Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4, 2015 277
Prateek Kalia
Department of Research, Innovation and Consultancy,
Punjab Technical University
Jalandhar-Kapurthala Highway,
Near Pushpa Gujral Science City,
Kapurthala-144601, Punjab, India
Email: kalia.prateek@gmail.com
1 Introduction
It is estimated that Indian online retail will grow to 84 billion USD till 2016 (The Boston
Consulting Group, 2012). With internet population of 243,198,922 and penetration of just
19.1% (Internetlivestats.com, 2014). Electronic retail is about to sky rocket in the coming
future. Entry costs and barriers are low in online marketplace there are thousands of
aspiring e-retailers who dream to make it big in the market. Since entry is easy there is
stiff competition between existing and upcoming players and survival depends on how
they differentiate themselves from other business and create a profitable niche for
themselves, which focuses on segmenting, targeting and positioning. Apart from focused
strategy keeping expenses low, selection broad and inventory control are few more areas
that an e-retailer need to tweak for success (Laudon and Traver, 2009). A business model
is a conceptual framework based on which value is delivered to the customer, and
customers are lured to pay for that value, so that the enterprise get paid and make profit.
Big technological achievements may become commercially unsuccessful if business
model is poorly designed (Teece, 2010).
Figure 1 Indian online retail market size and growth (see online version for colours)
Figure 2 Comparative picture overall vs. online retail 2012–13 (see online version for colours)
Dec-13
Year Dec-09 Dec-10 Dec-11 Dec-12
(estimated)
Total market size 19,249 26,263 35,142 47,349 62,967
Online travel industry 14,953 20,440 26,572 34,544 44,907
(78%) (78%) (76%) (73%) (71%)
Online non-travel industry 4,296 5,823 8,570 12,805 18,060
(22%) (22%) (24%) (27%) (29%)
E-tailing 1550 2,372 3,842 6,454 10,004
Financial services 1540 1,848 2,255 2,886 3,607
Classifieds 775 1,085 1,682 2,354 3,061
Other online services 431 518 792 1,110 1,388
Note: Figures in crores, percentages indicate share of overall market size
Source: IAMAI (2013)
2.1.3 E-tailing
E-tailing comprises of buying consumer items such as books, apparels and footwear,
jewellery, mobiles, cameras, computers (desktops/laptops/net books/tablets), home and
kitchen appliances, home furnishings, vouchers/coupons, flowers and toys, gifts
online. The e-tailing category has grown from INR 1,550 crores in the year 2009
(Jan–Dec 2009) to INR 6,454 crores in year 2012 (Jan–Dec 2012) (Figure 3). This
category is estimated to cross the 10,000 crore mark in the year 2013 (IAMAI, 2013).
Figure 3 Growth of e-tail in India, 2009–2013 (see online version for colours)
home furnishings, i.e. INR 500 crores, INR 288 crores and INR 200 crores respectively.
Only about 3% is contributed by nascent category comprising products like
deals/coupons, toys, gifts, handicrafts, flowers etc (Table 2) (IAMAI, 2013).
Table 2 Components share of e-tailing, Jan–Dec 2012
Figure 4 Estimated monthly traffic (in millions) (see online version for colours)
Figure 5 Time spent per visit (in minutes) (see online version for colours)
Figure 6 Page view per visit (see online version for colours)
therefore they have lower search traffic and higher direct traffic. Contrary to that
Homeshop18 has high search traffic and low direct traffic. Myntra and Jabong have high
referral traffic, thorough coupon sites, affiliate partners etc. Myntra, and Jabong have
nearly 6% traffic coming from paid advertisements (Figure 7).
The basic business model and components of six top e-retailers of India (Table 3) are
discussed below.
Component
Basic business
S. no. eRetailer Organisational
model Value proposition Revenue model Competitive advantage Market strategy Management team
development
1 Myntra Virtual merchant Giving consumers the Sales revenue Cost leadership, product Focused on establishing itself Small organisation with Established by
(aggregator of power and ease of and transaction differentiation and as a brand and now it focuses 250 employees Mukesh Bansal,
many brands) purchasing lifestyle fee model customisation. Global service on overcoming barriers in Offers best in class salary to Ashutosh Lawania
and fashion products across 40 countries. consumer mind. attract and retain talent and Vineet Saxena in
online Positions itself as new age Employs better qualified February 2007.
fashion brand people as compared to its Headquartered in
Uses digital platform like competition Bangalore with
facebook and electronic media regional offices in
Top management employees New Delhi, Mumbai
to target youth included people with and Chennai
Also uses viral marketing, IIT/IIM background
occasional and referral Work structure is not
discounts bounded in terms of
Launching virtual trial hierarchy and cubicles.
room application
2 Flipkart Virtual merchant Completely hassle Sales revenue First mover in the Indian Marketed through word of Massive team of Founded by Sachin
Business model of top e-retailers based in India
(marketplace free online shopping and transaction electronic retail industry. mouth advertising 10,000 employees and Binny Bansal in
model/hybrid experience with best fee model Became India’s largest online Social networking like Keep the hiring process 2007
model) prices in India bookseller. facebook transparent to attract and Headquartered in
Boasts 100% growth every Effectively uses search engine retain right kind of talent Bangalore
quarter since founded. optimisation (SEO) and Prefer to hire a generalist
Introduce cash on delivery Google ad-words Every employee has high
Top e-retailers of India: business model and components
Component Table 3
Basic business
S. no. eRetailer Organisational
model Value proposition Revenue model Competitive advantage Market strategy Management team
development
3 Jabong Virtual merchant To achieve the highest Sales revenue Backed by German based Position itself as online Team of 1,000 employees Founded by Manu
(inventory model level of ‘customer and transaction Rocket Group. fashion destination closely monitored by the Kumar Jain, Praveen
P. Kalia
and managed satisfaction’ catering fee model Offers latest styles, new Internet is company’s main four co-founders and Sinha and Arun
marketplace to the fashion needs of fashion, customisation and source of promotion managing directors Chandra Mohan in
model) men, women and kids. innovations. Also focuses on television, Have a common and well October 2011
Wide variety of products; and launched its first TV identified goals and all Headquartered in
750+ brands and more than campaign in March 2012 departments work as team Gurgaon, NCR
50,000 products. Follow values, attitudes and Team members are chosen
Superfast delivery. lifestyles (VALS) model of as per job analysis and
Third-most visited online marketing cohesive functioning
shopping website after Launched digital fitness requirements
Myntra and Flipkart in India campaign with Bollywood Immediate responsibility
celebrities lies with the co-founders
Partnered with designer Keep organising knowledge
like Rohit Bal and and fun meetings with their
Lakme Fashion Week employees.
4 HS18 Virtual merchant Customer centric Sales revenue Venture of Network18 Group Dual advantage of on air as Team of over 3,500 people Launched on
(direct-to- offers, enriched with Presence across TV, web, well as online presence in 30 bureau locations 18 January 2011
customer model) quality, value, and catalogue, newspaper and Launched India’s first 24 hour (three are overseas) Founded by
convenience. mobile. home shopping TV channel Simple organisational Sundeep Malhotra
More than over 450 brands Homeshop18 joined hands structure composed of Headquartered at
and 1,00,000 SKUs. with social media platforms marketing, operations, Noida and has another
Strong distribution network and top online companies finance and planning and office at Bangalore.
across 3,000 cities Continuously upgrade their broadcasting departments
technology to support and Horizontal/traditional
Business model of top e-retailers based in India (continued)
Component
Basic business
S. no. eRetailer Organisational
model Value proposition Revenue model Competitive advantage Market strategy Management team
development
5 Snapdeal Virtual merchant Offering customers Transaction Constant innovation and good Believe in doing things the big Team of 1000+ employees Headquartered in
(pure-play favourite products at fee model branding. way and creating the buzz One third of the manpower New Delhi
marketplace best prices and save Convenient and accessible through innovative ways is employed in sales team Started by Kunal Bahl
model) the one thing that processes/services. Celebrity endorsement Other important related and Rohit Bansal in
matters most to Wide range of deals and OOH promotion inhouse functions like 2010
buyer i.e. ‘money’. transactions content, online marketing,
Corporate social responsibility
Extensive network of retailers initiatives to boost image. customer support and core
Awarded as best ecommerce functional teams like human
startup resource, administration,
finance, accounts and
10–15% in engineering role
6 Amazon.in Virtual merchant To be Earth’s most Transaction Seasoned online retailer with Big advertising budget About 3,000 employees Launched in
(pure-play customer centric fee model experience of almost a decade Use almost every type of Organisational structure has June 2013 in India
marketplace company; to build a Extremely wide assortment of marketing medium business line function Registered office
model) place where people 1.5 crore products Primarily they use television comprising retail, at Bangalore with
can come to find and Gain from economies of scale to highlight about their selling international retail, seller fulfilment centres at
discover virtually and operate at minimum profit propositions (USPs) services, web services and Mumbai and
anything they want to digital media; and in support Bangalore
buy online. Get advantage out of their Promotional offers like special
functions it has
Business model of top e-retailers based in India (continued)
Top e-retailers of India: business model and components
Jabong is a virtual merchant which follows both inventory model and a managed
marketplace model. In the inventory model, Jabong procures products from different
brands and store them as inventory at their warehouse. In managed marketplace model
Jabong only takes care of customer service and returns and do not store any inventory.
Apart from ecommerce Jabong had its logistic operations, JaVAS which served other
ecommerce firms and covered 50–55 cities. But in 2013 Jabong sold JaVAS to QuickDel,
a Gurgaon-based logistic company (SN, 2014; Soni and Mohta, 2014).
Homeshop18 is a leading virtual merchant having presence across TV, internet and
mobile. They follow direct-to-customer model i.e. they workout certain margins directly
with the brands, so that the pass on the price benefit to the final customer. Although these
margin vary across different product categories but customer always gets value for
money. Homeshop18 is revolutionising the ecommerce industry with a concept of
‘personalised recommendations’ in which Homeshop18 recommends products/option that
best suit consumer’s needs (India Infoline News Service, n.d.).
Snapdeal is a virtual online retailer which made a shift to pure-play marketplace
model in 2011 i.e. it does not stock and sell any product itself but it has more than 20,000
sellers registered on its website. By end of 2014 Snapdeal has targeted to achieve upto
50,000 merchants on its portal. Since Snapdeal is focused on its marketplace model, all of
its technological solutions are directed towards its sellers or buyers. To connect buyers
and sellers it has created an automated tech platform. It also has its own payment solution
known as Klickpay (Nair, 2014).
To gain access to Indian market, where foreign investment is prohibited, Amazon
started with the launch of Junglee.com in February 2012. Amazon entered Indian
ecommerce market in June 2013 as virtual merchant, operating as pure-play marketplace
player, enabling third-party sellers to get hold of customers. Biggest advantage of being
marketplace operator is that the company does not have to comply with the FDI
restriction, as no inventory is required. Amazon operates with marketplace model in ten
countries including China, USA, Canada, Japan and UK (BS Reporter, 2013).
customer care which render excellent buying experience, vast selection of products,
timely delivery and fast resolution to any concern (Jabong.com, 2014).
Homeshop18 works around the concept of what ‘you’ like. This core value is
reflected in quality, value, and convenience they put in their website, catalogue, payment
options or special offers. Homshp18 has comprehensive presence offering more than
1,000 Indian and international brands, having 3,000 plus delivery locations, secure
payment transactions, round the clock customer care, convenient payment options and
highly interactive product demonstrations (Homeshop18.com, 2014b).
Being India’s largest electronic commerce marketplace, Snapdeal has widest range of
national and international products from different brands, and its product category is
quite extensive covering laptops, cameras, mobiles, home appliances, apparel for men
and women, home, kitchen, health, automotive, watches etc. Snapdeal has over
20 million members i.e. 1 out of every six internet users in India. With a network of
50,000 merchants Snapdeal serve to shopping requirements of customer throughout
4,000 plus cities and towns. Snapdeal aims to give customer best price offer and a money
saving deal along with benefits like safe and secure payments, Trustpay (seven days
return policy and 100% money back) COD and discount coupons (Snapdeal.com, 2014a,
2014b).
With customer centric approach Amazon, positions itself as a place where customer
can search and buy virtually anything. For customer Amazon strives to surpass customer
expectations by offering them vast selection of products at amazingly low price and
superfast delivery, for sellers they offer world-class e-commerce platform (BS Reporter,
2013).
three days in other cities), quality customer service and flexible payment options. Within
few months of its launch Jabong derived highest amount of traffic on its website. Google
Zeitgeist India trends ranked it tenth most searched term in 2012 in India. That is not just
all, it ranked 44 in Alexa traffic ranking in India and within 20 months of its launch it
became third-most visited online shopping website after Myntra and Flipkart in India
(Saxena, 2013).
HomeShop18 is online and on-air retail marketing and distribution venture of
Network18 group having presence across TV, web, catalogue, newspaper and mobile.
Homeshop18 has a customer base of 2 million and they add a new customer every
6 seconds. Homshop18 have more than 450 brands and 1,00,000 SKUs. They have a
strong distribution network across 3,000 cities and products are delivered at doorstep
with an average timeframe of seven days from order. Homeshop18 offers Armchair
Shopping, with all kind of payment options, 15 days money back guarantee and free
home delivery (The Telegraph, 2011).
Snapdeal believes in constant innovation and good branding. They keep their
processes and services convenient and accessible. They offer wide range of deals and
transactions which are delivered to the final customer through their extensive network of
retailers through India. Their quality and initiative has earned them various awards and
recognitions including best ecommerce startup (Mbaskool.com, 2014).
Amazon is a seasoned online retailer with experience of almost a decade and super
strong customer base across the world. They have extremely wide assortment of 1.5 crore
products, covering almost everything. They gain from economies of scale and operate at
minimum profit.
They also get advantage out of their good business relationships with leading
electronic companies and publishing houses (Amazon.in, 2014).
advertisements themed ‘No kidding no worries’, to convey a message to the audience that
– if a kid can shop online, so can you (Tripathi and Tripathi, 2014).
Internet is company’s main source of promotion as mentioned earlier about its strong
internet traffic rankings. Apart from internet company also focuses on television, and
launched its first TV campaign in March 2012. Jabong in association with Puma,
launched ‘Gear up buddy’, a digital fitness campaign which featured Bollywood actor
Chitrangada Singh and recently it launched its new theme titled ‘Be you’ and endorsing it
with 360-degree multimedia campaign. Leading marketing consultants conceive that
Jabong is abiding by values, attitudes and lifestyles (VALS) model of marketing, which
is a proprietary research methodology used for psychographic market segmentation. It
guides the company to customise and orient its products and services, that charm most
likely customer (Sen, 2014). Since Jabong strives to position itself a online fashion
destination it has partnered with designer Rohit Bal (for an exclusive collection) and
Lakme fashion week for next four seasons (Fashionunited.in, 2014).
Homeshop18 is backed by Network18, which is only media company in the world
which has partnered with three of the world’s largest media conglomerates. Homeshop18
has dual advantage, because it is having on air as well as online presence. It launched
India’s first 24 hour home shopping TV channel on April 9, 2008. As a part of its
marketing strategy HomeShop18 joined hands with social media platforms and top online
companies like Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube and various other
online shopping sites. Homeshp18 continuously upgrade their technology to support and
develop its e-commerce business, growing product range and steadfast website traffic.
In addition, it is also reinforcing its call centre by putting huge investments into it
(The Telegraph, 2011).
Snapdeal believe in doing things in big way and exposing it to the wide audience.
Buzz and hit the right spot describes their first marketing strategy. Snapdeal used
celebrity endorsement and created lot of excitement on last Valentine’s Day with an
innovative ‘Date with me’ – Gul Panag campaign. Snapdeal’s next big thing is to hit the
outdoors. Recently they put a massive Snapdeal banner on a building at Gurgaon’s – DLF
cyber city. Under corporate social responsibility initiative Snapdeal.com supported a
village, by enabling easy access to portable drinking water and the villagers expressed
their gratitude by naming the village – Snapdeal.com Nagar. In short, Snapdeal’s
dynamic marketing approach includes doing things the big way and creating the buzz
through innovative ways (Snapdeal Team, 2011).
Amazon is using almost every type of marketing medium to mark their presence in
India, but primarily they use television to highlight about their selling propositions
(USPs) like wide range of products and one day delivery. Various promotional offers like
special weekend discounts are advertised in print medium and to increase traction on the
website product specific online ads are used. A huge Amazon delivery box is framed at
key locations of business hubs and various cities. It is only a year since Amazon has
started its operation in India, but this fiscal year (2014–15) it has planned to spend
Rs 100–150 crore on advertising (Dasgupta, 2014).
with IIT/IIM background, who have quit their high profile jobs to be part of this
company. Work structure at Myntra is not bounded in terms of hierarchy and cubicles.
There are various departments like firm infrastructure, human resource management,
technology, procurement, outbound logistics and marketing and sales. to maintain
excitement and zest in atmosphere at workplace, they hire spirited people (Kumar, 2012;
Soni, 2012).
Flipkart has a massive team of 10,000 employees (Press Trust of India, 2014).
Flipkart knows that right kind of human resource is key factor for the success of a startup.
Therefore they keep the hiring process transparent to attract and retain right kind of
talent. They prefer to hire a generalist, who is adaptable and has a learning attitude in a
fast pace environment, instead of specialist (Das, 2012). Every employee has an high
sense of ownership on individual and collective level (Das, 2012).
Jabong has a qualified and growing team of 1,000 employees, which work in various
departments headed and closely monitored by the four co-founders and managing
directors of Jabong.com. Mukul Bafana, Manu Kumar Jain, Arun Chandra Mohan and
Praveen Sinha. They have a common and well identified goals and all departments work
as team. Team members are chosen as per job analysis and cohesive functioning
requirements of the company. Immediate responsibility lies with the co-founders and they
keep organising knowledge and fun meetings with their employees, to keep them
motivated and zestful (Nair and Julka, 2013; Saxena, 2013).
Being a venture of Network18 Group which is India’s fastest growing media and
entertainment group, Homeshop18 is supported by a team of over 3,500 people spread
across 30 bureau locations out of which three are overseas. It has fully integrated
broadcast and other infrastructure, including state-of-the-art hubs in Mumbai and Delhi,
spread in about 220,000 sq. ft area (Mehta, 2014). The organisational structure is quite
simple and composed of marketing, operations, finance and planning and broadcasting
departments for a effortless functioning of the organisation. Homeshop18 has got
horizontal organisational structure, popularly known as traditional structure but at times it
transforms into bureaucratic structure when number of levels in the hierarchy increase.
This formal organisation helps proper distribution of work and responsibility. Every
department has supervisors and subordinates based on specialisations and expert area.
Snapdeal has a team of 1,000 plus employees. Out of many teams at Snapdeal, one
third of the manpower is employed in sales team, who negotiate with vendors selling
product and services through website. Apart from sales team which work with thousands
of merchants to bring them onboard, there are other important related inhouse functions
like content, online marketing, customer support and core functional teams like
human resource, administration, finance, accounts and 10–15% in engineering role
(Snapdeal.com, 2014a; Team YS, 2012a, 2012b).
Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore hosts three development centres of Amazon,
where about 3,000 employees work. Organisational structure at Amazon has business line
function comprising retail, international retail, seller services, web services and digital
media; and in support functions it has communication, legal and e-commerce platform.
Top e-retailers of India: business model and components 293
• Basic business model – Indian law restricts FDI in online retail and keeping
inventory is costly affair. Therefore, most of the leading e-retailers are shifting to
marketplace model in pure (Snapdeal and Amazon.in) or hybrid form (Flipkart and
Jabong) except Homeshop18 which has direct-to-customer model i.e. they directly
interact and work on certain margins with the brands and share that price benefit
with their customers. In current scenario marketplace model is highly recommended.
• Value proposition – It has been observed in the study that top e-retailers offer
different value propositions to their customers like ease, convenience and experience
(Myntra, Flipkart. HS18), best price/value for money (Flipkart, Snapdeal, HS18),
customer satisfaction/orientation (Jabong, Amazon.in), quality (HS18) and wide
assortment of products (Amazon.in). These value propositions can be benchmarked
by other competitors.
• Revenue model – As observed under this study, Myntra, Flipkart and Jabong have
sales revenue and transaction fee model; Homeshop18 has sales revenue model and
Snapdeal and Amazon.in have transaction fee model.
• Competitive advantage – In last five years Indian online retail industry has grown
nine folds and competitive environment is heating up. E-retailers are riding on their
competitive advantages like, cost leadership, product differentiation, customisation
and global service/presence (Myntra); good market position, experience, first mover
advantage, introduction of new services (COD) and huge user base (Flipkart); strong
parent company/lineage (Jabong, HS18); deep penetration (HS18); innovation,
branding, convenient and accessible processes/services (Snapdeal) and rich
experience, economies of scale and good business relations with major brands
(Amazon.in).
• Market strategy – It is observed that television is most popular traditional media
which is used by different e-retailers. Another medium on which companies are
focusing is internet i.e. using social networking, SEO and online advertisements.
Few other strategies are celebrity endorsement (Jabong, Snapdeal), fashion events
(Jabong), out of home (OOH) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative to
boost image (Snapdeal).
• Organisational development – In terms of number of employees Flipkart has
massive team of 10,000 employees, followed by Homeshop18 and Amazon.in
having 3,500 and 3,000 employees respectively. Snapdeal and Jabong have
1,000 employees each and Myntra is smallest of all with just 250 employees.
When it comes to organisational structure, majority of e-retailers have formal
departmentalisation (Jabong, Homeshop18, Snapdel and Amazon.in), except
Myntra and Flipkart where work structure is not bounded in terms of hierarchy and
cubicles. Considering the complex nature of processes from ordering to fulfilment in
e-business, formal departmentalisation is recommended.
• Management team – Managing technology-based business requires both, education
and exposure; therefore, most of the top executives have high educational
qualifications from reputed academic institutes of India (IITs, IIMs etc) or from
foreign universities. Secondly, Bangalore and NCR have emerged as preferred
locations for electronic retails to house their head offices.
Top e-retailers of India: business model and components 295
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Notes
1 Statistics taken for April 2014.