Online Shopping: Safety Tips

Jan 22, 2008, 12.25am IST

India is witnessing an unprecedented economic boom. We can see the effect of this boom all around us.
Among others, there has been an exponential rise in consumer spending. At the same time, more and
more consumers are looking for easy way to shop since their time is increasingly under pressure.
E-commerce or online shopping provides a way out. Given the near universal availability of Internet
connectivity, consumers save time and efforts by shopping online. More and more merchants are realising
the enormous potential of the medium of Internet and are gearing up to offer products and services.
As the potential of online shopping is being grasped, the risks are going up too, particularly for
consumers. Sadly, many online shoppers ignore the pitfalls and do not follow even minimum risk
protection norms. If anything, online shopping frauds are more dangerous, because once the security is
breached, fraudsters can siphon off a lot of money without the victim realising it.
Following some non-negotiable security norms is not an option; it is a pre-requisite for a delightful online
shopping experience. So, the next time you shop online, do follow these tips:
1. Link Of A Website: Avoid going to an online shopping site through a link or pop-ups, howsoever
interesting the offers are. Always type the website address into the address bar. Be wary of tempting
offers, as they may be from fraudsters who have created a fake site.
2. Look For The Image Of A Lock At The Bottom Right Corner: To make sure your website is safe, look for
the image of a closed lock in the browser window. Click on the icon and ensure the security certification is
displayed. You are vulnerable to identity theft when you are entering your information on a spoofed site.
3. Check Privacy Policy: Are you sure the seller of a website where you have given personal details is not
sharing them with others for money? Check the Privacy Policy of the website to make sure what the seller
will and will not do with details about you.
4. Be Wary Of e-mails: You may receive an e-mail that appears as if it is from the seller that you have
shopped online. You may be asked for your personal information to "verify" the accounts or "clear-up"
errors that have occurred. Before responding, reconfirm with the seller. Call up and confirm if necessary,
or send a mail and act only after you get a response.
5. Secured Programs: If the purchases are through a debit or credit card, then make sure that you sign-up
for the "verified by VISA" and/or "Master secured code program(s)". Each transaction will then be
authorised only by you.
6. Anti-Spyware/Trojan Software: Make sure that the latest version of antivirus, anti-spyware or antiTrojan programs are installed on your PC or laptop and are regularly updated.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-01-22/news/27700422_1_onlineshopping-website-address-privacy-policy
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China's e-commerce transactions hit $2 trillion in 2014:

Government
AFP Jan 21, 2015, 04.24PM IST

Tags:

Shen Danyang|
Commerce ministry|
China's National Bureau of Statistics|
China's e-commerce|
Alibaba

(During its 24-hour shopping)

BEIJING: China's e-commerce boomed in 2014 with transactions reaching around 13 trillion yuan ($2.09
trillion), the government said Wednesday, as Beijing looks online for new drivers of growth.
The commerce ministry did not define transactions, beyond saying that the term included both businessto-business and retail transactions.
Spokesman Shen Danyang said in a statement that they grew 25.0 percent year-on-year in 2014.

China's National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday that online retail sales alone were at 2.8 trillion yuan in
2014, up 49.7 per cent.
China has the world's biggest online population -- 632 million last year -- and online shopping has
exploded in recent years as consumers turned to the Internet for cheaper products and overseas goods
that are believed to be safer than domestic options, such as baby formula.
During its 24-hour shopping promotion Singles Day on November 11, the country's e-commerce
giant Alibabasaid consumers spent a record $9.3 billion, up 60 per cent on 2013.
Authorities have said they hope e-commerce will become a new "engine" for growth in the world's
second-largest economy, where growth decelerated last year to 7.4 per cent -- the lowest in nearly a
quarter of a century.
"(Online shopping) generated a great number of jobs. It is an emerging industry and we should support its
healthy development," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said last year.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-01-21/news/58305929_1_ecommerce-transactions-national-bureau-online-shopping
Ashok Malik
=====
Ashok prin

Mass market online retailer ShopClues raises $100

million from Tiger Gobal
Aditi Shrivastava, ET Bureau Jan 19, 2015, 04.00AM IST

Tags:

Softbank|
silicon valley|
ShopClues|
Sanjay Sethi|
Nordstrom|
Nexus Venture Partners|
Lee Fixel|
Jeff Bezos|

Helion Venture Partners|

Goldman Sachs|
eBay|
Amazon

(The deal with Tiger Global)

BENGALURU: Mass market online retailer ShopClues has received funding of $100 million led by Tiger
Global, after turning down offers from the likes of Alibaba, Flipkart and Snapdeal, all of whom have been
aggressively courting the three-year old company.
The deal which closed in early January, values ShopClues at $350 million, and includes participation from
existing investors Helion Venture Partners and Nexus Venture Partners. Including the recent funding,
Shopclues has so far raised over $115 million.

"We will be investing money in technology, marketing and everything else that will enable more sellers to
come on our platform," said Radhika Aggarwal, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Shopclues. "Our
focus is to be the largest platform for unstructured, mass market, high-margin product categories."
Shopclues plans to close this fiscal with Rs 2,000 crore in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and break
even in mid 2016.
Shopclues, which enables small and medium-size merchants to transact online, positions itself as a
marketplace for the smaller cities buyers and sellers. Unlike the top three marketplaces -- Amazon,
Flipkart and Snapdeal -- Shopclues sells lesser known or unbranded items online, while the other top
three focus more on branded stuff.
Lee Fixel, a partner at Tiger Global Management, said that Shopclues has emerged as the leader
marketplace for more than 1,00,000 small and local businesses seeking to reach the mass consumer in
India's tier 2 and 3 cities. "The whole team has done a great job in aggregating the country's largest

online catalogue of regional and local brands and we are excited to work with them as they expand their
product offerings," said Fixel.
According to multiple sources, this focus for Shopclues has made it an attractive buy for the bigger ecom
players. "There's a very strong strategic interest in the company which is visible from Flipkart, Alibaba and
Snapdeal's engagements with Shopclues," according to one of Shopclues' investors. "Over time, I feel the
company will get acquired for a few billion dollars."
Sanjay Sethi and Radhika Aggarwal reiterated that they don't plan to sell the company at this point. "Right
now, our focus is to scale the business. Selling is not on the table," said CEO and co-founder Sethi.
Shopclues lists products sold by about 100,000 merchants and intends to ramp up this number up to
300,000 by the end of this year.
Since Amazon's entry into India, the country's e-commerce sector has been on fire, with some of the
biggest investors jostling to get a slice of the action. In 2014 alone, Flipkart, India's largest e-tailer, raised
a total of $1.9 billion, while Snapdeal received $627 million from Japan's Softbank in October. Amazon
founder Jeff Bezos has committed $2 billion to grow his company's Indian operations. According to
Nomura, India's fiercely competitive ecommerce market is estimated to grow to $43 billion by 2018.
According to investors, Shopclues current gross merchandise run rate is about $14 million per month. In
2014, the marketplace logged in sales of Rs 350 crore in GMV, which is around 4 times higher than the
money it raised to get to that number. In contrast, both Flipkart and Snapdeal have an efficiency ratio of
around 2-3 times GMV, signalling the efficient use of funds by Shopclues.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2015-0119/news/58231520_1_shopclues-radhika-aggarwal-snapdeal
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Online shopping sees 117% growth

PTI Nov 4, 2005, 07.30pm IST

NEW DELHI: As consumers went on a buying spree during the festive season of Diwali and Eid, they
have not even spared the online shopping sites, which reported a whopping 117 per cent increase in
sales.According to data release by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) online sales during
this festive stood at Rs 115 crore as against just Rs 53 crore last year.IAMAI said online sales registered
135 per cent increase in transaction and clocked over 8,10,000 transactions in three weeks as compared
to 3,45,000 in 2004-05 season."With e-commerce revenues to cross Rs 1,180 crore for 2005-06 and a
growing internet user base currently at more than 32 million its been a sparkling Diwali and Eid in 2005-06
as e-commmerce sales crossed to a whoppping Rs 115 crore in three weeks period," IAMAI president
Preeti Desai said in a statement.More than 4,15,000 Indians made an average purchase of Rs 1,420,
which ranged between Rs 1 to as high as Rs 1,40,000, using the online services this Diwali, it said.During
the entire festive season, the most active online shopping days were from October 28 to November
3.IAMAI said consumer preference for products remained more or less similar as that of last year, with
consumer electronics, such as digital cameras, mobile phones, DVD players and microwaves topping the
shopping list in major cities, followed by gifts, apparel, jewellery and acccessories.There were more than
3,60,000 products available in catalogue for the online consumers to shop, it said.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2005-11-04/news/27481115_1_onlineshopping-online-consumers-online-sales
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Online shopping is the next big thing

Sachin Dave & Monica Behura, TNN May 26, 2008, 05.24am IST

It's late afternoon on a Sunday . and you are in the middle of IPL's final match between Rajasthan Royals
and King's Punjab XI, and the wife reminds you that you have to go shopping. However bored you are,
you know that it's month end and you are left with no choice but to go shopping. You switch on your
laptop, visit at least three retail outlets' online shopping portals, shop for the best prices, and all this
without missing even a single Shane Warne delivery to Yuvraj Singh.
Online retailing or e-tailing has been a distant concept in India , except in the travel and ticketing sector.
The Future Group has been an early mover while others such as Reliance Retail, RPG Cellcom, and Tata
Woolworths are gearing up to launch their own online shopping portals.
Importantly , smaller players such as Vishal Retail, Subhiksha and Spinach too are seriously looking at etailing as a future revenue generator. Says R Subramanian, MD, Subhiksha, "We are investing Rs 12
crore into this venture and expect 3-4 % of total business coming from online. We'll deliver across 400
towns we are present in."
Other than shopping the website will be designed to provide buyers with information such as new store
opening, offers and promotions and so on. Vishal Retail is also looking at internet shopping, confirms its
MD Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, "We plan to launch our online shopping portal in the next 4-5 months, and
have already appointed a person to head the new venture."
He says prices on the portal will be 5-15 % lower than what a consumer pays in their stores. Figures
released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) state that the ecommerce market is
expected to reach the Rs 9,210 crore mark by the end of 2007-08 , a growth of 30% over the current year.
Online is the largest contributor to the B2C e-commerce industry at Rs 5,500 crore for the year 2006-07
and is expected to rise to Rs 7,000 crore by the end of 2007-08 . Etailing stands at Rs 850 crore in the
year 2006-07 and contributes maximum to the on-line nontravel industry. It is expected to be Rs 1,105
crore by end 2007-08 .
Reliance Retail is on the verge of rolling out its integrated e-tailing website that will include Reliance
Fresh, Digital, Trendz and other verticals. The company will set up its own call centre and a separate
team for it, says Ajay Baijal, president, Reliance Digital: "Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune are
going Wi-Fi and we see a massive opportunity here for online shopping."
Speciality mobile retail store chain RPG Cellcom too is making its on-line foray soon. Its marketing head
Bishwajeet Pandey says, "The prices on-line will be no different from our store price, and we plan to
charge a little extra for home delivery."
The challenges in replicating the success of physical stores online are very different, and retailers are
eyeing a different set of value adds and experience to hook customers. Some are planning to introduce
virtual shopping , where the customer can get a feel of moving around in a mall, and can click on the
items he/she wants to buy.
Mumbai-based Spinach is among those looking at virtual shopping. Says its CEO Pushpamitra Das,
"There's big business in on-line retailing and it's still untapped in India. We're planning a virtual shopping
experience which will be launched very soon."

Retailers have begun viewing IT as one of the areas, which could strengthen their market position, and
market share thereby. Most of the spending would be in supply chain management , point of sale
systems, strategic merchandising and facilitating customer relationships.
It is estimated that India, China and Russia would be spending over $1.57 billion in 2010 on software,
says a research report by AMR. The report mentions that retailers would hike their IT budget by 25% by
2010. Says Rob Garf, vice president and general manager of retail strategies at AMR Research, "To
support growth initiatives, retailers in India, China and Russia are focusing on building a technology
architecture."
Says Ajit Joshi, CEO, Tata Woolworths , "We'll either partner with TCS or IBM or a combination of both for
our e-commerce venture. We are conducting a detailed study since an online business should be
supported by excellent delivery systems."
Online retail is also expected to benefit the credit cards business. According to credit card companies,
retail has been instrumental in boosting average consumer spending per card at stores. According to an
AT Kearney report credit card transaction value in organised retail has been is growing at 35% in India.
So card issuers have been tying up with retail chains with an eye on larger prospects when online
shopping opens up in a big way by 2010.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2008-05-26/news/27697118_1_onlineshopping-e-tailing-internet-shopping
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Asia to become world's largest e-commerce market:

Report
PTI Dec 17, 2014, 12.01PM IST

Tags:

Online retail|
EIU|
Economist Intelligence Unit|
e-commerce market|
e-commerce


(Asia is set to surpass North)

BEIJING: Asia is set to surpass North America to become the world's largest e-commerce market this
year, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
According to a report in Beijing by the EIU yesterday, an advisory company under the Economist
magazine group, it is estimated that retail sales in Asia will grow by an average 4.6 per cent on a volume
basis to $7.6 trillion, compared with 2.5 per cent in North America and 0.8 per cent in Europe in 2015.

Report editor Laurel West said the Asian consumer market was largely driven by the rising independence
and economic power of Asia's women, and female consumers in Asia are showing an unprecedented
enthusiasm for online shopping, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The report comes in the backdrop of huge demand for e-commerce generated in China by platforms like
Alibaba which is picking up at a rapid pace in India.
The two countries together account for about three billion people.
The EIU report is based on a survey of 5,500 women across major cities on the Chinese mainland, Hong
Kong, Taiwan and Macao, as well as countries including India, Japan, Singapore and the Republic of
Korea.
Among the survey respondents, 43 per cent were in managerial, executive or professional services jobs.
Nearly half of the women agreed or strongly agreed that they preferred online- to in-store shopping.

The proportion on the Chinese mainland was as much as 69 per cent. Sixty-three per cent of those polled
browsed the Internet at least once a day for products and services, with nearly 30 per cent doing so twice
or more per day.
When choosing an online retailer, price and quality were the main factors considered, followed by genuine
products and convenience.

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-12-17/news/57154826_1_eiureport-largest-e-commerce-market-online-retailer