Basant Sanwal

Today afternoon, I received a call from Arvind Kejriwal  and later realized that it was not him though, but his pre-recorded voice...I am amazed to see technology adoption in such campaigns (though my number is registered on DND but who cares)  but  I was well connected and convinced to some extent with whatever he wanted to communicate boldly -  from 'how a government officer have left his IRS job, where he could have had minted money in millions', to 'he was fasting for 15 days' and even making a commitment to 'cancel the ticket of the candidate who is found to be hiding any criminal act in the past or future'.  That is precisely marketing..reaching out to the target customer (voter, in this case) and that too with a strong or bold message . I see him coming closer to winning Delhi election 2014 with 70 candidates in AAP and the values AAP is driving- 'commitment' and 'connect' with the common man. Tireless campaigns with the same commit...

Many of the e-commerce companies have shifted to the market place model (where they sell the product before buying the same,   to ease out the piled stock situation). So have the outcomes in this model and due to policy issues- the ultimate sufferer is the buyer or in this case, the Secretary of Consumer Guidance Society of India. Ultimately, he had to give up in frustration after being billed and was asked to submit various documents for a product he never bought or ordered. A portal had used his credit card information from past transactions to charge his card one more time without his knowledge.  There is a steep rise in complaints against e-commerce firms -  73% rise on Quarter  on Quarter basis for the ventures shifted to market place, 20% complaint rise in inventory based e-commerce companies and 27% rise in total e-commerce for the Q3 or 2013 as compared to Q2 of 2013.

10,000 crores (or $ 1.64 billion ) - this is the size of current online retailing business (the products sold in retail online - not includes Hotels, travel, telecom, banking products and services)  in India which is expected to touch 1 ,20,000 crores (or $ 19.67 billions) by 2020 with 39%  compound annual growth rate in account of growing penetration of smart phones & tablets, higher shopping for lifestyle products which is bundled with facilities like cash-on-delivery, discounts and offers. The total E-commerce industry (product or services sold over internet) is in excess to $ 10.6 billion in 2013 (various media and research reports, IAMAI & IMRB) As per a study done by Forrester research, the e-commerce market size is predicted to be  $ 854 billion in 2018 from China, India, Australia, Japan and South Korea.  As per a research figure in Asia pacific region, over 35% people of total internet users shop online -which is roughly about 52 milli...