Places to buy great lamps and handicrafts in Bangalore

We are an online brand but have a keen eye on exquisite stuff that is available across various retail stores. 

Here are a few in Bangalore that are very interesting :

1) The Purple Turtles

    This is located in Domlur second stage and has some really high end stuff with exquisite colours.

2) The Ant Store

    This is a crafts store showcasing North Eastern Handicraft. It also has a cafe on top. Located in Indiranagar, it is sometimes difficult to find it but once you are there, you dont want to leave.

3) IndyaKaleidoscope

    This place in Koramangala has great things from all over India, like pottery from Manipur and exquisite art work from Rajasthan

KraftInn Showcase at NEDFI Guwahati

We recently attended the NEDFI exhibiition in Guwahati and showcased some of our products. Here are some pictures :

Fig 1: Contemporary Floor Lamp (Large) : http://www.kraftinn.com/contemporary-floor-lamp

Fig 2: Hofura Yellow Lamp : http://www.kraftinn.com/lamps/table-lamps/hofura-yellow-table-lamp

Fig 3: Zeng Lamp : http://www.kraftinn.com/lamps/table-lamps/zeng-lamp

Top Ecommerce Websites in India

A quick reckoner for top Ecommerce Websites in India (not in any particular order)

General

Flipkart.com
Yebhi.com
Myntra.com
Jabong.com
HomeShop18.com
Indiatimes.com
Rediff.com
FutureBazaar.com
FashionAndYou.com
Fetise.com

MarketPlaces

Ebay.in
Snapdeal.com
Amazon.in
ShopClues.com
CraftsVilla.com

Aggregators

Naaptol.com
Junglee.com

Apparel/Fashion

Zovi.com
Freecultr.com
DonebyNone.com
Yepme.com
Zivame.com
Cilory.com
BagsKart.com
StiffCollar.com
BasicsLife.in
Bewakoof.com
Bluegape.com

Jewellery

juvalia.in
Caratlane.com
Bluestone.com
JewelsKart.com

Accessories

Lenskart.com
WatchKart.com

Health

HealthKart.com
Goodlife.com
NaturalMantra.com

Grocery

Bigbasket.com
Zopnow.com

Sports Goods

Playgroundonline.com
Sports365.in


HomeDecor

Zansaar.com
Fabfurnish.com
Urbanladder.com
KraftInn.com
HeavenandHome.com
BedBathandMore.com

Niche

Engrave.in

Baby Products

FirstCry.com
Babyone.com
Hushbabies.com

Ecommerce/Payments

Zepo.in
Martjack.com
Ebs.in
CCAvenue.com
BuildaBazaar.com
PayU.in

Facebook Marketing : Creating a Good Facebook Post

As a small ecommerce based business, one of our key marketing tools is Facebook. I am not privy to the spend of others or the reach, but based on the Facebook insights, there are a few things we have learnt.

Take a look at our last 5 posts in our Facebook page  (from Facebook Insights view. We have 12k odd fans). The * indicates the posts that are much more engaging than other posts
 
Post # 5 - A long image with lot of text with funny anecdotes and a link to our website. No of likes -7, No of shares - 1

Post #4 - Image of one of our Products and link to product. No of likes -30,No of shares-2

Post #3 - A wonderful image of many of our products arranged with a link to our website. No of likes -76, No of Shares -2

Post #2 - A funny timely image with a reference to a recent political event. No of likes -13, No of Shares-1

Post #1  - A simple image with one our products, an engaging quote and a link. No of likes - 25 likes, No of Shares  - 1 (this is only 2 hours old as of now)

In Summary Post #3 and Post #1 seem to work very well.

I also looked at older Text only Posts, Video Posts and so on.
Here are my top (although fairly generic findings)

1) Images are the most engaging of all posts. They are the quick wins

2) Text messages seem to reach to a large audience very fast but engagement is usually poor.

3) Videos especially ones that are about your brand dont seem to do well. Maybe Youtube is still the right place to go when it comes to Video. Its too much hardwork and low ROI at facebook. Though a good viral video may do wonders, creating such a video requires lot of hardwork, luck, skill etc

4) People like simple images. A great image needs to be focused. Too much text or highly intellectual content finds limited takers. Funny is good, clever is good as long as it is easy to get.

5) Users tend to share images where the brand message is not the main focus. An excellent brand focused message that is clever, interesting or funny gets a lot of likes but not necessarily a lot of shares.

6) Too much text does not work too well unless it is like a short story

7) Specific Links for Specific Images : If the image of a product that has a low chance of getting shared as it is something specific to your offering, it is better to provide a specific link than the generic website link.

8) Website Link for Generic Images - In case of a generic image(example funny image) that will probably get shared, it may help to put the generic website link that you want to promote as it will probably reach a complete new audience who will click on the link for curiosity

We have just about 12k fans and these are just generic observations that may be helpful. Hence sharing. Do let us know what works for you.

Payment Gateways in India

One of the key parts of an Ecommerce store is a Payment Gateway. In the west, payment solutions have made it very simple for vendors to integrate a gateway to their stores - for e.g integrating with a paypal is a breeze. However, it is extremely painful to onboard a payment gateway especially if you are a small player. This is primarily because of two reasons :

1) Paperwork - For enabling payments, each bank has its own set of procedures and it takes upwards of two months to get your netbanking, debit and credit card payments approved by the leading banks. The usual reason is regulation and RBI guidelines but the moot point is it all takes quite a bit of time.

2) Charges based on size - Typically Indian payment gateways charge an initial fee and annual maintenance fee. If you pay a higher amount, you get a lower commission charge and so on - typically if you a very small vendor, the charges are very high - mostly 5% and annual AMC separately. The question is why cant they take a one time charge for the paperwork and have a 2% commission for all transactions ?

We have had a good experience with our payment gateways so far but the charges are still extremely high. Flipkart has recently started its own service called Payzippy and they seem to have gotten rid of all the strange charges and made it more democratic - Hopefully this will shake the market a bit and things will become a bit more reasonable. Fingers crossed.

Inventory vs MarketPlace

'Inventory or Marketplace ?', this is one of the pertinent questions of our times in the context of ecommerce. While the inventory model means that the ecommerce site has to carry inventory of all products it sells, the marketplace model requires the ecommerce site to act as a exchange platform between buyers and sellers and it charges a commission. The upside of a inventory model is faster delivery times and a consistent customer experience while this also means higher inventory and supply chain costs. The marketplace model shift most of the inventory risks and costs to the sellers but it becomes a continuous challenge to manage seller and buyer expectation in a consistent and fair manner.

Though both models look like chalk and cheese, it is important to remember that that the basics are the same from a business model perspective :

1) Efficient Inventory Management - For a great customer experience, having just the right amount of inventory is very important. Nothing is as annoying as telling a customer after two weeks that his or her order cannot be serviced. For websites that carry inventory, this means 'sell what you have' while for marketplaces, it is manage sellers to create a structure where sellers who manage their inventory well are incentivised (this can be done using feedback systems)

2) Efficient Delivery - Getting orders delivered in reasonable time is important for ecommerce. While for inventory based models, this is about managing inventory efficiently, for marketplaces, this is about not overdoing checkpoints and reducing unnecessary logistics costs.

3) Customer Management - Though customer service is paramount, it is worthwhile to remember that there are segments of customers that are still not ready for Ecommerce. 

At KraftInn, we have had some experience in both models - We use the inventory model for our website -www.kraftinn.com while we participate in the marketplace model in marketplaces like Ebay as a seller.

As a seller, we feel it is important to get the right balance between seller satisfaction and customer satisfaction and there are certain things that marketplaces should not do. Here is a small list :

  There are three key stakeholders in a marketplace model and it is important to get the right balance between the three.

 No matter whether its the inventory model or the marketplace model, the ecommerce space is hyper competitive and the ones which get the right mix are the ones that will work. We are a very small player and this is just the beginning of an exciting journey :) 

Will the internet kill all large traditional businesses ?

The other day, I dropped by Coffee Day(indian coffee chain - startbucks equivalent). Adjacent to it was the well loved Crossword store and I clearly remember that there was a connecting glass door somewhere which let people who had come for coffee to stroll by and look up books and dvds and vice versa. I could see some books lying about but the place looked empty and the glass door seem to have vanished. So, I casually asked the Coffee day guy and he told me something to the effect that the place was shutting down. It was kind of a gentle shock for me and though I could hardly remember buying a book from Crossword, hanging about in bookshops has been one of the idle pleasures of urban life.Then it struck me, that though I dont read a lot these days, there was a time I spent a couple of thousand rupees on books every month and most of it was at Crosswords. In the last six months, that spend had got diverted to online stores like flipkart and in many cases I could just read for free - flipboard etc. I have no idea whether the store actually closed down due to business reasons or whether it was just a phase of temporary shutdown due to renovation etc but like in the US, book businesses everywhere seem to be facing major challenges and most if not all is due to the internet.

The internet is quite puzzling. Consider this :

1) Email is free - only a decade or so ago, people used to send telegrams and pay per word. Its weird that a service that is many many times faster and reliable is actually cheaper - well not just cheaper, free.

2) There was a time only 15 years ago, when we used to attend book festivals to buy editions of Enclyclopedia for thousands of rupees. Now you just get a million times of that content for free. Also, searching this mammoth knowledge base again is free.

3) Music is basically free. If you are a music lover with generic tastes like most of us, gaana.com gives you almost everything you need - For free.

In short, the internet has turned most industries on its head :

1) Book industry - Why would you buy a book if you can download it ? Traditional booksellers are just looking one way and that is down.

2) Music industry - It was only ten years ago that you could just walk along Planet M at Brigade Road, Bangalore and sample out music before buying. Now, its difficult to imagine people buying CDs

3) Post Office - The Indian Post office just stopped the telegraph service.

Which ones will be next ? The movie industry, the retail industry , enterprise software products.

All this obviously means that if someone is losing out, someone must be winning. So who should be the winners, obviously the internet companies - but if you look a bit closer at the internet companies, if you leave out the leaders, most are struggling to make money...Giving things free actually costs money, giving discounts actually cost money. The internet can be a democratic force giving the small guy a chance to compete but it has probably made the race so competitive that its a race towards the bottom and may kill a lot of industries in its run and maybe hurt itself on its way. The good part is you dont need a license to join the race.