Abnormal Gain from Amazon's purchase

The volume of business of Amazon.com in India has been expanding by leaps and bounds. Internal diseconomies of scale is not letting the business to run flaw less.

I will not mention others' experiences with Amazon rather I should give two simple instances where Amazon.com is losing money in India.

1. I ordered for a crocks, however its size was more than my feet. I applied for refund and return. They money was refunded but the seller never came and collect the shoes. Its now more than an year

2. We ordered for Maths olympiad book for my kid but we got a mathematics book for JEE / IIT. The value of book received is quite higher than Maths Olypiad Book. I wanted to see what happens , the book received is not useful for me ... but still no query came to me after two months.

Certainly a revenue leakage.. the amount is nothing for Amazon but this must be adding loss to the company. 

ebay.in merging in to Flipkart

During initial years of Internet in India www.baazi.com was a leading site to purchase and sell products online. The populartity of baazi attracted EBAY of US and baazi was taken over by www.ebay.in. Regulations were changed and the business revamped completely.

Ebay.in was never seller friendly and it was always pro buyer. Even the largest seller never knew when he would be suspended without indicating the exact reasons. The suspension rule was never transparent and sometimes an honest or a large seller used to be suspended.

Time went.. ebay.in went powerful . Thousands of sellers from middle class families became seller in to ebay.in but no seller can say that ebay.in was their only business. Everybody knows, he could be suspended at anytime. Hence the business was always risky.

With the emergence of various big time online sellers selling books, merchandises, phones and other items with deep discount, ebay.in ultimately realised that it cannot sustain in the long run. Number of sellers on ebay.in got reduced , however faithful buyers never left ebay for purchasing second items, antiques, refurbished phones etc. At last one day we all heard that flipkart purchased Indian part of ebay i.e. the big www.ebay.in became part of flipkart.com

Flipkart carried on  ebay as separate entity on its usual model and perhaps never interfered in its non transparent policies. However, flipkart allowed sellers of ebay for international sale at ebay.com.

Online selling has never been easy... snapdeal, jabong, flipkart, etc etc never earned profit. Naturally these sites are always meant to be sold or resold. Flipkart got offers from Amazon and Walmart. ... and one fine day Flipkart became a part of Walmart. So obviously ebay.in could not be part of Ebay or possibly the strategy of flipkart relating to ebay could not give the expected results.

Now, ebay.in is being finished and now all sellers may approach flipkart to register themselves and magic of ebay may be recreated over flipkart.

People earned a lot of money from ebay or they experienced power of selling in India. We shall always miss ebay.in. From 14th of August 2018, we may not purchase or sell at ebay.in as per the notification of flipkart on the homepage of ebay.in . Sellers get surprised and those who have ample stock, there may not be an easier transition.
http://advertisingpublicity.blogspot.com/2018/09/priyanka-chopra-engaged-to-nick-jonas.html

Flipkart on Sale

• Basic principle of Trading : Sale - Cost = Profit . If you do not follow this principle , you cannot survive whoever you are, irrespective of your high paid strategies and efforts bestowed. 
• Cost - Sale = Loss , may be followed on a very temporary basis to attract consumers to purchase goods through Internet but has to reach sooner to the Basic Principle as indicated above. 
• So far, Flipkart has followed Cost - Sale = Loss policy to attract more and more consumers, educating consumers to buy online. It has habituated people to buy goods at low prices , higher discounts. I heard that its most valuable .com company of India . Valuation pundits might have evaluated the company for their prospective buyers but do they have indicated that selling at a price lower than cost would make the valuations intact ? 
• Flipkart has gained popularity, purchased goods , properties on loan / equity funds infused by investors and bankers but how much it has contributed from retained earnings to ease debt ? How much it has distributed as  dividend to make its shares more valuable ? 
• Buyers of flipkart have more money than Flipkart and reaching up to that level could be a pipedream for flipkart's promoters. They tried everything, they brought all prospective buyers to flipkart , but now they might short of strategies and new plans. 
• So the best way ..... Exit ..... and get praise among Indians that promoters made so much money and now they can retire with a mammoth Bank Balance. 
• Is it the real praise or Kudos ? Did Amazon Promoter think or acted positively to sell his company ? I never heard. The real fun and respect to carry on the business and compete with rivalries and beat them .
• But perhaps Indian business schools , as seen in last ten year's trend, teach how to make business wealthier & Valuable ... but perhaps it still does not teach (or do not know ) how to make a business viable for ever and sustainable. 
• I think Flipkart was on the verge of perform or perish. They realised , Indians can purchase at discount and deep discount or at free... They cannot let you make Super Normal Profit !! 
• All the best to Bansals and would like to read the book he may write after a few months .. 
• Bangalore start up kids will now not think to create online selling web sites. If they will , there will be only one objective either Amazon or Walmart or some other giant will buy their invention some day 

Caveat : Its just a personal thinking

7 Indirect Beneficiaries of Online Selling Portals

Not to say again, buying and selling of goods through web sites is a talk of households. The business which seemed to be a walker like tortoise is now running like a panther. In India before 15 years an ordinary man could sell his products or used articles through baazi.com only. Other web sites were there but not very popular. Seeing the current customer base and rising trend in sales of “baazi”, ebay.com bought the portal itself rather than creating its own image first. So the first beneficiary was a performer web site which showed their performance and got a good foreign investor or an existing large foreign online selling portal. I am not much discussing the history of emergence of online selling goods in India; rather I would like to mention the beneficiaries who eventually became the ultimate beneficiaries. Major beneficiaries are:

• Courier Companies: Courier companies have grabbed the opportunity to deliver goods traded through online goods selling portals like amazon.in, flipkart, myntra, jabong, ebay, rediff, etc. Some companies like Amazon advertise that they can send goods within 24 hours. Flipkart also advertises about quick delivery. ebay also takes word from sellers about delivery period and holds them accountable. So we can easily imagine how couriers companies are getting business and how they should be efficient. Big players like dhl, bluedart and first flight etc. have already branches across nation so they took the ultimate benefit of this opportunity. Even middle sized courier companies like shyam courier, express, overnite etc. take leverage of their associated companies. People working in MNCs do not have time to go to market and purchase gift for their love, kins, and friends. Online purchasing is one of the most suitable options which directly give effect to rise in business of courier companies. If somebody has a big family across India along with their relatives, opening a courier company can be a good option.
   
• Stationery:  Online goods are first packed, sealed, covered and then addressed. Bare minimum stationeries required are – Thermacol, paper, cartons, card board box, pen, pencil, tapes, glue, cards, paper waste, packing paper, computer cartridges etc.  These bare minimum things are pushing demand forward
   
• Stock Market:  Online portals have already engraved their roots in India and now they are thinking to get themselves listed.  However, their business model and thinking are totally different from traditional businessmen like Ambanis, Tatas, Birlas etc. They are quite young and different thinker. Mostly people who are quite young and college outs join this business. These companies are offering Stock Options to their employees. Seeing the rising trend of the business, private equity, venture capitalists, and investors are pumping in their money. They are eyeing on the big opening at Stock Market for their exit route. But one of the best beneficiaries would be employees who have opted or will opt for ESOP (Employees Stock Option Plan). This is also an opportunity for young aspirants. They must go for this plan
   
• Small Business: There are still crores of people who do not want to buy goods through online media. However, they just see which goods at what rate are being sold. They just see the quality and description of goods and purchase goods from a nearby shop who cannot afford to advertise such goods. But the same is going both ways. A person goes to market and purchase same or similar goods through online portals at deep discount. But currently it is the small businessmen who are more benefitted as they do not need to publicise their products
   
• Banks: Credit Card payments, online fund transfer are now day’s chargeable services. Sometimes people forget to pay their dues on time and they are slapped with an interest @ 36 % p.a and penalty which is completely enjoyed by bankers.
   
• Users of Internet: Online shopping viewers are now informed buyers!! They have seen the goods , they know about goods,
   
• Birthday boys and Girls: People are now getting gifts without fail. Friends living abroad or at distant places can now send gifts of their choice. Beneficiaries are people who celebrate their birthdays, anniversaries etc.
   

There are other direct and indirect beneficiaries, will talk about them later on !! Please add some points to enrich my and viewers knowledge

 

Education Shopping online : edukart.com

To search the links for Lijjat atta , I just saw an online advertisement for an education shop , www.edukart.com. I would never use the word shop , however I saw the certificate courses being sold like product and they can be purchased like an ordinary product at flipkart.com , olx.in , ebay.in etc... Suddenly a chat window popped up and started to entertain me. I complimented on the idea of the business !! honestly it is a new way of selling educational certifications. These certificates do not require any formal educational background. I cannot comment upon the quality of the education and how do they conduct examinations etc... this area is still to be explored. Enquiring more , I came to know the chief of the company , Mr. Ishan Gupta who was with facebook and other comapnies for sometimes.

Anybody who has stopped education may go for it , or anybody who wants to put a qualification after his name on his visiting card , the website may be useful. The idea of Mr. Gupta is great and he deserves compliments. In India , there are many people who could not get formal education at higher level due their family problems or pecuniary limits. The fees seem to be reasonable prima facie. I shall be interested to see its success, Indians are crazy about degrees , the need is proper investments in this business , introduce some more courses for ground level and most importantly ----- Promotions. Mr. Gupta must search for a venture capitalist