Thursday, November 20, 2014

• India Post to launch real-time parcel tracking, shipped 85K units for Amazon in October : India Post, which has the biggest network and serves the last mile, is boosting its infrastructure for real-time tracking of parcels through satellites using a new technology. The Postal Department will also soon start an SMS facility to inform customers about delivery status of their parcels. India Post, which is already in tie-ups with e-commerce majors Amazon and Snapdeal, will also have security gadgets like CCTV and access control systems to ensure safety of articles. Amazon started booking parcels at one place with India Post in 2013 which has now expanded to five locations by October 2014. “Amazon shipped 7,000 parcels in January this year. By October, the number of article booked in a month by Amazon increased to about 85,000. Snapdeal sends 2000-3000 parcels per day. Naaptol is giving about Rs 25 crore business to India Post per annum,” the official said. India Post is offering cash collection on delivery facility of product to 200 customers. “Since December 2013 approximately India Post has collected Rs 280 crore as cash on delivery amount and paid to the e-commerce companies,” the official said.

• Alibaba will sell its first-ever $8B bond offering on Thursday, attractively low yields of 110bp over Treasuries for the five-year tranche: It is looking to sell up to seven tranches, including five fixed-rate bonds ranging from three to 20-year maturities and two floating-rate notes with three and five-year maturities, which bankers and investors expect to be the most sought after of the year. "Alibaba will have no problem attracting the attention of every investor base around the world," said one bond syndicate manager. "They've done a good job of coming out with enough spread over what would be fair value to make sure they get the size done." Alibaba, highly rated for a Chinese corporate at A1/A+/A+, has been sounding out investors this week in Asia, Europe and the US and is believed to have a huge order book already in place before officially starting the marketing phase in Asia overnight. Two market sources said initial indications of interest were at US$10bn. Alibaba's high Single A ratings will help as the company pitches itself as a comparable to blue-chip names like Oracle, Amazon and Cisco, rather than its lower-rated Chinese internet peers Tencent Holdings and Baidu.

• Asian shoppers lead the world in 'showrooming': Implication: location-based targeting which is red-hot in the US (news here and here) could be even hotter here: Asia’s shoppers are experts at “showrooming” – the phenomenon of looking at items at a brick-and-mortar store whilst simultaneously checking the prices available online. According to data from Google’s Consumer Barometer survey (shown in a new post on Google’s APAC blog), this showrooming is most prevalent in less developed tech markets, where you might expect it the least. The top showroomers are Vietnam’s shoppers. 40 percent of them stand in a store whilst cross-checking the prices online. South Korea is second.

• Walmart Amends Price Matching Policy After Cheap PS4 Debacle, excludes marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, membership or auction sites: Yesterday, some individuals figured out that they could print out an $89.99 Amazon marketplace listing for a brand new PS4 and get the company to sell them the console for the bargain price, considering that it usually retails for $399.99. Price matching guarantees are a common marketing tactic, but Walmart's policy was especially lax, extending to any legitimate retailer including third-party companies.  The retailer said Wednesday that it is limiting its generous Walmart Ad Match Guarantee to just selected retailers, none of which include marketplace vendors, third-party sellers, membership sites or auction sites.  Walmart will continue to match the lowest price on Walmart.com and 30 selected retailers, including Amazon.com. However, for an Amazon product to qualify, it must be sold and fulfilled by the online retailer.

• A button for faster payment collection on e-commerce sites: PayUMoney (earlier PayUPaisa) has introduced a ‘Pay with PayUMoney’ button to let online shoppers complete purchases with just a few clicks. The new feature will basically let e-tailers embed a button within their websites and blogs so that users can make payments without having to navigate away. According to the company, the button’s look and design can be customised as per the website’s design to collect details of customers. Its design also enables the same button to work for both web and mobile. PayU India further claims that over 2,188 merchants have already created the button for collecting payments. E-tailers who want to add the PayUMoney button on their sites / blogs can do so by logging in to PayUMoney and in the merchant dashboard going to PayUMoney tools. Post that, they can click on the PayUMoney button in order to create new button. The e-tailers can then specify the amount and customise the look and feel of the button. They can also add a custom field to collect more information about the customer. Once that is done, e-tailers can embed the button into their website and start collecting payments.