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Amazon India is now live

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Re: Amazon India is now live

#71

Post by kamaal »

general_failure wrote: post #42
sameerp1 wrote: post #22

The key thing that people need to be aware of is that Amazon is still not allowed to sell anything in India. They are exclusively a marketplace because the Indian govt does not allow foreign investment into e-commerce. Instead for now they are an intermediary. The end customer pays Amazon the money who passes it onto the actual seller (after taking some commission). Amazon might even handle the logistics for some sel…

Allowing foreign investment into e-commerce can't come soon enough. The main reason the e-commerce space in India has not picked up fast enough is this.

I think FDI in e-commerce and retail sectors is something that will come to pass in India.

Its inevitable.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#72

Post by vishal0123 »

Its good to see that amazon has price similar to similar competing website, which is mostly $2-$5, rather than US standard price $10-$14. Compare the price of bestselling books in flipkart and amazon.in from http://www.flipkart.com/view-books/l327/ and http://www.amazon.in/gp/bestsellers/books/

Re: Amazon India is now live

#73

Post by kamaal »

prakster wrote: post #69
fakeer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You need the product tomorrow? If you are in a metro then you get the item shipped next day. I've shopped with Flipkart, Myntra etc and this has always been the norm and when usually it becomes 2-3 days it's because your stuff is being sent from a warehouse in another metro. As I live in B'lore Myntra has almost always done 1-day shipping or 2 at most. You want your items to be shipped to a small town? There's a p…

Hey Fakeer, Do you have an idea (or know someone who does) as to 1. How is the Shipping Label (with tracking# if that's feasible) generated? 2. Which are the major couriers picking up the packages from the small ecommerce shop locations and delivering them? 3. Is the Indian Post Office a major player at all (in the US, the USPS is the largest ecommerce delivery company...bigger than UPS, FedEx and DHL combined)

>>Is the Indian Post Office a major player at all

I don't think Indian Post Office is good option for courier stuff like a mobile phone, or a book.

But they are pretty good if you want to send a money order, letter or a registered post.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#74

Post by kamaal »

fakeer wrote: post #61
shreyansj wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that the books sold in India (and some other Asian countries) are low-priced international editions of those books. This is specially true for college textbooks with foreign authors.

Extremely low cost and I practically(and truly) can't afford a book Amazom USA, even an eBook. So, ones that is not available in India or is available at sth like INR 3000 or 4000 or so, I pirate.

I admire your courage for saying this.

For others, this is how it always happens here in India.

On the other hand when the books are priced well. There is actually sweet spot for which Indian consumers will happily pay. For example I can quote of Rashmi Bansal's books. Especially 'Stay hungry, Stay Foolish'. It was priced so well, I hardly saw any pirated books on the footpaths people were more than happy to buy the book.

Compare this to say with a book like "Seven habits of highly effective people' there was a time when hawkers on the footpaths would have something 100 copies always stocked because the original book was expensive and pirated ones sold like hot cakes.

You won't believe this, a while back I would visit Avenue road in Bangalore and one round with foot path hawkers could give you a hint on the best sellers in the market currently.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#75

Post by five18pm »

general_failure wrote: post #42
sameerp1 wrote: post #22

The key thing that people need to be aware of is that Amazon is still not allowed to sell anything in India. They are exclusively a marketplace because the Indian govt does not allow foreign investment into e-commerce. Instead for now they are an intermediary. The end customer pays Amazon the money who passes it onto the actual seller (after taking some commission). Amazon might even handle the logistics for some sel…

Allowing foreign investment into e-commerce can't come soon enough. The main reason the e-commerce space in India has not picked up fast enough is this.

Allowing foreign investment is a minor problem in ecommerce space. Flipkart has foreign investment via VCs for quite some time.

There are a lot more fundamental issues in ecommerce space.

(1) Low penetration of credit cards - Banks have slowed down considerably their efforts to market credit cards. RBI regulations don't help either. Besides both of these, people have a negative feeling towards credit cards. So credit card usage is low. Cash is king and debit cards and direct bank transfers are next.

(2) Payment is a pain. Paying via credit card, debit card or bank account goes through a two step authentication process which is fraught with failures. There are multiple sites through which payment is routed => Seller site -> Payment gateway intermediary -> Bank site -> (enter password to authenticate payment) -> Back to intermediary -> Back to seller site. This long chain is breaks more often than not. And when it breaks, it becomes a pain to get your money back. Buying something online, especially for some one new is a heart-in-your-mouth experience. Again, RBI guidelines prevent any change in the payment process. It is easier to use Cash on Delivery (CoD).

(3) Two and three means that most customers prefer CoD. But CoD is a pain for merchants. There is no guarantee that customers would end up completing the sale. Most purchases are impulse purchases. But in case of CoD, you receive the product after 2-3 days, long after the impulse is gone. So the rejection rate for CoD sales is high compared to Credit/debit card sales.

(4) Logistics is another nightmare. The companies do not have scale and are quite expensive compared to the cost of goods sold. They are also not reliable. Delivery management and providing customer support for late/missing shipments forms the bulk of support cost. So any medium/large ecommerce company starts its own courier service. Suddenly these companies are not just ecommerce companies, they are also managing a completely new and different business.

(5) Low internet penetration and usage.

(6) Wafer thin margins. The margins are already thin. It is spread even thinner by offering free shipping. Shipping used to be free for any product of any cost. Its only now that companies have started charging for shipping. These thin margins mean companies won't be breaking even any time soon. Its a long haul game and its going to leave quite a few dead companies in its midst.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#76

Post by tellarin »

garindra wrote: post #59
tellarin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China you can have Amazon (and other major e-commerce firms) ship things to your home or office and pay in cash on delivery (for most items). The amount of delivery people in Beijing, especially near lunch time, is quite impressive.

What's the protocol when the customer can't pay on delivery?

As far as I know, the company keeps the goods. And the more high-priced items (laptop, TV, etc.) can't be paid in cash on delivery (only credit card or Internet banking accepted for those).

Re: Amazon India is now live

#77

Post by BoyWizard »

nleach wrote: post #55
canttestthis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bandwidth is very expensive in both Singapore and Tokyo.

In e-commerce, doesn't latency == $$? Is the bandwidth premium really that much higher? Or is the performance difference between the geographies negligible?

This is true for places that have good conditions and internet. You have to remember, power outages are a daily occurrences in even built up places such as Bangalore, and internet connectivity isn't crash hot anyway. Latency of the website won't have as much of an impact in these conditions (IMO, anyway)

Re: Amazon India is now live

#78

Post by blntechie »

tellarin wrote: post #48
rluhar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite similar to way convenience stores work in Japan. You can pay at a convenience store and get Amazon to ship your goods to a convenience store. Japan (similar to India) is still very much a cash based society and I suppose some people prefer to pay in cash at a convenience store instead of paying online. India also has loads of tiny convenience stores, I think this is an excellent idea. It also simplifies…

In China you can have Amazon (and other major e-commerce firms) ship things to your home or office and pay in cash on delivery (for most items). The amount of delivery people in Beijing, especially near lunch time, is quite impressive.

Exploring Amazon.in, I see Cash on Delivery available as payment option.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#79

Post by mqzaidi »

gnok wrote: post #10
valgaze wrote: post #8

Interesting- there's free delivery and also COD "cash on delivery" Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/Og9xMtn.png Policy: http://www.amazon.in/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=mk_ss...

The COD part is somewhat cultural. Very few people in India will trust a credit card based system that requires you to hand over your credit card number online and accept delivery at some point in the future. Cash usage in general is disproportionately higher than other forms. I think direct payments from bank accounts is next. Cards rank a distant third.

Its not just cultural, but financial, unless you consider tax evasion a part of culture. A lot of Indians don't want to spend via credit cards because the money is 'black', i.e. unaccounted for. This is a big reason for COD, esp. among the business class.

Re: Amazon India is now live

#80

Post by krat0sprakhar »

prakster wrote: post #69
fakeer wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> You need the product tomorrow? If you are in a metro then you get the item shipped next day. I've shopped with Flipkart, Myntra etc and this has always been the norm and when usually it becomes 2-3 days it's because your stuff is being sent from a warehouse in another metro. As I live in B'lore Myntra has almost always done 1-day shipping or 2 at most. You want your items to be shipped to a small town? There's a p…

Hey Fakeer, Do you have an idea (or know someone who does) as to 1. How is the Shipping Label (with tracking# if that's feasible) generated? 2. Which are the major couriers picking up the packages from the small ecommerce shop locations and delivering them? 3. Is the Indian Post Office a major player at all (in the US, the USPS is the largest ecommerce delivery company...bigger than UPS, FedEx and DHL combined)

My dad happens to lead the e-commerce division at a logistics company and from what I've heard, Indian Post Office is not a major player at all. A large of e-commerce companies/startups are using Bluedart (now merged with DHL) as their primary logistics provider and tracking is provided as a service to the customers. Flipkart, I believe, runs their own logistics service.
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