Over the last few years, many in the e-commerce industry felt that the final frontier was taking over what they’d initially set out to displace — offline stores. Not content with the progress that they were making online, several large players had attempted to move into the real world to capture an even larger section of the market. But there are now signs that not all these initiatives are working out as planned. Myntra has shut…

There was a time when India’s unicorns were all e-commerce players, but some interesting companies are now getting into the mix. Logistics startup Delhivery has become India’s latest unicorn after raising $350 million (Rs. 2450 crore) from Softbank and existing investor Carlyle Group. The round has valued Delhivery at $1.6 billion (Rs. 11,200 crore), and turned it into India’s first unicorn of 2019. Unlike other Indian unicorn startups, Delhivery doesn’t often make the news. This…

Paytm Mall is discovering just how fickle India’s customers really are. After the company had cut back on its cashbacks late last year, the traffic on its website has dropped precipitously. According to SimilarWeb, PaytmMall’s site saw only 5.5 million visits in February 2019. This is a near 90% drop from visits in October last year, when the site had seen 45.5 million users. In December 2018, Paytm Mall had decided rein in the cashbacks…

Tech companies find it easy to quickly garner a lot of users — it’s possible to build an app sitting in your home, fire it up, and see it being used by millions of people. But there’s a rarefied club of tech companies that have cracked the billion club — seeing their products being used by nearly one-seventh of humanity. There are only 6 products which have reached the milestone. Here’s how long they took…

Flipkart’s Big Billion Days is the company’s most anticipated sales event of the year. The company spends millions in ads promoting the event, and makes many months’ worth of revenue during the few days of the sale. But the 2015 edition hadn’t started off exactly as planned.  Exactly at midnight on 14th October 2015, just as the sale was about to go live, Flipkart’s site had crashed. Mobile phones were going to go on sale, and…

Indian e-commerce companies have managed to match the basic functionality provided by Amazon — they have large selections of products on their websites, they have inventory systems that ensure quick deliveries, and their payments systems are slick and modern. What they’re now scrambling to match is Amazon Prime. Paytm has launched Paytm First, its own subscription and loyalty program. Paytm first will bundle up offers from internet companies, such as annual memberships for Zomato Gold, Gaana.com,…

Thus far, Zomato had been making news for expanding into international markets — it’s now retreated from a major one. Zomato has sold its UAE business to Delivery Hero for $172 million (Rs. 1,200 crore). Delivery Hero is a Germany-based food delivery service that operates in more than forty countries. Interestingly, one of Delivery Hero’s biggest investors is Naspers, which is also the biggest investor in Zomato’s India arch-rival Swiggy.   UAE was one of Zomato’s…

Zomato is already among the top businesses that connects restaurants and customers; it’s also rapidly wedging itself between restaurants and their suppliers as well. Zomato has said that Hyperpure, its arm that supplies raw ingredients to restaurants, now has a thousand customers in Bangalore, and this number could rise to 2,500 in the coming months. And Zomato isn’t only expanding Hyperpure in Bangalore — it’s announced that it will take the business to 9 other…

Oyo doesn’t seem to be content with setting up hotels all over the world — it’s now looking to enter into the foodtech space. Oyo has listed restaurants on major food delivery platforms in Bangalore and Gurgaon, Entrackr reports. The restaurants are called Adraq by OYO and O Biryani by OYO, and provide a wide variety of cuisines including Indian, Mughlai, Chinese, and continental, among others. The restaurants are listed on Swiggy, Zomato and UberEats. This doesn’t mean…

The way Oyo’s expanding, it might soon be possible to do a round-the-world trip staying only at Oyo properties. Oyo has announced that it’s expanding into Japan next month. Oyo will bring its housing rental segment Oyo Living to Japan, which has been rebranded to Oyo Life, and target students and young professionals in the country. More interestingly, Oyo has entered into a Joint Venture with Yahoo Japan and formed a new entity, Oyo Technology…