Flipkart eyes doubling revenue from exclusive brands during BBD sale

As it gears up for the Big Billion Days (BBD) sale next month, Flipkart Fashion is lining up over 25 exclusive brands and collections.

The firm expects exclusive brands to account for around 20 per cent of its total fashion sales during the BBD against 11 per cent now, said Rishi Vasudev, head of Flipkart Fashion.

Flipkart Fashion holds 35 per cent of the total online fashion market in India and is growing at 60 per cent month-on-month. The firm expects the festive season over the next two months to drive the share to 50 per cent.

“The spike in festive sales will help increase our share in online fashion space to 40 per cent for the full year,” said Vasudev.

The e-tailer is launching a new label in women's wear next month. During Diwali season, online marketplaces are seen getting into neck and neck competition offering discounts, special offers, and fast deliveries to capture a bigger slice of the market.

Flipkart bets on MarQ to push large appliances this festival season

d of Flipkart’s flagship BigBillionDays sales, customers could start seeing advertisements of a new consumer durable brand in India. MarQ, Flipkart’s private label for large appliances, aspires to become India’s youngest consumer durables brand.

Launched ahead of last year’s Diwali festive sales, MarQ has grown to become one of the best performers in the large appliances categories on Flipkart’s platform. The company claims it is on target to grow sales through the label by over 100 per cent during this BigBillionDays, compared to the last.

While the private label was initially rolled out in a few categories such as refrigerators and televisions, the company has slowly been entering several other categories, including water purifiers and air conditioners, with products under the MarQ brand.

Walmart-Flipkart deal: NCLAT seeks to know the firms' business model

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has asked US retail major WalMart and e-commerce major Flipkart to explain their way of doing business in India.

NCLAT, which is also an appellate authority over the Competition Commission of India (CCI), has asked Wal-Mart International Holdings Inc to file its reply before it by September 20, 2018.
It has also asked trader's body CAIT, which has filed an appeal before NCLAT challenging the go ahead by fair trade regulator CCI on Walmart's $16 billion acquisition of home-grown Flipkart, to file its understanding over the Walmart's business model in India.
"Before going into the merit of the appeal, we intend to know the manner in which Wal-Mart International Holdings, Inc. and Flipkart Private Ltd do their business in the relevant market in India," said an NCLAT bench headed by Chairman Justice S J Mukhopadhaya.

Why Mukesh Ambani's Reliance, not Walmart, is Amazon's real rival in India

It’s time the Amazon.com Inc. boss took notice of his real rival in India, the only billion-strong consumer market open to Western tech firms. While Walmart Inc.’s acquisition this year of Flipkart, a homegrown e-tailer, might have given the impression that the battle for India would be an all-American contest, a new national e-commerce policy doing the rounds in New Delhi should disabuse Bezos of that notion.

If the draft policy becomes a law, the oil-to-telecom tycoon who’s India’s richest man will emerge as the most formidable challenger to the wealthiest person on the planet.

The core contest comes down to warehouses. Foreign-funded firms aren’t allowed to hold e-commerce inventory in India. That’s a disadvantage for Amazon since it prevents the firm from fully capitalizing on the strengths of its vaunted logistics operation, seen as one of its most decisive edges in the US.

Amazon was hoping that those rules would be loosened but the proposed policy instead calls for harsh controls on even the phantom sellers that Amazon and Flipkart have been using to get around the no-inventory problem. If the new policy is strictly implemented, Amazon and its preferred resellers, won’t be able to offer deep discounts.

Why Walmart's Flipkart acquisition is its admission of defeat in India

Walmart Inc. might want to portray its $16 billion purchase of India's largest e-commerce firm, Flipkart Group, as a brilliant strategic move, long-planned in secret, that would allow the U.S. retail giant to manage the transition away from big-box stores globally. Yet, the truth is that the deal represents a second-best outcome -- if that -- for Walmart as well as for Indian consumers and farmers.

In the 11 years that Walmart has operated in India, it’s signally failed to build up its own business. That’s not entirely the company’s fault. In fact, it’s a reminder that India remains, in some ways, as inhospitable to foreign businesses as the People's Republic of China.

For over a decade, successive Indian governments have denied permission to Walmart -- and peers such as Carrefour SA -- to open up their own stores. Foreign investors can enter into partnerships with local retailers -- Walmart had one with Bharti Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. -- but they can't control the consumer-facing end of the business, and their supply chains are subject to fearsome additional regulations. When foreign investment in supermarkets was finally permitted in 2012, for example, the previous government required any major, foreign-backed outlets to source 30 percent of the processed or manufactured goods they sold -- by value -- from tiny Indian enterprises worth less than $1 million apiece. The government also blocked companies such as Walmart from expanding into small-town India, restricting them to cities with populations over 1 million people.

Walmart's Flipkart deal gets rude welcome from market, shares plunge 4%

Walmart Inc.’s deal to buy a controlling stake in India’s biggest online seller is meeting skepticism on Wall Street.

The world’s largest retailer will acquire a 77 percent holding in Flipkart Group for $16 billion, the companies said earlier Wednesday. Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal and other shareholders will hold the remainder. The tie-up values the Indian e-commerce giant at about $20.8 billion and marks a blow against rival Amazon.com Inc. as the battle for e-commerce supremacy goes global.

The deal -- Walmart’s biggest ever -- gives it greater access to India’s e-commerce market, which Morgan Stanley has estimated will grow to $200 billion in about a decade. But it will take some time for the business to turn profitable, and analysts on a Wednesday morning call about the deal adopted a cautious tone. S&P Global Ratings changed its outlook on Walmart to negative.

“As Flipkart is expected to generate meaningful losses for at least the next few years, this is clearly an investment for the future,” Moody’s analyst Charlie O’Shea wrote in a note.

Walmart shares dropped as much as 4.2 percent to $82.12 as of 10:28 a.m. in New York -- the lowest intraday price since October. The company’s stock was already down 13 percent this year through Tuesday’s close.

Amazon infuses Rs 26 bn in India, Jeff Bezos shows he still means business

After losing out to Walmart in acquiring online marketplace Flipkart, Amazon’s Chief Executive Jeff Bezos is keen to show that he still means business in India and has charged up the company’s local e-commerce unit with fresh funds.

Amazon Seller Services, the marketplace unit of the US online retail giant in India, saw a cash infusion of Rs 26 billion (approximately $390 million) late last month, according to documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) that was sourced from business intelligence platform Paper.vc on Tuesday.

The Seattle-headquartered company, earlier this month, is learnt to have made a bid to acquire a controlling stake in Flipkart with an investment of around $12 billion along with a $2 billion break-away fee. However, Flipkart board preferred to go with Walmart as the investors and founders were afraid that a deal with Amazon would run into regulatory hurdles.

Google employees lose nearly 250 Gbikes a week: Report

Technology giant Google loses between 100 and 250 of its colourful employee bicycles a week from its campus, the media reported.

Google maintains roughly 1,100 free, two-wheelers with yellow frames, red baskets and green and blue wheels, known as Gbikes, for its employees to get around its sprawling campus.

However, according to company estimates, its bikes consistently go missing from its campus-between 100 and 250 a week, typically costing $100 to $300.

The bikes have shown up at local schools, in neighbours' lawns, at the bottom of the town creek and on the roof of a sports pub.

"The disappearances often aren't the work of ordinary thieves, however. Many residents of Mountain View, a city of 80,000 that has effectively become Google's company town, see the employee perk as a community service," the Wall Street Journal reported on January 5.

A decade ago, Google started Silicon Valley's first corporate bike programme, which was adopted by at least 16 others across the US, including at Apple, Facebook, and Walmart, the report said.

The company recently equipped about a third of its 1,100 bikes with GPS trackers, which revealed that the two-wheelers take an average 12 trips and travel six miles a day.

It now also has a team of 30 Google contractors and five vans who are tasked with retrieving Gbikes. They carry waders and grappling hooks for pulling bikes out of a creek.
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News digest: GST e-way Bill, Rahul Gandhi's elevation, and more

GST Council firm on e-way Bill despite traders' concern

An electronic system to track movement of products under the goods and services tax (GST) system will be put in place across the country (inter-city as well as intra-city) by June 1, 2018. Read More...

More traders paying taxes on GSTN: Sushil Kumar Modi

The proportion of tax-paying traders has increased to 70 per cent of those registered on the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) as the technology backbone built by Infosys has begun to stabilise and make it easier for them to file returns, said Bihar Finance Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Saturday. Read More...

Rahul Gandhi takes charge of the grand old party

Rahul Gandhi on Saturday took charge as president of the Congress in the presence of the 132-year-old party’s brass and his family members. Read More...

UIDAI suspends Airtel, Airtel Payments Bank's e-KYC licence

In its strongest action yet, the UIDAI has temporarily barred Bharti Airtel and Airtel Payments Bank from conducting Aadhaar-based SIM verification of mobile customers using the eKYC process as well as e-KYC of payments bank clients. Read More...

US may stop spouses of H1B visa holders from working

The Trump administration is considering revoking an Obama-era rule that extends work authorisation to the spouses of H1B visa holders, a move that could affect thousands of Indian workers and their families. Read More...
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Walmart drops 'Stores' from name to shed brick and mortar image

Walmart Stores Inc will be known as Walmart Inc, effective Feb. 1, the world's largest retailer said on Wednesday, as part of its efforts to rebrand itself as more than a brick and mortar store.

The name change highlights the company's online, pickup and delivery and mobile shopping capabilities.

"Our customers know us as Walmart and today they shop with us not only in our stores but online and with our app as well," Chief Executive Doug McMillon said.

The company, which has more than 11,600 stores around the world, will continue to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'WMT'.
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Human trafficking tragedy: 10 found dead in Walmart parking lot in US

One more person has died after more than 30 persons were found in a tractor-trailer parked outside a Walmart in San Antonio in the US state of Texas, making the death toll to 10, officials said.

Nine undocumented immigrants died after being trapped inside a tractor-trailer at a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, officials confirmed Sunday afternoon.

The crime came to light when a man in the truck asked a Walmart employee for water. The employee brought water for the man and called the police, Xinhua news agency reported.

Police were then called to the parking lot and found eight dead and 31 injured inside the trailer. A ninth victim died in the hospital and several people are still in critical condition at local hospitals.

San Antonio fire chief Charles Hood said the people were in the trailer without any type of liquid. In the midsummer heat of Texas, the trailer did not have a working air conditioning system, said Hood.

These kinds of horrific tragedies are occurring with shocking frequency in San Antonio, which has become a center of human smuggling and trafficking.

On July 7, agents found 72 persons from Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala and El Salvador inside a locked trailer in the same part of town. The next day, they found 33 persons from Mexico and Guatemala inside a trailer that had stopped at a Border Patrol checkpoint. In another incident last week, border patrol agents found 16 persons inside a locked trailer.
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Wal-Mart, IBM oppose US exit from Paris deal, but will stay on WH panel

Several major US companies, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc, JP Morgan Chase & Co and IBM Corp, on Friday said their CEOs will remain in an influential presidential advisory group despite objecting to President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate accord.

Citing the need to stay engaged with the administration, business leaders said they would remain in their advisory roles to continue working to influence White House policies.

Trump, a Republican, on Thursday said he would pull the United States from the landmark 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, drawing anger and condemnation from world leaders and heads of industry.

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Walt Disney Co CEO Robert Iger reacted by leaving White House advisory councils after Trump's move.

"Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world," Musk said in a Twitter post on Thursday. He was a member of the business advisory group, known as the President's Strategic and Policy Forum. He also belonged to Trump's manufacturing jobs council.

Asked about CEOs' criticism of the U.S. withdrawal, White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Friday said some companies that expressed support for remaining in the agreement raised concerns about the emissions reduction targets.

Spicer, speaking to reporters at a daily news conference, added he does not know if Trump will replace Musk and Iger on the business council.

A spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the largest U.S. retailer, said on Friday that Chief Executive Doug McMillon will remain on the business council.

McMillon said in a Facebook post late on Thursday he was "disappointed in today's news about the Paris Agreement. We think it's important for countries to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty will remain on the council, the company said on Friday as it reaffirmed its support for the Paris accord.
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