Today we’ve got a fresh round-up of global cashback and e-commerce news you can use. In six key SE Asian markets, Foodpanda is delivering lunch to work in addition to homes. Can they deliver? As e-commerce grows in India, fraud and counterfeit goods are a growing problem for industry leaders like Flipkart, HUL and Shopclues. Ex-Apple exec says e-commerce companies in India’s $16 billion online market are taking advantage of the power of content marketing to build higher sales.
How big? The number of Internet users in India will reach 402 million by December, up 49% over last year, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International. Rocket Group International has more than 10,000 employees expects sales to approach triple digit growth in each of its key markets. With $704K investment in hand, there’s global growth ahead for Melbourne Australia-based ShopandBox, a personal shopping service. TechinAsia shares an infographic comparing Snapdeal ($4.8 billion valuation) with Flipkart ($15 billion valuation).
Foodpanda Goes After Corporate Cash With New Delivery Service For Business Users
Foodpanda, the food delivery on-demand service backed by Germany’s Rocket Internet, has ventured into the world of corporations after it introduced a dedicated service for business customers that it hopes will massively increase its income. The company’s service is present in 38 countries, primarily emerging markets — thanks to a major spree of acquisitions over the past year — but its corporate offering has initially launched in just six countries in Asia: India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
The idea behind this new offering in a separate app and web-based client — is simple. Foodpanda co-founder and CEO Ralf Wenzel told TechCrunch that around a quarter of its orders come from corporate addresses but, with many companies subsidizing employee food or providing allowances, Foodpanda smells an opportunity to hone in on that lucrative market. Wenzel predicted that, over time, orders to corporate customers could represent more than 50 percent of income. Given that Foodpanda continues to lose money, though revenue is increasing, the business segment will be a very crucial one for its future. Via techcrunch.com
What ecommerce companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Uber are doing to battle fraud
Something was amiss about the Lakme Eyeconic eyeliners Satinder Singh bought from Flipkart for his wife. Three orders over a few months, handled by three different sellers in three different cities, and each time something about the product’s packaging bothered Singh. He sent the packs to Hindustan UnileverBSE 0.44 % Ltd, Lakme’s parent company, for testing. Turns out that he was right. HUL confirmed the cosmetics were fake.
As India’s ecommerce economy barrels ahead, one of the biggest challenges for customer-facing technology companies like Flipkart, Foodpanda and Uber is to contain the creeping instances of graft that tear into their businesses and reputations, with social media as an unwitting accomplice. Thousands of sellers, drivers and restaurants routinely find new ways to exploit the various incentives these tech-driven companies offer to lure both customers and partners—buying their own products r selling counterfeits. Via economictimes.indiatimes.com
The marriage of e-commerce and content marketing
Over the last five years, eCommerce has exploded in India primarily due to the rise in mobile Internet access and improvements across payment and delivery infrastructures. A study by Deloitte earlier this year pegged the value of the eCommerce market in India at $16 billion for 2015 – that’s a staggering 300% increase from $4 billion in 2010.
This revolution, initially driven by eCommerce pure plays like SnapDeal, FlipKart and Myntra, has fundamentally changed the way many Indian consumers behave, providing more traditional, offline focused businesses with a wake-up call, and further driving them to build strategies that ensure they are able to engage with consumers wherever they are. At the same time Content Marketing has become an increasingly important part of the marketer’s toolkit and, when CXO Today interviewed 380 Indian CMO’s, 84% of them said they would be increasing their content marketing budget in 2015. Via economictimes.indiatimes.com
India’s internet user base to touch 402 million by December, second-largest after China: Report
India will overtake the US as the second-largest Internet user base in the world by next month, behind only China, which has more than 600 million subscribers. The number of Internet users in India is expected to reach 402 million by December, a growth of 49 per cent over last year, according to a report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India and IMRB International.
While it took more than a decade to go from 10 million Internet users to 100 million and three years from 100 million to 200 million, it’s taken only a year to go from 300 million to 400 million users. Via economictimes.indiatimes.com
A Company With 10,000 Employees Appeared Almost Out Of Nowhere
Rocket Internet sometimes gets called a clone factory, but it looks more like a master puzzler to me: It pieces companies from across the globe into giant units that benefit from unexpected economies of scale across emerging markets.
Last spring, it pieced together five companies under one umbrella to form the Global Fashion Group, an ecommerce giant with 10,000 employees, 400 million visitors a month and one that expects high double digit to triple digit revenue growth this year in each of its markets, which are:
• Namshi in the Middle East
• Zalora in Southeast Asia
• Dafiti in Latin America
• Jabong in India Via forbes.com
Australia: 500 Startups invests $704k in ShopandBox – DealStreetAsia
Melbourne-based personal shopping startup ShopandBox has secured a US$704,000 seed investment from venture capital (VC) major 500 Startups, in addition to a a group of angel investors from CMY Ventures and Waic Investment Holdings Limited. Founded in November 2013 by Xin-Lung Tai and Rebecca Chia, the concept of the venture is peer-to-peer (P2P) shopping, with personal shoppers helping customers purchase items unavailable in their local territory or country, or otherwise purchase from an alternative source at lower prices. This distributed force of personal shoppers, who operate across 20 countries, help to mitigate problems associated with price discrimination and item availability in contemporary e-commerce.
Capital from this round of funding will be deployed to expand their personal shopper force, according to co-founder and CEO Xin-lung Tai. In a statement, he said, “The next batch of countries we’re looking at expanding into are Spain, Portugal – where favourable price discrimination for some of the largest big box brands like Zara exist – and some additional Nordic countries.” Via dealstreetasia.com
Flipkart vs Snapdeal in an infographic
Let’s imagine that Flipkart and Snapdeal are two countries. Flipkart has a rigorous process for citizenship. Those who wish to live in the country go through a strict screening process and are required to bring lots of documentation. The country imposes regulations like forcing customers to shop on their phones and is valued at over US$15 billion.
Snapdeal’s borders are more open. It focuses on allowing as many people in as possible and believes in strengthening its economy with numbers. Snapdeal has three times as many sellers as Flipkart but is only valued at US$4.8 billion.
Flipkart provides more of a uniform experience while Snapdeal promises diversity. The latter even goes so far as to provide home loan applications on its website. They’ve both acquired a series of startups that help them achieve their individual goals and expose what they really find important – Snapdeal has GoJavas, a last-mile logistics startup that assists with seamless pickup and delivery, while Flipkart has bought Myntra, a large fashion ecommerce site with an impressive inventory. Via techinasia.com
Credit card cashback ahead
Check in with us tomorrow and learn more about the top cashback credit cards around the world and what they’re doing to keep and attract new customers. As always, we welcome your suggestions and story ideas.