The Marketers - Group B4- Source - Mint

 

    Amazon most satisfying website to shop: survey 9 Jan 2013

     Prashant Satvi

Review: - Amazon.com Inc. remained the best website for shopping online while JC Penney Co. Inc. suffered the largest drop in customer satisfaction of any major online retailer this holiday season, according to a survey released on Thursday.

Flash sale sites Gilt.com and RueLaLa.com were among the worst performers in online shopping satisfaction this season, according to ForeSee’s Holiday E-Retail Satisfaction Index.

Implication:- Reasons behind Amazons success can be identified. Amazon has held the highest score in each of the eight years of the index, due in part to the wide variety of merchandise it offers and a site that is easy to use.

  Branded jewellers focus on smaller towns to spur growth 9 Jan 2013

   Prashant Satvi

Review: - Jewellery retailers such as Gitanjali, PC Jewellers and Tanishq have opened stores in Dehradun, which has a population of 1.7 million, about one-tenth that of Delhi.

The last two years have seen a tectonic shift in consumer behaviour in tier 2 cities .There is lot of demand for jewellery in small towns.

Implication:- Market for Branded jewellers is expanding and targeting a new segment.

Matrimony.com bets on low-income groups for offline business growth

Jan 3, 2013

Neha Sankpal

Original article: http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/5ZzWF7JzPcXFNbYQ3cT1SJ/Matrimonycom-bets-on-lowincome-groups-for-offline-business.html

This article states that Matrimony.com Pvt. Ltd. which owns BharatMatrimony.com has launched PopularMatrimony.com an offline concept to tap huge population of low income group like drivers, maids etc.

 Following are the major reasons for the company entering into the market:

1.      People with low income group do not have access to online portals

2.      Out of 158 million people in marriageable age only 7 million use websites to find their partners

3.       The founder also believes that there is a potential market of Rs. 3,000 crore

4.      This outlet is better than the traditional method where a taut is involved who charges very high price. 

This outlet also chargers only Rs. 5,000 for three months and has more options than the traditional methods.

However there is a certain risk involved in such a market such as capital investment and a shift in behaviour of consumers. The numbers of employees involved are also more as compared to online service.

Credit card spends rise, signalling consumer confidence

Rajvi Dehdia

·         A sharp jump in the credit card spending in the past one year indicates consumers have started buying more goods and services, which is perhaps an early sign of revival in Asia’s third-largest economy.

·         Credit card outstanding of Indian borrowers grew 26% to Rs.24,700 crore in the 12 months to November, marking a significant rise over the previous year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data show. Credit card spending expanded 3.7% in the year ended November 2011. Before that, for two years credit card portfolios of banks had shrunk.

·         Trends in the unsecured loan market, primarily in credit card spending, are an indicator of credit appetite of individual borrowers, especially urban consumers.

·         Although the amount of credit card spending is not significant compared with the total loans in the banking system, a sudden spurt in such loans could, in turn, signal possible stress on bad loans in the banking system and overall consumer loan segment, economists warned.

·         It is for the first time since the 2008 global financial crisis that credit card spending has picked up at such a fast pace.

Vodafone gets reminder on $2 billion tax dues               5thJan, 2013

Pooja Venkat

Mumbai: British telecommunications carrier Vodafone Group Plc said on Saturday it has received a reminder from Indian tax authorities on disputed tax dues over its 2007 acquisition of Indian mobile assets. Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile operator by revenue, said in a statement the reminder does not include a deadline for payment. “Vodafone has replied to this reminder, stating that it continues to believe that no tax is payable on the above transaction,” the statement said. Britain-based Vodafone, the largest overseas corporate investor in India, has repeatedly clashed with Indian authorities over a string of tax and regulatory issues since it bought into the country in 2007. A year ago, India’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of Vodafone in a 5-year, $2 billion battle with Indian tax authorities arising from its acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa’s Indian mobile business. The Indian government later amended 50-year-old tax laws enabling it to make retroactive tax claims on long-concluded corporate deals.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set up a panel to review the changes after global business groups criticised the move. The panel has recommended that the law to tax deals retrospectively should be scrapped, but the government is yet to make a final decision. Earlier on Saturday, the Economic Times reported that tax authorities had asked Vodafone to pay Rs 140 billion ($2.5 billion), including interest on the tax dues. Last April, Vodafone threatened the Indian government with arbitration proceedings in its fight over the retrospective tax proposal.