20 Hot E-Commerce Start-ups

20North.com: Get it for Us, from US

Liberalization may have significantly reduced the need for getting products from the US and other countries, but there is still the odd brand or the odd model one badly wants that is not available in India. 20Norths business model is based on turning this gap into an opportunityby getting stuff from the US, and delivering right at ones doorstep in India. As the positioning reveals, the market is niche and aimed at the discerning buyer. Despite that, 20North has a fairly good traction in terms of users and pageviews.

The good (and bad) thing about 20North is that there is absolutely no other player with similar positioning. The positive outcome of this situation is that it has no real competition to worry about. The bad thing is this makes many people suspicious of its business modelwhether it is perfectly legal; whether it is trying to push some leftovers of CircuitCity (a user actually suggested this in a site), and many such questions. The fact that such a unique positioning has still not been able to attract funding only adds to this.

For users though, the site is fairly user-friendly, and it has expanded its product portfolio significantly within the last few months. It has even started a service of procuring anything from the US, if the user finds it in any website.

Named after Indias geographic positioning, some of the products on offer are really worth the money. What is noteworthy about the site is that it is the only serious e-commerce site that has a fully functional mobile website.

99labels.com: Label Play

Modeled on the likes of members only discounted online fashion stores like Hautelook, Ideeli, Gilt Groupe and Rue La La in the US and Brands4Friends in Germany (which got acquired by eBay for $200 mn recently), 99labels.com, targets the small but fast growing segment of fashion buyers looking for a bargain in luxury brands. Founded by Ishita Swaroop, Anchal Jain, and Ankur Prakash, the company is run by Swaroop, who has a track record of a successful entrepreneur. She co-founded Orion Dialog, a domestic call center company much before the offshore call center wave started; the company was acquired by Essar group owned Aegis in 2004.

The company made it to our list with fairly good showing in its traction scores because it is attracting users and close to 1 mn page views, and also because of its better user experience. However, it has to catch up with Fashion and You, with which it directly competes. The latter has got funding and has now started spending on promotions and scaling up. It has already edged past 99labels in terms of actual sales revenue, according to our estimates. And there are a few more players like brandmile.com and theprivatesales.com, who have entered this space which have come up and a few other retailers are expanding into this space. The crucial factor for 99labels will be to secure funding as soon as possible.

Bindaasbargain.com: Power of One

Modelled on the latest sensation in the American online scene, Woot.com, which Amazon acquired for $110 mn in June last year, Bindaasbargain is an online retail shop with the same concept as Wootof one deal a day. Targeted at the impulse buyers, Bindaasbargain has tried to be an exact replica of Woot, except that it still sells a lot less high value branded products unlike Woot. The business model of BindaasBargain.com is to sell products to retail consumers at wholesale prices and usually allows each user to buy 3 of each item.

 

 

Promoted by Umesh Lalwani, Tanuj Nigam, and Dhruv Batra, Bindaasbargain.com is owned by Assign iVentures Private Limited which is part of Assign Ventures, whose other ventures include Assigncorp, an IT enterprise based in California offering software development, QA services, embedded system solutions to large companies.

BindaasBargain is in our list almost entirely because of its high traction score. The site has been sucessful in attracting users and pageviewsprobably because of its clutter-free homepage and promotions. The challenge now is to translate the consumer interest into business and scale up fast to sustain itself as a leading e-commerce player.

While BindaasBargain is making an impact, to grow, it has to either broaden its positioning or get integrated with a large player, as the critical mass of online shoppers is still not there in India for a business to completely sustain on a very niche positioning.

 

 

Buytheprice.com: Get More, Pay Less

Buytheprice.com is based on the model that the more demand you create, the lesser you pay for the product. The price of a product on sale depends on the demand of the product. It reduces as more number of buyers jump in. So here is where buytheprice comes with an incentive for their buyers if they publicize about the dealthe incentive being a much reduced price.

Founded by Ranjith Boyanapalli, Tharachand Surydevara and Jagdish Kothapalle, buytheprice.com plans to expand its services across various cities.

The online shopping portal for electronic appliances is trying to ensure that the consignments are delivered to the customers within 5 days from the date the order is placed. Buytheprice has got most of the features for being one of the user friendly e-commerce websites. It provides information about the product and provides deal slab to the buyers. The deal slab tells the buyers about the quantity of product sold and compares the price difference with the MRP after the hike in demand for the product.

Buytheprice.com differs from the normal group buying sites in the way that it is the product that is central in buytheprice, whereas it is the deal that is central in group buying sites. That is why most group buying sites sell more of perishable stuff whereas buytheprice sells mostly electronic and electrical appliances. The reason it is still not among the top names in terms of actual business is that in electronics, lower prices is something that does not excite people as much as say in a branded luxury item.

Caratlane.com: Diamonds are Forever

Conventional wisdom suggests that consumers shy away from high-value transactions online. A site that has completely turned this belief on its head is caratlane.com. Founded by Srinivasa Gopalan, CEO of Lister Technologies and Mithun Sacheti of Jaipur Gems with stores in Mumbai, Chennai and Coimbatore, Caratlane was one of the oldest e-commerce sites in our list, having started formally in October 2008, and soft-launched a couple of months earlier.

A combination of factors has made it possible for Caratlane. First, the bottom-up approach in inventoryit has offline storesmeans quick fulfillment time and the ability to offer at lower prices. Caratlane prices are anywhere between 5-15% lower. Also, it has used the online medium to negate a major disadvantage of offline storesit has a far broader range than offline stores. It can afford to do that because all its inventory is available to each of the buyers for purchase, unlike in a traditional store. That has appealed to the consumers.

And of course, it has one of the best user experiences, having scored the highest in this parameter in our rating. To support customers, it has provided a live chat facility where the buyers can chat with the experts and arrive at a buying decision. For quality, it is very particular about purchasing diamonds through those suppliers who adhere to the standards established by Kimberly process. Caratlane has binding contracts with their suppliers which guarantee that the diamonds have come through legal sources.

As the overall online spending on jewellery and watches in the US has been recorded at $30.81 bn in 2011, which is a 13% increase over last year, Caratlane tries to build that market in India. A company to watch.

 

 

Dealsandyou.com: Groupism Leveraged

Deals And You is a venture between Group Buying Global AG and Harish Bahl (who is also the co-founder of Fashion and You). It launched the site dealsandyou.com in June last year after acquiring Wanamo Marketing. Group Buying Global AG owns and manages group buying portals across 9 countries in 4 continents. Oliver Jung, co-founder of Group Buying AG also invested in Brands4Friends.de, a German group buying site that eBay bought recently for $200 mn. Harish Bahl is a leading entrepreneur and the founder of the Smile Group.

After Wanamo.com, Deals and You also acquired a small Mumbai based technology firm, Ambab Infotech to strengthen its IT team. With its head office in Gurgaon, it has branches in 6 other cities (Mumbai, Bengaluru, Pune, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad) and a headcount of more than 65 employees. Its top management consists of experienced professionals like Tarun Sobhani, who was the national sales head with AOL India.

Deals and You has an outreach of over 1.5 mn members, though unlike its sister concern, it is not the leader in its category. While the category is hot and it is one of the top 2 players, competition is catching up with many companies such as Taggle, Koovs, and mydala entering the space. Taggle has also got funding and can emerge as a serious competitor.

Fashionandyou.com: Young and Vibrant

One of the relatively newer ventures online, apparel retailer fashionandyou.com, was launched in January 2010 and is already transforming the online business space with innovative consumer driven approach, providing great bargains on the most sought-for fashion and luxury brands of the world. Just 11 months old, theyve already secured funding worth $8 mn from Sequoia Capital India and have 8 lakh members till date. They get about 3 lakh visitors and 2,500 orders every day. It is also a member of Brand Alliance, formed by major private sales companies in Brazil, India, Russia and Switzerland. The core strength of the organization has been the vibrant team and its partners which Management team comprises Harish Bahl, chairman; Pearl Uppal, CEO; and Rahul Narvekar, director, sourcing. Harish is the founder CEO of Smile Interactive and has incubated and nurtured several successful leading online businesses like Quasar (WPP Digital & Smile JV), Tyroo (Smile & Yahoo JV), Zoomtra and Zumtra. One of the very crucial requirements for the success of an e-commerce company is a strong IT team. In this regard, having secured a masters degree from IIT Delhi and a BE from Delhi College of Engineering, the gold medalist Uppal surely is a big asset to the company. Narvekar, on the other hand, has a work experience of 15 years in media. Based in Gurgaon, the company has been growing at 30-40% month-on-month and with a premium partner like Sequoia and a brilliant team, their goal is to become the sales platform for most high fashion brands in Indiacontributing to at least 10% of their sales by end-2011.

Flipkart.com: First Among Equals

Flipkart.com is among the top 3 in each of our broad parameters: business model, user experience, and traction. Its founders, Sachin and Binny Bansal, after doing their computer science program from IIT Delhi in 2005 had their paths converged at Amazon India again. The idea of creating something modeled around Amazon specifically for India, came to their minds and in September 2007, they left their respective jobs to start the company. Within a month, they had the site up and running. Today Flipkart.com tries to sell books at low prices with free shipping, and has currently over 6 mn titles listed ranging across all categories. What makes Flipkarts success even more credible is that they are in a category that is already crowded with companies like Indiaplaza, a1books, and firstandsecond.com having taken an early lead. Even today, the maximum number of e-commerce sites are trying to sell books and music.

Flipkart, which was seed funded by Accel Partners earlier, has recently raised capital from Tiger Capital to expand its boundaries to verticals such as sale of software like Norton Anti-virus, Adobe, Windows, and others. Recently, the website diversified into selling CDs, DVDs, games, consoles and mobiles. The Bengaluru based company expects its revenues to cross `100 crore by March 2011 from `25 crore in 2009-10. It employs 400 people across its offices in Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai.

Indiangiftsportal.com: Be Indian, Buy Indian

Headquartered in Lucknow, Indiangiftsportal delivers gifts anywhere across the world. Founded by Manan Sharma and Dinesh Agarwal, the portal has got a wide range of Indian handicrafts which are procured from regional manufacturers. This portal is India centric and mostly delivers gifts suiting the Indian occasions.

While most gift portals focus on similar things like t-shirts, mugs and other customized products, Indiangiftsportal stands out in the crowd as a provider of traditional crafts from India. Indiangiftsportal.com features all types of gifts but something which adds on to their credit are the Indian gifts, handicrafts and traditional Indian sweets. However, in terms of promotion, it is way behind the other gifts portals like Myntra and traditional broad-based e-tailers.

With a fairly good user interface, it is not difficult for users to spot out gifts within few minutes as the categories of gifts are clearly mentioned.

This is a site that has immense potential but has been slow on the promotions front. It has to acquire funding soon to be able to compete with those which have already established their lead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Infibeam.com: Amazonian Ambitions

The wannabe Amazon, Ahmedabad-based Infibeam.com, is probably the oldest in our list. Launched in 2007 as a B2C online shopping portal for books, the website has now expanded into handsets, consumer electronics, used cars and bike classifieds, etc. Like Amazon, it has even launched an e-reader, Pi, which is Indias first e-reader. So much is its Amazonian ambition that its logo is also modeled on Amazons. The portal boasts of over 100 lakh book titles and 5 lakh e-books in its store, thereby claiming to be the largest online bookstore in India.

In terms of business, it is among the top e-commerce sites in India and competes with the likes of ebay, Indiatimes Shopping, Rediff Shopping and Homeshop18.

Infibeam e-commerce platform offers a good user experience. It allows users to search products by city, price, brand, color, and other product specific features. The portal lets users pay through different online payment gateways, draft, checks and also through cash on delivery option. In addition, users can also compare the products and read user reviews.

The company is keen to expand its operations and thus looks forward to raise funds between `50 to `100 crore. To strengthen its operations, the company is already in the process of setting up 2 large warehouses on the outskirts of Delhi and Mumbai, to double the size of the 5 existing ones. Its founder Vishal Mehta believes that 2011 will be a crucial year for its growth.

Inkfruit.com: The Social Design Edge

Launched as Gnome by IIT Bombay alumni Kashyap Dalal and Navneet Rai in December 2007, as a t-shirt selling site challenging its users with design contests from time-to-time. Inkfruit has not diluted its focus in the last 3 years, and has yet managed to grow. There are few parallels in the industry.

But the central idea behind Inkfruit is not just a t-shirt store, or even a customized one at that. It is involved in buying and co-creation. It has a network of artists and designers, who upload their designs on the website and users vote for the designs. If a particular design has received maximum rating, it gets the tag of Inkfruit Hall of Fame. The design is printed and put on sale. Its annual design contest and occasional contests have thousands of fan following.

Besides selecting from t-shirts, buyers can also try other products like mugs, posters, and calendars.

Because of its customized approach, it competes with other similar sites such as Myntra, which is bigger. But Inkfruit appeals to a loyal set of customers, and also the new discerning buyers. It is positioned as not just a portal for t-shirts, but also a social media site for the designers and t-shirt lovers.

While the company raised a round of angel investment, it has to raise further funds to create marketing impact, especially as the value of design is finally being recognized in India.

 

Magazinemall.in: The Virtual Stand

Magazinemall.in managed to get into our list primarily because of its user experience score, though its higher traction in terms of users and pageviews in comparison to direct competitor indiamags.com also helped. The magazine subscription site, founded by Sandeep Kumar and mentored by media and communications professional Jay Vikram Bakshi, has a very simple proposition: Providing online subscription of magazines at one place.

In less than 1 year, the company has been able to convince the publishers and has already entered into agreements with more than 37 publishing groups covering more than 200 publication titles across various categories. The warehouse and logistics hub is located at its corporate office in Gurgaon.

While the model is extremely simple and it is easy to convince publishers to try out yet another channel, there is little extra value for the subscribers as it does not offer anything other than an aggregated platform. Not many individual subscribers subscribe to more than 5 or 6 magazines. It is not too difficult to subscribe to them in the publishers website. The discount is also not very high, unlike most online retailers who primarily thrive on the discounted sales. Also, unlike other products, fulfillment is not a one-time activity and hence, the company cannot ensure that the quality will be maintained.

To grow, the company needs to find revenue streams other than commissions from publishers as even today, reaching critical mass on the online channel is difficult. But, with the marketing brains and social media experience of both CEO Kumar and mentor Bakshi, the company is still one to watch out for.

Myntra.com: As You Like It

Founded in July 2006 as a brainwave of 6 guys with an IIT/IIM background, Bengaluru-based company myntra.com provides customized gifts and merchandise. Though the platform and business started from February 2007, till 2008 myntra.com was all about corporate gifting. It was only since 2009 that Myntra stepped into the real e-commerce and retail arena. Today it is an online platform where one can create or buy customized and personalized merchandize such as t-shirts, mugs, calendars, watches, notepads, and so on. Unlike many other e-commerce sites, Myntra offers the option to pay cash on delivery of products, which is a bit hit. Big dreams need big money; and theyve been fortunate enough to be able to raise 3 rounds of funding for the company. The initial bootstrap funding happened with Mukesh Bansal, founder and CEO, myntra.com, putting in some money to get things going. In about 9 months, around August 2007, it managed to secure angel funding. The third round of funding came in around September 2008, when the company raised an investment of about $5mn from NEA-IndoUS, IDG Ventures, and Accel Partners; and finally a series B round of $14mn. In addition to enjoying over 4 lakh Facebook fans and about 1,000 orders per day, myntra.com organizes design contests every month with interesting themes and bigger prize money. Today the company has 150 employees, out of which 20 engineers form the strong technical team. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru and has sales offices across Mumbai and New Delhi.

 

 

 

 

 

Naaptol.com: Compare and Buy

Established in January 2008, Naaptol.com boasts to be the first comparison based social shopping portal in India which sells consumer electronic goods, laptops, mobiles, cameras, LCD TVs, and home appliances, etc. The platform says that it does not sell any product, but only helps users buy as it helps them find a product, analyze it through product reviews, ratings from experts and compare it with others. It features several dealers with whom it has tied up for products. Also, the website lets you find the latest deals and the lowest prices available in the market. The website also features Product of the Day in its Hot Deal section. According to the company, in its Hot Deals section, it features heavily discounted products.

To use its social shopping feature, users need to register with Naaptol. They can then make their own shopping groups and also avail discounts from varied featured sellers. The site boasts of more than 10 lakh smart shoppers a month which is increasing with each passing day. At present, it boasts of more than 50,000 offers listed across a wide range of categories.

Naaptol has recently received a funding of `33 crore from the US based Canaan Partners, which it plans to use for starting its operations in TV shopping, besides expanding its logistics footprints, sourcing exclusive merchandise and developing an efficient customer support. In addition, the company is hopeful of clocking `140 crore as revenue this year as compared to `70 crore last year.

Perfume2order.com: The Sweet Scent of Success

Just a few years ago, who would have imagined that one would be able buy the worlds choicest perfume brands, sitting in the comfort of ones home in Jaisalmer or Guntur? Thanks to perfume2order, it is now possible. Whether it is Bvlgari or Calvin Klein, Chanel or Christian Dior, Diesel or D&G, Elizabeth Arden or Estee Lauder, Giorgio Armani or Yves Saint Laurent, one can order them right here in India, that too at heavily discounted prices.

Perfume2order, which today offers competitive prices and a choice of about 125 designer perfumes and 450 brands spanning over 3,500 fragrances, was the idea of serial entrepreneur Pramod Raghav. An NRI and ex-owner cum founder of A1wireless.com, which sold wireless services on a portal, Ragav sold this venture in 2004 and founded ExpertServ, a BPO in the US and in India in 2005, which at present has 400 employees.

What helped this niche website succeed is its aggressive marketing partnerships with most broad based online retailers like Indiatimes Shopping and Naaptol.
The company started in 2006, but the portal picked up in 2007. Perfume2order at present has 24 employees and offices in Gurgaon and New York. The core team members include Pramod Raghav (CEO), Kulindra Srivastava (CFO) and Aayush Saxena (head of operations). Though the entire funding details were not disclosed, it certainly has the advantage of receiving funds from parent ExpertServ Solutions LLC, USA. One of its kind, perfume2order is a tough stockist with almost `20 crore live inventory. With a throughput of almost `12 crore in 2010, the company is aiming at around `20 crore in 2011.

Playgroundonline.com: Sportsmans Instinct

Playgroundonline.com, in a country not exactly known for its love of sports barring cricket, is a sort of adventure. Yet, the fact that the site gets enough users and traction to feature among top 20 hottest e-commerce sites is a very creditable performance. Part of the reason is its success in selling FIFA and IPL merchandise. IPL merchandise has done particularly well.

Seeing the way sports is commoditized in the US, Ramakrishna Kalluri, a veteran Infosys executive and Srini Battula, who also worked in IT industry and companies like ABB, founded playgroundonline.com in 2008. While there are many specialized sites selling everything from puja items to lingerie, condoms to t-shirts, few have managed to compete with broad-based players in terms of overall traction.

It has a clean interface. The homepage of the portal clearly mentions various categories available. From the website, customers can search any particular product by category, so it has focused on refining the search experience of the users.

Sports goods and accessories is a niche market. To grow in this space, the company needs aggressive marketing along with sports events. That means funding is a priority. With veteran sports management and VC people in its advisory board, that should not be too much of a challenge.

Snapdeal.com: Thriving on
Crowd-buying

SnapDeal is the leader in the hottest category of e-commerce models: group buying. This category has already made waves in the US with startups such as GroupOn, LivingSocial and Tippr. Owned by Jasper Infotech, a coupon player, SnapDeal sells deals on everything from dining to beauty packages, health services to lifestyle products, holiday packages to movie tickets.

While there are many others in this space such as Dealsandyou, Koovs, Mydala, Taggle and a host of new players, SnapDeal is the clear leader with 500,000 visitors everyday, and more than 600,000 subscribers to its daily deal newsletters. On the ground too, it has tie-ups with 50,000 merchants across 30 cities in India, and has also extended services to 5 overseas locations. In June last year, it acquired Grabbon, a Bengaluru based group buying firm.

Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, SnapDeal came up in February 2010, and has already attracted a round of angel and a round of institutional funding from NEA IndoUS Ventures. The company is investing in technology to give it a differentiation factor and takes great pride in its technology team and capability. It has got into our list with a great performance in both business mode and traction scores. Its relatively low score in user experience has not really impacted the business, as most of the buyers follow the link from email to come to the site and transact.

Taggle.com: Experience Play

In the e-commerce space, dotted by young entrepreneurs, Taggle stands out in terms of management depth. Its co-founders have all come with decades of experience. While CEO John Kuruvilla is an experienced hand in advertising and marketing, being part of the team that created the memorable Hamara Bajaj ad. Tej Arora, the CTO of the company, who earlier founded BrandAdda, is also a technology veteran of 2 decades having worked in companies such as Oracle, Netscape, and Yahoo!

Probably that is what prompted investors, Battery Ventures and Greylock Partners to bet on the company, in the crowded space of group buying. The company started in June 2010, and has already got funding of $8.75 mnone of the highest in the e-commerce space in India.

Though Taggle is among the top 3 in this space, SnapDeal has taken the lead in this space, primarily because the latter has been faster to spread to newer cities. While SnapDeal has spread to 30 plus cities, Taggle is yet to spread out beyond Bengaluru in any significant way. In fact, even Deals and You has a wider presence.

Also, all the top deals sites will have to look beyond restaurants and spas to appeal to a larger set of buyers. Today, most of them, including Taggle, offer discounts on these services only.

While Taggle may have been slower in spreading out, its customers are a satisfied lot, as evident from most discussion sites. The experienced management at Taggle is taking a different path for the long term growth, especially as it has got funding. It also has the option to grow inorganically to other locations, the way SnapDeal has done.

Timtara.com: Elevating
Shopping Experience

Launched in April 2010 by its founder Arindam Bose, timtara.com is a new online shopping destination that claims to offer products across 15 different categories such as mobiles and accessories, consumer durables, home appliances, apparel, health and hygiene, entertainment, telebrands, and more. It is the online retail venture of InfoSecure Consulting that wants to change the shape of face of Internet retail. Though new, this online shopping site is fast becoming a hot favorite amongst online buyers and vying for considerable market share in the near future. The portal was launched to a great response with 5,000 visitors on the very first day, claims the company. It allows the users to pay through different means ranging from credit cards to cash-on-delivery.

According to the company, the idea of running timtara is inspired by offline behavior. Hence it not only enables buying, but creates an experience around shopping. The e-commerce platform provides a web based communication tool that allows the customers to keep track of their shopping activity and online orders without any login. In order to boost its business, the site comes out with different schemes during festivals and special occasions. In addition, the company has started its own delivery and logistics service for customers in Delhi and NCR, which has helped it deliver products within few hours of order placement. Based on the success of its delivery and logistics service, timtara plans to extend it to other major cities in India very soon.

Yebhi.com: Bottom-Up, Literally!

Yebhi.com, started in 2009 as bigshoebazaar.com, is different from most e-commerce players in India in the sense that it has taken a bottom-up approach in growing inventory. Promoted by Kanpur based shoe trader, Danish Ahmed, who hails from a family with shoe manufacturing heritage, bigshoebazaar was modeled on Zappos, the successful online shoe and apparel business in the US. For Ahmed, though it was also an attempt to leverage the emerging online channel to further his business of selling branded shoes. So successful was the initiative that not only has it become one of the top online retailing sites in the country, it has even diversified to selling other apparel and accessories. Again, a bottom-up approach, starting with shoes!

The re-branding happened recently as the name gave the perception of a shoes only store. While many people still find it odd to buy shoes online, it is to Yebhis credit that it is one of the top Indian online retail sites by users and traffic. Knowing that size is often a big issue with shoes, it encourages its users to buy 2 sizes and return the non-suiting one. But many find the idea a little complicated, especially as it does not refund the mailing charges.

With its strength in supply chain management and experience of dealing with large brands, Yebhi has taken the offline franchisee route as well. It currently claims to have 10 offline stores and plans to expand to 100 over next two years. It also has a wholesale cash-and-carry model for offline retailers.