How your startup can break into the e-commerce market

Here are a few pieces of advice to provide your business with the necessary kickstart into the world of e-commerce.

It takes a lot of courage to follow your dreams, leave your full-time job, and start something on your own. It would be wonderful to believe that everything will be a smooth sail from that point on but as many new entrepreneurs know, this is rarely the case. However, this isn’t a call for you to get demoralized but to take control of your e-commerce business even before the launch to ensure the best possible start.

Having a solid foundation will help you build and adapt your business along the way instead of having to make major changes quickly which could leave serious consequences on your financial state. So, here are a few pieces of advice to provide your business with the necessary kickstart into the world of e-commerce.

Look into the competition

This piece of advice doesn’t have copying as an aim but instead, learning about your competition can show you useful pieces of information about bad practices and not just good. You also need to know what you are up against so as to focus your resources and capacities on the right cause. If a particular market is oversaturated and analyses show that it will remain so in the foreseeable future, perhaps you can opt for a niche product whose market offers more convenient conditions.

You can learn about their marketing strategies and use that knowledge to invest in paid ads or work on organic marketing more. By researching their website, you will be able to see about their return policies, shipping fees, and the level of transparency which are all vital data in terms of creating a competitive advantage for your small e-commerce business from the start.

Research the customers

Your prospective customers will be the consumers and judges of your products and services so you need to make sure their interests are satisfied. Even the most specialized niche products, such as a slick drill collar can find their customers online because instead of purchasing at their local poorly supplied dealerships at high prices, they will find exactly what they need in your online store and have it delivered safely to their business address.
To understand what moves your customers, you need to look into the age, gender, occupation, educational level, location and make assessments when it comes to creating the most efficient marketing strategy that will target just the right audience. With this way of thinking, you will minimize the bounce rate because people will not wander into your website but visit it purposefully. ’The bigger, the better’ is not always the best policy and in your case, it can even be discouraging to see a high bounce rate, so targeting the right audience is your best bet.

Tend to your website

The website and the e-commerce platform is where the magic happens. It is where those leads convert into sales and to make that happen, you need to ensure that many of the website aspects are up to par. For instance, if the website isn’t loading fast enough, you will have people leaving by the bunch without even taking a look at your offer. Also, if you are slow to answer their inquiries, you will see many abandoned carts.

The purchase page design has to be pristine because any glitch with the currency, price or irregular display of certain data can lead to customers becoming suspicious and leaving your website to find another offer that is more transparent. Even after you kickstart your e-commerce business, you need to always be on the lookout for the things that could be improved or replaced because don’t forget that success in the e-commerce business is not a spring but a marathon.

Leverage on social media

If you decided that your website will be the only place of purchase for your products, that doesn’t mean that it needs to be your brand’s only form or online presence. Social media platforms have a major influence on businesses nowadays because they allow for more direct collaboration with your customers and real-time contact, should you choose so. Different social media platforms host different audiences and offer different benefits so you need to research which would suit your customers and products best.

What’s important is that your customers can maneuver with ease to your website so it is necessary for the posts to have a link to your website. Also, it is useful to have the links to your social media profiles on your website because somebody who came straight to your online store might want to praise your product and services across different media and even become your brand ambassador. All in all, knowing what a powerful media social networks are, it would be a waste not to harness that power for your brand’s benefit.

Wrapping up

If you have an idea, some capital, and lots of enthusiasm, it is vital you prepare well before going into the world of e-commerce because no matter how specific your products might be, chances are that there is already someone with similar products on the market. Looking into your competition and your customers will teach you how to best market your products. Social media are another useful tool in this regard and they can be skillfully intertwined with your website to achieve maximum results.

Amazon pips Snapdeal to become India’s 2nd largest online marketplace after Flipkart

Amazon was India’s second-largest online marketplace by shipments last month, industry estimates show, as it dislodged Snapdeal to become the only major player to increase share from a year ago.

Amazon was India’s second-largest online marketplace by shipments last month, industry estimates show, as it dislodged Snapdeal to become the only major player to increase share from a year ago.

Market leader Flipkart’s share of shipments fell to 37% in March from 43% in the same month in 2015, and Snapdeal’s fell to 14-15% from 19%, show estimates by an investor tracking the logistics market and the chief executive officer of a logistics company that handles shipments for online retailers. Amazon India’s unit market share surged to an estimated 21-24% from 14%. Although the data are snapshots of shipments a year apart, they definitely point to a drop in the volume market share for the India-based companies. Other industry experts and analysts corroborated the numbers.

Also read: Indian e-commerce war: Flipkart’s Sachin Bansal & Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl involved in Twitter spat

They said the data were evidence of the larger unit market share trend in India’s ecommerce industry, although at least one recent estimate pegs Flipkart and Snapdeal ahead of Amazon India by sales. “Amazon is very rapidly taking market share from companies like Snapdeal and other smaller players.

If there is no new entry, it will be a two-horse race (between Flipkart and Amazon) by the end of the year,” said Satish Meena, a senior analyst with Forrester Research. “If Flipkart is not able to get its act together in the next 6-12 months, Amazon can overtake Flipkart also.”

Morgan Stanley estimates that India’s online retail market, including delivery of food and grocery, will be worth $119 billion by 2020 from $16 billion in 2015. Flipkart said in June 2015 that it was aiming to sell goods worth up to $12 billion in a year; Snapdeal had claimed it would do better than Flipkart; and Amazon has not disclosed a sales target.

Also read: Top 10 Indian Startups and how they took off

If Amazon is gaining market share, it will be another instance of a multinational internet company showing signs that it can become the dominant player in India. In the ride-hailing business, San Francisco-based Uber says it is catching up fast with market leader Ola, which in turn contests the claim. Online retailers shipped 8-9 lakh products a day in March this year, with Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal accounting for about three-fourths of the shipments, the estimates show. ShopClues and Paytm rank next.



Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal did not reply to specific queries from ET on their shipments, market share and average order values. The gains by Seattle-based Amazon, which launched in India a little less than three years ago, follow aggressive investing in its local unit — CEO Jeff Bezos has so far committed to pump in at least $2 billion in India. Flipkart and Snapdeal, meanwhile, are forced to trim expenses and wean customers away from heavy discounts as they struggle to raise money from investors at present valuations.

A new element has been introduced to the equation by the government’s ‘guidelines’ earlier this month on ecommerce marketplaces.

Also read: 11 Times when Indian startup wars got very real

One of the main requirements is that no seller can account for more than a quarter of sales on a marketplace, and this could affect each company differently – Amazon and Flipkart have greater reliance on large sellers but not Snapdeal. Amazon has infused at least Rs 6,700 crore since January 2015 into its India unit, Amazon Seller Services, with over half of that amount being invested since December.

The company has channeled a lot of that money into improving the shopping experience for customers in terms of delivery and aftersales service, say investors and analysts. Amazon is also expected to introduce its successful Prime subscription programme in India.

“In 2015, we grew by more than 250% over 2014,” a spokeswoman for Amazon India said in an email. “We are on a momentum to deliver similar levels of growth this year but on a much larger base.”

In terms of gross merchandise value, though, Morgan Stanley in a February report estimated Flipkart’s market share at 45%, Snapdeal’s at 26%, and Amazon India’s at 12%. The GMV metric reflects the total value of all the goods sold on a platform but does not factor in discounts or reflect the actual commissions digital marketplaces earn on those sales.

Even with those estimates, entrepreneurs and investors say this year will mark a heightening of rivalry between Amazon India and Flipkart. Snapdeal is increasingly betting on diversification to try to monetise its existing users by entering into or partnering with other firms to offer services such as payments, travel bookings and food and grocery delivery that could bring repeat transactions. “We already have more than 1 million users transacting across our platforms daily, which is more than Flipkart and Amazon put together,” said a spokesperson for Snapdeal.

Also read: How Sachin Bansal started: Life of Flipkart founder

The battle between Flipkart and Amazon has primarily been in electronics, including smartphones, but the action is likely to shift to fashion where the former has made significant headway with Myntra that it acquired in 2014. Electronics accounts for a large portion of shipments but fetch commissions of 2-7% whereas gross margins in fashion can top 45-50%, according to Morgan Stanley.

“We have clear leadership of the online market in India with over 60% market share in three of the largest segments — smartphones, fashion and electronics,” said a Flipkart spokeswoman. “Our focus will be to consolidate this leadership position by continuing to build world-class customer experience, innovate retail in India and build a technology powerhouse out of India.”

Flipkart, under new CEO Binny Bansal, is pulling resources urgently to improve customer experience. Saikiran Krishnamurthy, who heads the service product group including after-sales services, was in March given additional charge of Ekart, Flipkart’s logistics unit, to improve customer experience by making the two divisions work together.

“Flipkart has to win back customers’ trust that they had till two years ago,” said Meena of Forrester Research.

Flipkart had targeted GMV of $10-12 billion for 2015-16. The company did not say if it met the target.

This article was originally published in The Times Of India

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