eCommerce in India - A blog by Darpan Munjal

My daughter will be turning 5 in a few days and unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to celebrate the birthday with her because she is currently in Chicago with her Mom. So I was talking to her on the phone, and asked her what would she like for her birthday present. She thought for a few seconds and then asked me inquisitively – “Daddy, how are you going to get me a present? You are in India, remember?” Smart question, I thought. But few seconds later, came an even smarter response from her. “I know!” “How about if you order it on your computer and, like before, I will get it in that brown box from Toys’R’Us .com“. I thought to myself – wow my little daughter is growing up. She may not understand what eCommerce is but she does understand that you can do something in the computer, and few days later a brown box is waiting for her in the front of the house! She almost believes that Toys’R’us has deputed little magical Santas inside every computer, and they are able to send exactly the toy children wish for!!


What really impressed me was the fact that she remembered Toys’R’Us.com and could associate it with someone who could help in meeting her birthday wish. This got me thinking about how online retailers in US have been able to create a unique enough differentiation for themselves where customers know exactly what these retailers stand for. There are some retailers in US that are still struggling with this, but at a broad level, most of the retailers (online as well as traditional) have found a unique proposition for the customers. Whether it is the largest assortment (Amazon.com) or value for money (overstock.com) or discount electronics (Newegg.com) or Jewelry & Gifts (Bluenile.com) or upscale household category (William-Sonoma) or a great service experience (Zappos.com), there is a lot of differentiation. If a 5 year old can recall Toys’R’Us when they are thinking of toys, imagine how easy would it be for a grown up to do the same across various categories. Then I thought about the Indian context and I tried really hard to think about all the unique things that the online retailers in India stand for. I thought about product assortment, pricing, categories, service and after trying really hard, I wasn’t able to come up with any meaningful differentiation that really sets one retailer apart from other. True, there are some retailers that offer a bigger assortment than others – but more or less all other dimensions are similar across most of the online retailers.


Then I thought, what is it that Indian customers think about before shopping at one retailer vs. other. I also asked this question to a lot of individuals who I know have been online shoppers for quite some time. The results of this “unscientific” study were very disturbing Continue reading �

US based online shoes retailer Zappos.com was mentioned in this story that it has reached 6 million paying customers.  Although this is a major accomplishment, what is even more amazing is the fact that three fourth of shoppers who make purchase on Zappos.com are repeat customers. This got me thinking – how many retailers use “repeat customers” as the metric to measure success. Most of the online retailers that I am aware of think of Revenue or Gross Profit or EBITDA or net-profit as a proxy for measuring success. These metrics are certainly better than the dot com days in 2000 when online businesses were happy with just measuring the online visits – primarily because they didn’t have any real sales to report on anyways. However, are these metrics telling anything about how the customer’s purchase experience has been on the site? I would argue that these metrics are lagging indicators of performance. In other words Continue reading �

So you have built a decent looking eCommerce website, pumped up the marketing spend and you are getting good amount of visitors on the site. However, you are facing a problem that most of the newer online retailers face initially – your conversion rate is extremely low. You are baffled why majority of the visitors are not purchasing anything on the site and you ask your head of marketing to look for the answers. Although having a good marketing plan and execution is necessary in bringing visitors to your site, a lot of times, the answer lies within how your website is designed. Here are the top 10 blunders in eCommerce design that can cause the conversion rate to go south -

Blunder #10: No “About Us” page or privacy policy

Educated consumers look for certain things on a site they might do business with. Are there privacy polices? Do they have a return or exchange policy? How about shipping costs and timelines, are they posted? Are there any real sounding testimonials and pictures of the warehouse or sellers that let me get an idea that this company is for real, especially when dealing with newer online only retailers? Although it is reasonable to assume that most people don’t read such things as the policies and the like. But the fact that they are there builds confidence in the customer, that yours is a serious business.

Blunder #9: Where is the price?

Nothing irritates a visitor more than to read all the excellent product description and sales copy, only to read it all and still have to ask the most important question… how much is it ? Continue reading �

I often think about my shopping experience at an online retailer in US - Landsend.com. I purchased a shirt from this retailer using their web site. I typically do not purchase apparel online, because of concerns related to fit and quality. However, I liked the shirt and decided to purchase it. Although the purchase experience was great, the story doesn’t end here. One year later, I called them to purchase some additional clothes. At this point, I casually mentioned to the CSR that I wasn’t too happy with the quality of one of the shirts I purchased from them in the past. The CSR first apologized and then offered to send me a replacement for no additional charge. Since this incident, I have probably shopped with Lands’End atleast 8-10 times.

This incident got me thinking Continue reading �