Bangalore, 06th June 2014 eTailing India concluded its 2nd Edition of the “Omni-Tech Summit -Bangalore” on 6th June, 2014 which was held at the Taj Vivanta, MG Road. The event focused on the role of technology in starting and scaling an ecommerce business. Over 300 businesses, brand owners, and entrepreneurs attended the conference and exhibition.
As eTailing India and Atom Technologies co-authored a report on ” prepaid cards and the future of ecommerce@, clearly, better technologies, logistics and prepaid cards are leading the reform-impetus for the ecommerce industry.
Industry estimates reveal that year 2014 could witness retail purchases made with prepaid cards topping U.S. $200 billion dollars, equalling five percent of all retail spending in the U.S. The purchase volume numbers include prepaid debit, payroll cards, open and closed-loop gift cards and open and closed-loop consumer incentive cards.
Says Ashish Jhalani, ” What is ideally driving the Prepaid cards business and scaling it to these significant and sharp recent highs? Well, to begin with the appeal factor. Prepaid cards have entered the favorites list of every generation and each recognizes a gain through them. Parents prefer providing and refilling them rather than hand their kids a checkbook or a credit card they may have to co-sign. The prepaid card option also comes across as a handy and more user friendly hassle free option for students who probably use them in their school/college campuses or for travelling.”
Dewang Narella of Atom Technologies added, “Off late we are seeing a growing trend where companies display their own branded cards at the entrance of their retail shops or restaurants in order to engage with customers and do better business. Merchants like to sell their own branded prepaid cards because they can learn about their customers preferences and drive more sales. Sixty percent of the merchants surveyed said increasingly customer loyalty through prepaid cards was a priority over the next 24 months.”
Large and small ecommerce players have to think of technology beyond website and order processing. They need to look at technology as an enabler around customer experience, product discovery, and supplier support technology.
Mr. Krishna Raghavan, Vice-President, Flipkart focusing on technology said that, “Technology is one of the most important tools while scaling your eCommerce business. Flipkart remains at the fore font of developing cutting-edge technology and systems which benefit end consumers and our sellers alike”.
eTailing India and Atom Technologies also launched a report on “Prepaid Cards in India” and the evolution of prepaid cards as a favoured method for payments. The report highlighted the evolution of prepaid cards as well as carried latest data from the RBI on the various payment methods.
The panel discussion on M-Commerce by Baqar Naqvi (Wazir), Alokedeep Singh (Titan), Vikram Dasu (Homeshop18), Vineeth Narasimhan (Fibrelink), Alok Goel (Freecharge), Shashank Joshi (Money on Mobile), Alok Mehta (Atom Technologies) discussed the evolution of M-Commerce in India and the future of the business model.
In the other session the key steps and benchmarks in building a Technology driven eCommerce business and the current scenario and future outlook for funding eCommerce Businesses was discussed by Baqar Naqvi (Wazir), Rahul Chowdhri (Helion Advisors), Sharda Balaji (NovoJuris, Ravindra Krishnappa (Indian Angel Network).
The other speakers present at the conference were Jessie Paul (Paul Writer), Siddharth Kapoor (Caratlane.com ), Aravin
d Sankaran (Marlabs), Parul Nagpal (Blue Stone), Aprameya Radhakrishna (TaxiforSure), Karthik Venkateswaran (Flipkart), Anshul Singh (TradeIndia), Vikram Bhat (Myntra), Krishna Raghavan (Flipkart), Sujatha Balakrishnan (Valtech), Jaspreet Bindra (Getit Infomedia), Bharath Devanathan (Groupon India, APAC Emerging Markets).
Ashish Jhalani is the Founder of eTailing India (the largest eCommerce Knowledge Platform in India). eTailing India provides knowledge to the retail and eCommerce industries by organizing conferences and workshops; releasing research reports, guides and directories.Recently eTailing India has also embarked on partnering to launch Indian School of eBusiness (ISeB) to provide eBusiness training. Ashish is also closely associated with several ventures as an adviser and/or mentor.Ashish graduated from NYU Stern School of Business and worked as a Retail Expert for Kurt Salmon in their New York Office, where he helped clients such as Home Depot, Sara Lee Apparels, Tiffany & Co., Phillips Van Huesen devise their market strategy & operations. Ashish is also the the Co-Founder & CEO of MySolitaire.com (US)
