhi
Here the seller has all the responsibility of sourcing, marketing, selling and keeps the profit. Yebhi procures material in bulk, sells at different discounts and plays with our heads by offering coupons. Some facts: Yebhi procured Puma apparels at >70% off on MRP (new + old stock). Puma apparel that you buy from Yebhi is all manufactured by small players in Delhi NCR (check the names yourself). Some of this is actually not meant to be sold in retail anyway. So Puma orders 10,000 t-shirts worth 200 bux and a manufacturer in Naraina delivers, it puts MRP is 999 and sells to Yebhi at 300 – Puma makes 10,000*100 i.e. 10 lacs and yebhi can now play around with discounts as it does. So here Puma is also just playing a role of the middleman and getting 100 bux as some kind of commission for renting out its brand. So people, here’s the news, you sometimes get ‘Online Only’ products. You might not get this is a Puma retail store. However, I believe that for electronics, Yebhi is dependent on vendors.
3. Both Sipahi, No King: Example: HomeShop18
HomeShop18 is a mix of above two. It has own sourcing too and also depends on vendors. You might wonder that how come all stuff is packed in HS18 boxes if vendor is supplying it? This is because to maintain quality packaging, HS18 pick the stuff from vendor and packs it itself after QC. But this reduces the risk as it is not required to maintain huge inventory. So in this kind of a model, you will find some products that HS18 sources and maintains inventory and some of the SKU’s are vendor listings.
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
There are some websites that don’t believe in a specific business model – like Snapdeal. It started as deal website, then got into products, some are vendor provided, some are owned. So they try out everything from time-to-time.
Marketing
How are these guys making money? What are the key strategies? Lets talk!
Do yo see a pop-up every time you open snapdeal, asking for ur id. Dude that id is very important for Snapdeal as total registered users and users reading your daily newsletter is a key determinant of success and also valuation.
So the pop-up culture is growing now, everyone wants your id.
Now the PE firms found out that getting new users is easy and they won’t blindly value your company based on that matrix. So they said, show me the number of unique users who have transacted on your website. Now Indian techies thought “Ab kya karen beta” and the Pay Re 1 to win iPad was born.
So many of us paid that one rupee right? or 50 rupees as MyDala points and what not. This still continues. That gives the website a lot of unique new users who transact
So the pop-ups and one rupee deals are traps we shouldn’t fall into.
Coupon Culture (to be continued)
Awesome explanation…Hats off..!!!
coolsajal4261 wrote:@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Ok here is my experience – and I would love to see other dimers adding/ modifying this
Internet Selling in India can be broadly classified into the following categories:
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War
2. Me King, Me Sipahi
3. Both Sipahi, No King
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
Details
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War – Example: Ebay
Ebay is the King with a brand, gets a lot of web traffic, doesn’t sell anything itself, and charges commissions on sales.
So broadly this is like a ‘franchisee model’ where you pay ebay the brand royalty. There are lacs of sellers and transactions worth hundreds of crores. Ebay invests in technology, customer service, subsidizing deals, marketing and promotion etc. It has developed a fool-proof system of ratings genuine for sellers which all by itself keeps the market clean to a great extent. It’s like renting a shop in Lajpat Nagar, you get a good place and pay rent (commission to ebay), you get visibility thanks to the place (ebay), you geberate your own word of mouth (seller ratings) and succeed.
2. Me King, Me Sipahi – Example: Yebhi
Here the seller has all the responsibility of sourcing, marketing, selling and keeps the profit. Yebhi procures material in bulk, sells at different discounts and plays with our heads by offering coupons. Some facts: Yebhi procured Puma apparels at >70% off on MRP (new + old stock). Puma apparel that you buy from Yebhi is all manufactured by small players in Delhi NCR (check the names yourself). Some of this is actually not meant to be sold in retail anyway. So Puma orders 10,000 t-shirts worth 200 bux and a manufacturer in Naraina delivers, it puts MRP is 999 and sells to Yebhi at 300 – Puma makes 10,000*100 i.e. 10 lacs and yebhi can now play around with discounts as it does. So here Puma is also just playing a role of the middleman and getting 100 bux as some kind of commission for renting out its brand. So people, here’s the news, you sometimes get ‘Online Only’ products. You might not get this is a Puma retail store. However, I believe that for electronics, Yebhi is dependent on vendors.
3. Both Sipahi, No King: Example: HomeShop18
HomeShop18 is a mix of above two. It has own sourcing too and also depends on vendors. You might wonder that how come all stuff is packed in HS18 boxes if vendor is supplying it? This is because to maintain quality packaging, HS18 pick the stuff from vendor and packs it itself after QC. But this reduces the risk as it is not required to maintain huge inventory. So in this kind of a model, you will find some products that HS18 sources and maintains inventory and some of the SKU’s are vendor listings.
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
There are some websites that don’t believe in a specific business model – like Snapdeal. It started as deal website, then got into products, some are vendor provided, some are owned. So they try out everything from time-to-time.
Marketing
How are these guys making money? What are the key strategies? Lets talk!
Do yo see a pop-up every time you open snapdeal, asking for ur id. Dude that id is very important for Snapdeal as total registered users and users reading your daily newsletter is a key determinant of success and also valuation.
So the pop-up culture is growing now, everyone wants your id.
Now the PE firms found out that getting new users is easy and they won’t blindly value your company based on that matrix. So they said, show me the number of unique users who have transacted on your website. Now Indian techies thought “Ab kya karen beta” and the Pay Re 1 to win iPad was born.
So many of us paid that one rupee right? or 50 rupees as MyDala points and what not. This still continues. That gives the website a lot of unique new users who transact
So the pop-ups and one rupee deals are traps we shouldn’t fall into.
Coupon Culture (to be continued)
Awesome explanation…Hats off..!!!
+1
Thanks for letting us know so much things about online shooping
This thread is surely helping many dimers
@ RB
Thanks Bro for starting this thread and thanks all others for spreading so much info.
Hey Guys!!!
Do you guys mind if i butt in….
anthrax.ut wrote:
Hey Guys!!!
Do you guys mind if i butt in….
Why would we ? You are most welcome! I might be going off-track sometimes and it’ll be good if you correct me and add to it. Some of my thoughts here are based on logical assumptions
RDX wrote:coolsajal4261 wrote:@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Ok here is my experience – and I would love to see other dimers adding/ modifying this
Internet Selling in India can be broadly classified into the following categories:
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War
2. Me King, Me Sipahi
3. Both Sipahi, No King
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
Details
1. Me King, You Sipahi, You Fight, I win the War – Example: Ebay
Ebay is the King with a brand, gets a lot of web traffic, doesn’t sell anything itself, and charges commissions on sales.
So broadly this is like a ‘franchisee model’ where you pay ebay the brand royalty. There are lacs of sellers and transactions worth hundreds of crores. Ebay invests in technology, customer service, subsidizing deals, marketing and promotion etc. It has developed a fool-proof system of ratings genuine for sellers which all by itself keeps the market clean to a great extent. It’s like renting a shop in Lajpat Nagar, you get a good place and pay rent (commission to ebay), you get visibility thanks to the place (ebay), you geberate your own word of mouth (seller ratings) and succeed.
2. Me King, Me Sipahi – Example: Yebhi
Here the seller has all the responsibility of sourcing, marketing, selling and keeps the profit. Yebhi procures material in bulk, sells at different discounts and plays with our heads by offering coupons. Some facts: Yebhi procured Puma apparels at >70% off on MRP (new + old stock). Puma apparel that you buy from Yebhi is all manufactured by small players in Delhi NCR (check the names yourself). Some of this is actually not meant to be sold in retail anyway. So Puma orders 10,000 t-shirts worth 200 bux and a manufacturer in Naraina delivers, it puts MRP is 999 and sells to Yebhi at 300 – Puma makes 10,000*100 i.e. 10 lacs and yebhi can now play around with discounts as it does. So here Puma is also just playing a role of the middleman and getting 100 bux as some kind of commission for renting out its brand. So people, here’s the news, you sometimes get ‘Online Only’ products. You might not get this is a Puma retail store. However, I believe that for electronics, Yebhi is dependent on vendors.
3. Both Sipahi, No King: Example: HomeShop18
HomeShop18 is a mix of above two. It has own sourcing too and also depends on vendors. You might wonder that how come all stuff is packed in HS18 boxes if vendor is supplying it? This is because to maintain quality packaging, HS18 pick the stuff from vendor and packs it itself after QC. But this reduces the risk as it is not required to maintain huge inventory. So in this kind of a model, you will find some products that HS18 sources and maintains inventory and some of the SKU’s are vendor listings.
4. King Sipahi is Bullshit
There are some websites that don’t believe in a specific business model – like Snapdeal. It started as deal website, then got into products, some are vendor provided, some are owned. So they try out everything from time-to-time.
Marketing
How are these guys making money? What are the key strategies? Lets talk!
Do yo see a pop-up every time you open snapdeal, asking for ur id. Dude that id is very important for Snapdeal as total registered users and users reading your daily newsletter is a key determinant of success and also valuation.
So the pop-up culture is growing now, everyone wants your id.
Now the PE firms found out that getting new users is easy and they won’t blindly value your company based on that matrix. So they said, show me the number of unique users who have transacted on your website. Now Indian techies thought “Ab kya karen beta” and the Pay Re 1 to win iPad was born.
So many of us paid that one rupee right? or 50 rupees as MyDala points and what not. This still continues. That gives the website a lot of unique new users who transact
So the pop-ups and one rupee deals are traps we shouldn’t fall into.
Coupon Culture (to be continued)
Awesome explanation…Hats off..!!!
+1
Thanks for letting us know so much things about online shooping
This thread is surely helping many dimers
@ RB
Thanks Bro for starting this thread and thanks all others for spreading so much info.
Thanks for the kind words RDX bro and others too
anthrax.ut wrote:
Hey Guys!!!
Do you guys mind if i butt in….
say what you got to say….
@RAMZ
kehne ke liye keh rahe ho ya fir dara rahe ho
ramsharma98 wrote:
@RAMZ
kehne ke liye keh rahe ho ya fir dara rahe ho
You talkin to me……..huh!
I wanted to put up De Niro’s picture but this one was a tad bit funny.
Unfortunately playing spoil sport, sorry abt that ….. and am very new to the whole space so might have limited knowledge
So if we look at the current e-commerce scenario in India, what do we see…
1. Merchants selling in marketplaces: eg ebay, rediff, indiatimes, naaptol…. These merchants have been around for some time now, and have started thinking of starting their own stores, either through martjack or any other service provider…
These merchants generally focus on non branded goods, but high profitable products….. but the user base for such product is limited and not growing, The growth opportunity for these players seems to be linked to the ability to either move in the branded segment or ability to raise funds….But if we look at the funding scenario in the country, it has changed in the last few months, no more do we hear money flowing in that easily. In fact with flipkart’s acquistion of letsbuy (which i believe was a stress sell) it would be really hard to secure funding. I am sure there would be people who would I argue why do we need funding…. To be honest when some one is spending anywhere between 600 – 800 bucks to acquire a customer, its not easy to survive and grow without funds.. And again if they want to compete in branded space again funding is a must…
So the main question I would ask myself is if i am entering the ecomm space is
What is it that will differentiate me from the other sites currently present who have atleast few million dollars to burn to acquire customer. OR will i be happy just to do limited business and be happy about it??
RamZ wrote:anthrax.ut wrote:
Hey Guys!!!
Do you guys mind if i butt in….
say what you got to say….
RamZ se ache ache darte hain DD pe
@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@RamZ wrote:anthrax.ut wrote:
Hey Guys!!!
Do you guys mind if i butt in….
say what you got to say….
RamZ se ache ache darte hain DD pe
That is so not me…lol!
anthrax.ut wrote:
Unfortunately playing spoil sport, sorry abt that ….. and am very new to the whole space so might have limited knowledge
So if we look at the current e-commerce scenario in India, what do we see…
1. Merchants selling in marketplaces: eg ebay, rediff, indiatimes, naaptol…. These merchants have been around for some time now, and have started thinking of starting their own stores, either through martjack or any other service provider…
These merchants generally focus on non branded goods, but high profitable products….. but the user base for such product is limited and not growing, The growth opportunity for these players seems to be linked to the ability to either move in the branded segment or ability to raise funds….But if we look at the funding scenario in the country, it has changed in the last few months, no more do we hear money flowing in that easily. In fact with flipkart’s acquistion of letsbuy (which i believe was a stress sell) it would be really hard to secure funding. I am sure there would be people who would I argue why do we need funding…. To be honest when some one is spending anywhere between 600 – 800 bucks to acquire a customer, its not easy to survive and grow without funds.. And again if they want to compete in branded space again funding is a must…
So the main question I would ask myself is if i am entering the ecomm space is
What is it that will differentiate me from the other sites currently present who have atleast few million dollars to burn to acquire customer. OR will i be happy just to do limited business and be happy about it??
+1 bro
Some gyaan on product mix:
1. Perfect competition Type Products – dove soap, after shave, shoe polish, some types of cell phones, majority of books etc
These products are necessary SKU’s but provide low margin. Full dependency leads to “Letsbuy Sundrome”
2. Somewhat perfect type – brands like Asus, majority of apparel and shoes, headphones and speakers etc
These have defined MRP’s but are procured at really cheap prices so a good amount o these in your mix will lead to “Yebhi Syndrome” and you’ll make money
3. What’s competition type – you own the game here, Zovi, Sher Singh, YepMe, Mark Taylor, Craftsvilla – no one knows ye MEL, not even the manufacturer ;-$
They have margins up to 80%!!! Total dependency leads to WTF syndrome for the buyers but medium to good dependency leads to healthy profits
Okay I’m off for the day!
Gunnite peeps !!
Sorry for typos in above – using my phone Abhi… RamZ me nazar lagai mere 3GS ko and it fell, now not vibating 
(not that I’m too find of it vibrating but whatever )
Fair point Anthrax, but the whole concept of customer acquisition is quite baffling to me personally. If I were them I wouldn’t have thought of getting a firm and a respectable customer base from that perspective at least. It is only when these eCom sites go en route that Customer Acquisition way that they feel the need for angel funding and when they actually break some rich bastard’s piggy bank, then they merrily go about burning investors money without applying much thought to it. The party goes on for a while until they return back with a bloodied balance sheet(Loss sheet) and realise what $hit they got themselves into and that the whole thing did not work the way they thought it would and then find now way back and then starts all types of frauds like bogus offers, non refunds and other insanities . Also, when they they run promotions, that they like to call customer acquisition, all they try to do is making themselves visible to the masses where as they should be trying to earn some respect from the masses instead, when they do the promotion with an intention of getting loyal customers, they should be fully prepared for it, they should have the basic common sense in them that while that promotion is on, it is exactly the very same time to lay the foundation of an ever lasting good impression on their buyers by making it one fantastic buying experience for them and convert those buyers into repeat customers. But all we see is that some of them start acting like some Sarkaari baabus and act like they are doing us some favour by delaying shipments, cancelling orders, acting rude over the phone, Facebook, harassing their buyers simply for the reason that he has used a promotional coupon that the seller themselves has happily issued again using some rich bastard’s piggy bank. 
There are a lot of things I have in my mind right for now with the kind of personal experience of having seen so many eCom sites flourish and tank and also realising the reasons behind it. But I personally believe we should not let them know the tricks of the trade and let them make some mistakes for us to exist and hence I did not respond to this thread so far coz once the trick is known in the open, it is absolutely worthless a magic.
@R@ck B@TT@M wrote:@
Sorry for typos in above – using my phone Abhi… RamZ me nazar lagai mere 3GS ko and it fell, now not vibating
(not that I’m too find of it vibrating but whatever
Lagata hai mere 4S ki taareef karne ke baad, tere 3gs ko bura laga hoga. 
Dost aise soch le ki teri iPhone 4G lene ka time ab aa gaya hai….LOL!
RamZ wrote:
Fair point Anthrax, but the whole concept of customer acquisition is quite baffling to me personally. If I were them I wouldn’t have thought of getting a firm and a respectable customer base from that perspective at least. It is only when these eCom sites go en route that Customer Acquisition way that they feel the need for angel funding and when they actually break some rich bastard’s piggy bank, then they merrily go about burning investors money without applying much thought to it. The party goes on for a while until they return back with a bloodied balance sheet(Loss sheet) and realise what $hit they got themselves into and that the whole thing did not work the way they thought it would and then find now way back and then starts all types of frauds like bogus offers, non refunds and other insanities . Also, when they they run promotions, that they like to call customer acquisition, all they try to do is making themselves visible to the masses where as they should be trying to earn some respect from the masses instead, when they do the promotion with an intention of getting loyal customers, they should be fully prepared for it, they should have the basic common sense in them that while that promotion is on, it is exactly the very same time to lay the foundation of an ever lasting good impression on their buyers by making it one fantastic buying experience for them and convert those buyers into repeat customers. But all we see is that some of them start acting like some Sarkaari baabus and act like they are doing us some favour by delaying shipments, cancelling orders, acting rude over the phone, Facebook, harassing their buyers simply for the reason that he has used a promotional coupon that the seller themselves has happily issued again using some rich bastard’s piggy bank.
ramz bhai seeing all the stuff for more then 6 months only thing i know is ,these e-com company’s are not to make loyal customers or even to do business , they are just here to start a startup ,run promotions ,add customers, increase there value by showing acquired costumer base/orders and sell the company and make big bucks and repeat the circle
if they are really interested in acquiring good loyal customers and to keep the business thriving they should start caring for there customers and i hardly see them doing and thats y i still i think there is big gap or great opportunity for a big player
jaigreat wrote:RamZ wrote:
Fair point Anthrax, but the whole concept of customer acquisition is quite baffling to me personally. If I were them I wouldn’t have thought of getting a firm and a respectable customer base from that perspective at least. It is only when these eCom sites go en route that Customer Acquisition way that they feel the need for angel funding and when they actually break some rich bastard’s piggy bank, then they merrily go about burning investors money without applying much thought to it. The party goes on for a while until they return back with a bloodied balance sheet(Loss sheet) and realise what $hit they got themselves into and that the whole thing did not work the way they thought it would and then find now way back and then starts all types of frauds like bogus offers, non refunds and other insanities . Also, when they they run promotions, that they like to call customer acquisition, all they try to do is making themselves visible to the masses where as they should be trying to earn some respect from the masses instead, when they do the promotion with an intention of getting loyal customers, they should be fully prepared for it, they should have the basic common sense in them that while that promotion is on, it is exactly the very same time to lay the foundation of an ever lasting good impression on their buyers by making it one fantastic buying experience for them and convert those buyers into repeat customers. But all we see is that some of them start acting like some Sarkaari baabus and act like they are doing us some favour by delaying shipments, cancelling orders, acting rude over the phone, Facebook, harassing their buyers simply for the reason that he has used a promotional coupon that the seller themselves has happily issued again using some rich bastard’s piggy bank.
ramz bhai seeing all the stuff for more then 6 months only thing i know is ,these e-com company’s are not to make loyal customers or even to do business , they are just here to start a startup ,run promotions ,add customers, increase there value by showing acquired costumer base/orders and sell the company and make big bucks and repeat the circle
if they are really interested in acquiring good loyal customers and to keep the business thriving they should start caring for there customers and i hardly see them doing and thats y i still i think there is big gap or great opportunity for a big player
One thing am adding that- yebhi’s customer care is awesome. Me & some of my friends have purchased a lot of things from yebhi, many times we have got trouble about delivery/refunding… in all aspects they are really awesome. Whatever the price of its products, their effort is really beautiful in their assistance & customer satisfaction.
anthrax.ut wrote:
Unfortunately playing spoil sport, sorry abt that ….. and am very new to the whole space so might have limited knowledge
So if we look at the current e-commerce scenario in India, what do we see…
1. Merchants selling in marketplaces: eg ebay, rediff, indiatimes, naaptol…. These merchants have been around for some time now, and have started thinking of starting their own stores, either through martjack or any other service provider…
These merchants generally focus on non branded goods, but high profitable products….. but the user base for such product is limited and not growing, The growth opportunity for these players seems to be linked to the ability to either move in the branded segment or ability to raise funds….But if we look at the funding scenario in the country, it has changed in the last few months, no more do we hear money flowing in that easily. In fact with flipkart’s acquistion of letsbuy (which i believe was a stress sell) it would be really hard to secure funding. I am sure there would be people who would I argue why do we need funding…. To be honest when some one is spending anywhere between 600 – 800 bucks to acquire a customer, its not easy to survive and grow without funds.. And again if they want to compete in branded space again funding is a must…
So the main question I would ask myself is if i am entering the ecomm space is
What is it that will differentiate me from the other sites currently present who have atleast few million dollars to burn to acquire customer. OR will i be happy just to do limited business and be happy about it??
We have to think to be uncommon & different idea…
Vish bro – calm down ya
its his opinion and lets take it positively 
I think we can exchange numbers and talk about the website part.. Don’t want to talk in a public forum