Well, quite a lot of development at in.com! We saw lots of online as well as television advertisement followed by some noticeable alliances with entertainment programs and now this movement of their vertical portals like Buzz18 and Storeguru to in.com. So, is web18 group moving from vertical portals to a horizontal one? Read More At Marketing Chit-Chat

Indian Internet Industry

Vertical to Horizontal: Web18

Well, quite a lot of development at in.com! We saw lots of online as well as television advertisement followed by some noticeable alliances with entertainment programs and now this movement of their vertical portals like Buzz18 and Storeguru to in.com. So, is web18 group moving from vertical portals to a horizontal one? Read More At Marketing Chit-Chat

Well, Rakhi season is here and as expected all my inboxes are flooded with promo mailers from different e-commerce sites about online Rakhi hampers and packs. After going through different mailers and hampers on offer, I settled for one of the Rakhi packs from rediff.com shopping portal. I have been sending Rakhi through online shopping for last 5 years I think. Though it is bit expensive than the normal post / courier service but I still prefer it over those primarily because of delivery guarantee and presentation / packaging. I have faced some irritating issues earlier when Rakhi was not delivered on time even after couriering it well in advance and once I remember I had sent the Rakhi and a small gift in a very beautiful packet only to come to know later that my brother had only received Rakhi in an open envelope without any gift inside :-). So, considering the assurance and convenience which I get while sending it through these e-commerce sites I find it to be justified to spend those extra bucks for it.

But I must say unlike few years back, this year it took me some time to make my purchase decision mainly because every online shopping was having some or other interesting thing to offer with almost nil price differentiation. Another interesting thing to be noticed was the way packets were described in these portals, instead of simply saying packet consists of 1 Rakhi, 1 card, etc. most of them were focusing on the packaging and the relevance of it to the tradition of Rakhi. Ehhh quite attractive and strong marketing so to say. E-commerce sites are learning it well to push online shopping esp. during festivals in India. Despite the price curve moving steeply upwards during peak season these sites are very much able to sell their products as there is a certain set of TG in Indian market now who is becoming used to the convenience of online shopping.

Infact last week only I had read an interesting article in ET about internet shopping catching up fastly in India. As per the statistics, eBay India is selling one product a minute and its not only software or tech product which is being sold, rather its surprising to know that one of the most common products sold online is jewelery. Here are some other interesting figures from that ET article (dated 3^rd Aug’08) about eBay India which reinforces the surge of internet shopping in India.

• On an average day a piece of jewellery is sold every seven minutes, a coin or note sells every 16 minutes, a stamp sells every 19 minutes, an apparel sells every 22 minutes and a book is sold every 27 minutes on eBay India

• 70-75% of buyers on eBay India are from age group of 25-30 years.

• It is jewellery that is the most sought product on this site.

• Buying trend wise electronic gadgets are popular among male buyers and jewellery is the obvious choice of Indian women.

• Apart from jewellery, apparel category is the other area which is a favorite among women buyers.

Apparel and jewellery being bought online in India, online shopping is really catching up then :-)

Indian Internet Industry · Marketing

Internet shopping boom in India

Well, Rakhi season is here and as expected all my inboxes are flooded with promo mailers from different e-commerce sites about online Rakhi hampers and packs. After going through different mailers and hampers on offer, I settled for one of the Rakhi packs from rediff.com shopping portal. I have been sending Rakhi through online shopping for last 5 years I think. Though it is bit expensive than the normal post / courier service but I still prefer it over those primarily because of delivery guarantee and presentation / packaging. I have faced some irritating issues earlier when Rakhi was not delivered on time even after couriering it well in advance and once I remember I had sent the Rakhi and a small gift in a very beautiful packet only to come to know later that my brother had only received Rakhi in an open envelope without any gift inside :-). So, considering the assurance and convenience which I get while sending it through these e-commerce sites I find it to be justified to spend those extra bucks for it.

But I must say unlike few years back, this year it took me some time to make my purchase decision mainly because every online shopping was having some or other interesting thing to offer with almost nil price differentiation. Another interesting thing to be noticed was the way packets were described in these portals, instead of simply saying packet consists of 1 Rakhi, 1 card, etc. most of them were focusing on the packaging and the relevance of it to the tradition of Rakhi. Ehhh quite attractive and strong marketing so to say. E-commerce sites are learning it well to push online shopping esp. during festivals in India. Despite the price curve moving steeply upwards during peak season these sites are very much able to sell their products as there is a certain set of TG in Indian market now who is becoming used to the convenience of online shopping.

Infact last week only I had read an interesting article in ET about internet shopping catching up fastly in India. As per the statistics, eBay India is selling one product a minute and its not only software or tech product which is being sold, rather its surprising to know that one of the most common products sold online is jewelery. Here are some other interesting figures from that ET article (dated 3^rd Aug’08) about eBay India which reinforces the surge of internet shopping in India.

• On an average day a piece of jewellery is sold every seven minutes, a coin or note sells every 16 minutes, a stamp sells every 19 minutes, an apparel sells every 22 minutes and a book is sold every 27 minutes on eBay India

• 70-75% of buyers on eBay India are from age group of 25-30 years.

• It is jewellery that is the most sought product on this site.

• Buying trend wise electronic gadgets are popular among male buyers and jewellery is the obvious choice of Indian women.

• Apart from jewellery, apparel category is the other area which is a favorite among women buyers.

Apparel and jewellery being bought online in India, online shopping is really catching up then :-)

Yesterday while just casually browsing through ET, one piece which caught my immediate attention was how internet is changing the face of Indian Art Industry. Indian Art and Internet, oh wow what a lovely combination as both happen to be my special areas of interests – art out of passion and internet out of profession J. I immediately stopped over to read the complete story and I was quite happy to observe the shift which is happening even in Indian Art Industry because of this overall internet revolution. Not only artists are using Internet for reaching out to different markets but they are also using it for expanding their canvas of inspiration. While offline stores and exhibitions give artists a chance to promote large number of creations at one go but at the same time Internet gives them a very wide avenue for promoting their work to right kind of TG across different geographies at a very economic cost. Most importantly you get to see work of other people, you can discuss and share feedback with like minded people as well as it provides ample opportunities for and artist to study and research the subject of painting thereby expanding his / her creative horizon. While downside of it is definitely there with more chances of plagiarism and piracy but as per me the positive aspects of it outweigh the negative ones.

Indian Art industry is moving ahead quite positively and thanks to the internet exposure that prices of Indian works are growing northwards. As per an estimate by the creator of The Fine Art Fund, Phillip Hoffman, the size of the Indian market has grown from $2 million to approximately $400 million in the last seven years and to add to that as per Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, why is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field”. More and more people outside are looking out for Indian masterpieces and famous artists are getting unimaginable prices too. Early this year M.F. Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1.6 million in New York! $1.6 million…this is seriously some money man :-).

As an amateur artist with a strong passion towards painting, I have always believed in the power of internet for promoting Indian Art to the right TG. Personally speaking I paint out of hobby and have never tried doing it commercially but I know of many good and senior artists who earn their living through art only and I know how difficult it is for them to meet their ends because of low potential in the local market. I know of this friend of mine who is a very good senior level artist but she was always confined to the limits of Indian Market. One fine day I helped her in building a website and we put her paintings in sites like e-bay etc. Though there was no miraculous result which happened immediately and of course she didn’t make any earnings in million dollars but results were not bad either. She started making money slowly out of online selling and atleast she gets lots of leads now through her website of people interested in learning painting from her. She has got steady income and now she keeps on telling everybody about power of internet and how it can help them in reaching out to wider sphere.

Reading that article in ET with the word “industry” suffixed everywhere after “Indian Art” instilled quite some hope within me. Wish like many other industries, internet revolutionizes Indian Art industry as well with more and more open minded artists who are willing to try out newer technologies and platforms.

Indian Internet Industry

Internet rejuvenating Indian Art Industry!

Yesterday while just casually browsing through ET, one piece which caught my immediate attention was how internet is changing the face of Indian Art Industry. Indian Art and Internet, oh wow what a lovely combination as both happen to be my special areas of interests – art out of passion and internet out of profession J. I immediately stopped over to read the complete story and I was quite happy to observe the shift which is happening even in Indian Art Industry because of this overall internet revolution. Not only artists are using Internet for reaching out to different markets but they are also using it for expanding their canvas of inspiration. While offline stores and exhibitions give artists a chance to promote large number of creations at one go but at the same time Internet gives them a very wide avenue for promoting their work to right kind of TG across different geographies at a very economic cost. Most importantly you get to see work of other people, you can discuss and share feedback with like minded people as well as it provides ample opportunities for and artist to study and research the subject of painting thereby expanding his / her creative horizon. While downside of it is definitely there with more chances of plagiarism and piracy but as per me the positive aspects of it outweigh the negative ones.

Indian Art industry is moving ahead quite positively and thanks to the internet exposure that prices of Indian works are growing northwards. As per an estimate by the creator of The Fine Art Fund, Phillip Hoffman, the size of the Indian market has grown from $2 million to approximately $400 million in the last seven years and to add to that as per Yamini Mehta, director of modern and contemporary Indian art at the London-based Christie’s, “Indian art is becoming a part of international consciousness, why is why we have seen a spectacular growth in this field”. More and more people outside are looking out for Indian masterpieces and famous artists are getting unimaginable prices too. Early this year M.F. Husain’s “Battle of Ganga and Jamuna” sold for $1.6 million in New York! $1.6 million…this is seriously some money man :-).

As an amateur artist with a strong passion towards painting, I have always believed in the power of internet for promoting Indian Art to the right TG. Personally speaking I paint out of hobby and have never tried doing it commercially but I know of many good and senior artists who earn their living through art only and I know how difficult it is for them to meet their ends because of low potential in the local market. I know of this friend of mine who is a very good senior level artist but she was always confined to the limits of Indian Market. One fine day I helped her in building a website and we put her paintings in sites like e-bay etc. Though there was no miraculous result which happened immediately and of course she didn’t make any earnings in million dollars but results were not bad either. She started making money slowly out of online selling and atleast she gets lots of leads now through her website of people interested in learning painting from her. She has got steady income and now she keeps on telling everybody about power of internet and how it can help them in reaching out to wider sphere.

Reading that article in ET with the word “industry” suffixed everywhere after “Indian Art” instilled quite some hope within me. Wish like many other industries, internet revolutionizes Indian Art industry as well with more and more open minded artists who are willing to try out newer technologies and platforms.

Earlier we were in hit list of spam and now virus! Well, this is just one of the downsides of internet penetration in India I guess. Few months back I had read it somewhere that as per Govt of India report, 76% of mails originating from India are spam!!! And now there is a report stating one in ever 30 emails in India contains virus! "Virus activity increased across a number of countries in January, including India, which takes the number one spot with 1 in 30.5 emails," a study conducted by a web security services firm MessageLabs said. India has been identified as the most vulnerable destination for virus as well as spam. The ratio of virus attack in western countries is far lesser in western countries. Infact in New Zealand its 1:768, in Australia its 1:298.7 & in US its 1:191.5.

Phew, so where are we as far as internet security is concerned? On an average I get somewhere between 12-20 spam mails on each of my account – yahoo, gmail etc. Despite my all trials of deleting / unsubscribing from all those junk mailers, there is not much refuge from the same. And every fourth email which I get is having an attachment with .pif / …. kind of unknown extensions which surely contains virus. Not to forget those viagra & other such werid product promo mails and yeah our very own O3 spam comments which sometimes are in such huge numbers that the mere thought of deleting soooo many comments makes one scared. Well, regardless of best possible anti-virus software & spam filters, those junk emails keep flooding my mail boxes everyday. Infact yesterday only I was trying to delete my spam messages from my yahoo id which has got the worst spam filter I guess and after deleting a few I just felt sick & tired of doing the same thing again and again! Well, no wonder if we accounted for 76% spam origin & 1:30.5 virus attacks as the repercussion of the same can be observed in my own inboxes as well J. I’m wondering - is it the phenomenal growth in internet penetration in India or is our poor security systems that we are such a susceptible target for spammers & virus attackers?

Indian Internet Industry

India highest scorer in viruses

Earlier we were in hit list of spam and now virus! Well, this is just one of the downsides of internet penetration in India I guess. Few months back I had read it somewhere that as per Govt of India report, 76% of mails originating from India are spam!!! And now there is a report stating one in ever 30 emails in India contains virus! "Virus activity increased across a number of countries in January, including India, which takes the number one spot with 1 in 30.5 emails," a study conducted by a web security services firm MessageLabs said. India has been identified as the most vulnerable destination for virus as well as spam. The ratio of virus attack in western countries is far lesser in western countries. Infact in New Zealand its 1:768, in Australia its 1:298.7 & in US its 1:191.5.

Phew, so where are we as far as internet security is concerned? On an average I get somewhere between 12-20 spam mails on each of my account – yahoo, gmail etc. Despite my all trials of deleting / unsubscribing from all those junk mailers, there is not much refuge from the same. And every fourth email which I get is having an attachment with .pif / …. kind of unknown extensions which surely contains virus. Not to forget those viagra & other such werid product promo mails and yeah our very own O3 spam comments which sometimes are in such huge numbers that the mere thought of deleting soooo many comments makes one scared. Well, regardless of best possible anti-virus software & spam filters, those junk emails keep flooding my mail boxes everyday. Infact yesterday only I was trying to delete my spam messages from my yahoo id which has got the worst spam filter I guess and after deleting a few I just felt sick & tired of doing the same thing again and again! Well, no wonder if we accounted for 76% spam origin & 1:30.5 virus attacks as the repercussion of the same can be observed in my own inboxes as well J. I’m wondering - is it the phenomenal growth in internet penetration in India or is our poor security systems that we are such a susceptible target for spammers & virus attackers?