With people moving deeper and deeper into specialization of products, there has never been so many possibilities ever before. Ever thought that your hobbies could make you land into one of the most rewarding careers of you Life. It’s that simple but it that challenging as well.
Even though people have multiple dreams and ideas, they may not necessarily have the proper business acumen to scale it up. They might be very optimistic about the product they are thinking but it is always useful to do a little home work and know the short-falls of What if it FAILS? or what if I have to rapidly scale it up in case it is super successful?
To understand all the lacuna and options to scale it up its always necessary to catch hold of a Guru who has previously encounter, many if not all, errors while setting up a business. And the best place to catch hold of the Guru, if you previously have none, is a conference. This is a platform where you get exposed to multiple Guru’s and you can chose so as to what exactly you are looking for.
I for instance am an techo-freak guy and having deep passion for e-commerce and I ended up attending the #Internet Retail Expo 2013. This is one place where people from all facets who have experienced or fond of experiencing the power of e-commerce attended.
The spectrum of the people who visited included people from major offline retail stores, big players of e-commerce, analysts, internet securities professionals, packing solution providers, shipping partners, investors and naive people like me who fancy and want to enter the e-commerce arena.
How different people perceive the e-commerce arena is as follows:-
Offline retailers : We provide touch, feel concept of products and spot delivery to our customers. Online platform is just a trail version, people actually survey over net but believing in picking the product from the actual stores. Online gives an advertising tool for scaling up the offline retail sales.
e-commerce players : We take products to places where brands find it hard to penetrate, no wonder most of our customers are from TIER II/III cities. We are for those “Lazy” and “Techy” people who just love surfing and ordering on the go. Touch, feel, try and then pay for it. Industry is scaling up and taking proper shape maybe by 2015 it will have 8% share and in 2020 – 14% share of the total retail sale in India.
Investors : We have poured in a lot of money, but we are yet to taste some profit from the industry. This does not mean that there is not enough space in the industry but yes you need to be patient and have that gut feeling yes some day it will give some money. Things are improving and people are becoming more and more comfortable in sharing their credit card, online transaction details.
Internet Security professionals : Well if you need payment gateways, get that security sign you come to us and pay us. This is the only arena in the whole industry which sees profit across all product categories. It’s easy money for them. They are seen as necessary players for driving the whole e-commerce industry forward.
Analysts : Provide tools to survey the consumer behavior when they are shopping online. What are customer’s looking for, where are they moving for their particular requirements, what is the best day to sell, the reports on quarter-to-quarter, day-to-day, month-to-month basis etc. They have them all. You cannot scale if you cannot measure. Metrics are essential and it is very unique in terms to online retailing over offline retailing.
Packaging partners : Packing is one important touch point with customers for e-commerce companies. The packing should be leak proof and tamper seal to be evident when products are tampered. Its the end point but one of the most important touch point with your customer, you need to dress up your product to make it earn an extra penny on your next order.
Shipping partner: Customers click and forget about their delivery. This is the most critical aspect of e-commerce, customers must be aware about every instant so as to where there ordered product is. This single entity sucks almost all the profit a company makes. No wonder most of the big players are making this all in-house to increase profitability. But for start up’s you need to partner with 2-3 logistics partners who give you more and more penetration to TIER II/III cities, as this is from where 70% of your orders come from. More over with concepts like COD-cash on Delivery playing big reverse logistics and managing cash becomes utterly critical. Be wise to choose your partners.
Naive Geeks like me : Gasping at all instances when the above people came and presented their view points on e-commerce and commenting ” Yaar itni chizo ki bhi zarurat padti hai kya?”
Until and unless you an off-spring of a billionaire who can drool away a crore or two of rupees for starting just another e-commerce believe me guys it takes a lot of pain and thinking the model you gonna start up with and what will suit you best.
There are 100’s and 100’s of players in the field they are opening up and closing like the birth and death rate of human beings. Though there is a lot of potential in the market but you need to be utterly sure and innovative in the process and map you are designing for your start-up.!
But at the end of an enriching experience with the people in the conference I’ve certainly figured out that the seed funder’s, angel investors, VC’s are the coolest and most knowledgeable persons in this field as they talk to multiple people with slightly tweaked plans over and over again. Associating yourself with them not only provides you with funds but also provides you with an exposure to multiple business models and networking association with the who’s who in the industry. They help you market your product, help you have a step in the industry.
During the conferences keep on interacting with people you may end up having a business deal with one of the visitors there, like I just did. It happens believe me. Interact with as many people as possible make them believe in your dream.
Stay innovative, stay creative…………!!!!!!!!!!!!!
modification to my Guru Steve job’s advice
Stay hungry, stay foolish…!!!
