Can open networks for digital commerce take on Amazon & Walmart?

 

As per Arvind Gupta, the head of Digital India Foundation, a public stage is something worked around the idea of transparency, standard and trust. It is upheld by the public authority and not by any private substance.
There are around nine stages with billion or more clients each across the world. Five of them are in the US and four in China. What's more, not a single one of them are government supported. With Aadhaar, India assembled the world's first and biggest public computerized stage. It is presently being utilized in banking, KYC and a few different fields. It prompted some kind of computerized upset, similar to the introduction of UPI which finished the duopoly of two worldwide administrators in India. It permits you to send or get cash regardless of the installment stages on which you are enlisted.
What's more, presently, Nandan Nilekani - - who assisted the public authority with making the biometric ID for practically 1.4 billion individuals after helping to establish Infosys - - accepts that Open Network for Digital Commerce or ONDC meets every one of the measures for the following upheaval and interruption in India. It has the public authority's responsibility, the economic situation is overflowing and there is a gigantic shift to internet business after the pandemic.
ONDC looks to make everything fair for little traders in the nation's divided yet quickly developing $1 trillion retail market. While tending to a gathering, Nilekani as of late said that ONDC is basically the same as National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) - - which is additionally a non-benefit area 8 organization....Read More

Three, including gunman, killed in shooting outside Oklahoma Walmart store

International News
Three individuals were killed in a shooting early Monday outside a Walmart store in Oklahoma, including the aggressor, police said - the most recent in a string of dangerous weapon assaults at the prevalent grocery store chain.
Danny Ford, the police boss in the town of Duncan, said the shooting - an obvious local debate - occurred in the blink of an eye before 10:00 am (1600 GMT) in a parking garage before the store.
"We have three people that are expired. We have two white guys and a white female. Two of the exploited people are inside the vehicle, one is outside the vehicle," said Ford.
A handgun was likewise found at the scene, police said.
Witnesses told nearby news channels that the shooter moved toward his exploited people while they were inside the vehicle, starting to shoot at them.
He at that point turned his weapon on himself when a fourth man allegedly hauled out a gun and tested the shooter, they said.
Relatives at the scene said the shooting was a local contest between a spouse and his significant other, a nearby Fox news subsidiary detailed.
A Walmart representative revealed to Fox that no staff individuals were engaged with the episode in Duncan, a town of 22,000 occupants somewhere in the range of 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City, the state capital.

Schools in the territory had been set on lockdown incidentally before being given an "all reasonable" by nearby police, the neighborhood school region said in an announcement. Toward the beginning of this current month, another permitless convey law became effective in the focal US state, permitting anybody more than 21 and without a lawful offense conviction to convey a weapon without a grant or a permit.....READ MORE

E-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon clock bumper sale on Day One

International News
Dispelling the fear that a slowing economy may affect consumer behaviour, e-commerce majors Flipkart and Amazon India have said they witnessed record transactions on their platforms on the first day of their annual festive sale, which started early on Sunday.
While home-grown Flipkart, which is now owned by American retail major Walmart, said it registered two times more sales on Day One of its flagship sale event Big Billion Days (BBD) over last year, rival Amazon claimed it witnessed the biggest opening day sale ever with a huge surge in participation in smaller towns.
According to Amit Agarwal, senior vice-president and country head, Amazon India, the company also saw the single-largest day of Prime sign-ups, with 66 per cent of Prime members shopping in 24 hours coming from tier II and tier III towns. The company added that 91 per cent of new customers were from smaller cities.
“Whether it is the Diwali festival season or any other shopping event, the primary objective for us is to add as many new customers as we can and convert the existing customer into Prime members. We are relevant to customers, no matter the macroeconomic conditions,” said Agarwal.

 According to Flipkart, it saw huge demand in almost all major categories, including beauty, women’s ethnic wear, kidswear, sports, fast-moving consumer goods, baby care, private labels, and furniture on the first day of the sale. The company saw 3x more transactions happening on its platform during early access (from Flipkart Plus customers), compared to last year. The number of transacting customers in tier II and smaller cities doubled over the same period. “We started this festive season by setting audacious targets. By all indication, this is going to be the biggest festive season that India has witnessed,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of Flipkart....READ MORE

Walmart International Q2 operating income declines 29.6% due to Flipkart

Company News

Walmart International, the segment which consists of the retail giant’s operations outside US including retail websites, on Thursday posted 29.6 per cent decline in operational income on a reported basis and 27.3 per cent decline in constant currency, primarily due to Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart.
The Bentonville-based company (in Arkansas) is locked in a battle with US rival Amazon for dominance in India’s online retail market through Flipkart, which it acquired for $16 billion last year in May.
“Walmart International continued to make progress on managing costs and delivered 36 basis points of expense leverage in the quarter. However, operating income declined 27.3 percent in constant currency and 29.6 percent on a reported basis due primarily to the expected dilution from Flipkart as well as the overall gross margin pressure,” said Brett Biggs, executive vice-president and chief financial officer of Walmart Inc.
In May, Walmart had said its reported international operating income in the Q1 declined 41.7 per cent and went down 37.5 per cent in constant-currency terms was on account of Flipkart.
Doug McMillon, president and chief executive, Walmart Inc., said the ecosystem the company is building through Flipkart is impressive and comprises strong businesses. For example, he said Myntra, a leading online fashion destination, recently concluded their largest sale event of the year – the End of Reason sale – where more than two million customers shopped during the four-day period with 7,000 plus orders per minute at peak.

To help fulfill these orders, the Flipkart team partnered with almost 11,000 local Kirana stores to support last mile delivery, said McMillon. This Kirana partner network helped deliver approximately 70 percent of the 8.5 million packages that were fulfilled during the event, he said...Read More

Walmart to pay $282 mn for violating anti-corruption rules in 4 countries

Company News

International retail giant Walmart Thursday agreed to pay over $282 to various US bodies to settle charges of violating anti-corruption regulations while conducting its business in India, China, Brazil and Mexico.

According to the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), these violations were conducted by Walmart's third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA.
SEC has charged Walmart with violating FCPA by failing to operate a sufficient anti-corruption compliance programme for more than a decade as the retailer experienced rapid international growth.Walmart agreed to pay more than $144 million to settle the SEC's charges and approximately $138 million to resolve parallel criminal charges by the Department of Justice for a combined total of more than $282 million, SEC said.

"Walmart valued international growth and cost-cutting over compliance," said Charles Cain, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's FCPA Unit."The company could have avoided many of these problems, but instead Walmart repeatedly failed to take red flags seriously and delayed the implementation of appropriate internal accounting controls," he said.

Walmart consented to the SEC's order finding that it violated the books and records and internal accounting controls provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.


 According to the SEC's order, Walmart failed to sufficiently investigate or mitigate certain anti-corruption risks and allowed subsidiaries in Brazil, China, India, and Mexico to employ third-party intermediaries who made payments to foreign government officials without reasonable assurances that they complied with the FCPA.

Soon, Walmart will put groceries right in the fridge while you're out

Company News
Walmart Inc. already sells more food than anyone else. Now it wants to put those groceries right in your fridge.
Beginning this fall, about 1 million people in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and Vero Beach, Florida, will be able to get cereal and celery while away from home. Walmart staffers -- sporting wearable cameras -- will arrive in company-owned cars and unpack the food in customers’ kitchens.

“Once we learned how to do pickup well, we knew it would unlock the ability to deliver,” Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said in a statement. “What if we not only cover the last mile to customers’ homes, but even the last few steps?”

The service, dubbed Walmart InHome, will be led by Bart Stein, who joined the retailer last year and had been working inside the company’s Store No. 8 incubator on a project code-named “Franklin.” The effort follows a small pilot program Walmart conducted two years ago in California with smart-home provider August Home, which used workers from startup Deliv to handle the in-home deliveries.

Fees and other details of the new service, like what smart-home hardware would be required, weren’t disclosed. Walmart currently charges as much as $9.95 for home delivery, which it offers in more than 100 metro areas, with another 200 coming on board this year.
Real-Time Consent


 Employees who deliver the food could be paid a premium, but the approach shouldn’t cost Walmart much more than existing fulfillment methods, US e-commerce CEO Marc Lore said Thursday.One thing Lore and Stein were clear about was that their delivery staff won’t enter any home without the customers’ real-time consent, transmitted through its shopping app.

Walmart Q1 operating income declines 41.7% primarily due to Flipkart

Company News

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said its reported international operating income in the quarter declined 41.7 per cent and went down 37.5 per cent in constant-currency terms, primarily on account of Flipkart.

The Bentonville-based company (in Arkansas) is locked in a battle with US rival Amazon for dominance in India’s online retail market through online retailer Flipkart, which it acquired for $16 billion last year in May.

“A large part of the decline was due to dilution from Flipkart, which was expected, partially offset by the deconsolidation of Brazil. The timing of Easter also negatively affected operating income versus last year. The full year earnings dilution related to Flipkart is still in line with expectations,” said Brett Biggs, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, Walmart Inc, about the first quarter of FY20 earnings.

Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer, Walmart Inc, said he continued to be excited about the opportunity he saw in Flipkart and its digital payments company, PhonePe.
“I got to visit our teams in India and China a few weeks ago. I’m impressed with the team and their ability to innovate for customers with speed,” said McMillon.

He was on a crucial visit to India in April to assess the progress made by Flipkart and discuss the strategy to take on its rival Amazon, according to sources.During the quarter, the company returned $3.7 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Its level of share repurchases increased significantly year-on-year in Q1.


 Walmart’s operating income in the US grew 5.5 per cent because the gross margin rate was better than expected due to several factors including a better merchandise mix in both stores and e-commerce, and less pressure from transportation costs, partially offset by continued price investments.

Flipkart completes a year with Walmart, launches 'Supermart' in Mumbai

Company News

It has been a year since India witnessed the largest M&A deal in its history. Walmart Inc. on May 9 last year had announced it is buying 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for about $16 billion at a valuation of $21 billion. On Thursday, Flipkart celebrated its one-year anniversary of being part of the global retail giant.

However, a lot has changed in one year. Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, who started the company in 2007, have both exited the firm. Close on the heels of Binny’s exit, Ananth Narayanan, the top boss of Flipkart’s branded fashion platform Myntra Jabong, also exited the firm.

While Sachin left immediately after the deal went through, which some say was over issues around leadership and control, Binny’s untimely exit came later. In November last year, Binny announced his resignation as chief executive officer (CEO) of Flipkart Group, effective immediately, following an independent investigation into an allegation of “serious personal misconduct”, Walmart Inc. had said.
However, the senior management at Flipkart believes the company has come out a lot stronger after this transition.

“Flipkart’s partnership with Walmart is helping the group better serve Indian customers and accelerate its growth with products and solutions that solve real problems in the country. These include supply-chain infrastructure that is disrupting the industry to benefit local consumers, suppliers, and manufacturers,” said Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

Walmart’s India push


 In the last few weeks, Walmart’s top bosses have made trips to Flipkart’s sprawling campus in Bengaluru, reiterating their confidence in the company as well as its management.

Amazon raises stakes for rivals with 1-day delivery goal after profit surge

Company News

Amazon.com Inc plans to deliver packages to members of its loyalty club Prime in just one day, instead of two days, part of a spending ramp-up that may curb near-term profits and will up the ante for retail rivals such as Walmart Inc.

Shares rose as much as 2 per cent in after-hours trade on Thursday as Amazon said faster shipping will come to customers around the world and said its profit more than doubled in the first quarter, trouncing estimates thanks to soaring demand for its cloud and ad services.
The news marks a costly challenge for competitors that will have to pour money into a logistics problem that even the king of e-commerce has yet to solve. Amazon expects to spend $800 million toward the shipping goal in the second quarter alone.

"There's a lot of error bars around this programme, especially from the cost side," Amazon's Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky told analysts on a conference call. "We (are) again, trying to take advantage of the fulfilment capacity and transportation capacity, especially with third-party partners, that we have."

While Olsavsky did not provide a concrete timeline for the program's rollout, he said, "We expect to make steady progress quickly and through the year."

US rivals Walmart and Target Corp have steadily rolled out two-day shipping, albeit on far fewer items than Amazon Prime customers can get at that speed for $119 a year in the United States. Olsavsky said the "vast majority" of Amazon's selection is available in two days, and the company has already expanded the number of goods eligible for same-day and two-hour delivery.


 "Amazon is cranking it up a notch, trying to set themselves apart," said Cathy Morrow Roberson, a former UPS analyst who founded consulting firm Logistics Trends & Insights....Read More

Game of Thrones: Piracy 'better than Emmy' for HBO as it battles Netflix

Company News

Eight years after the first season premiered, the long-awaited winter has finally come – Game of Thrones’ final season is here. The television series created by David Benioff and Daniel Brett Weiss from the books by George RR Martin has built a rich and complex multi-thread plot-knot of epic battles, of the living and the undead, of long owed-debts to be paid, and of the culmination of clan stratagems to win the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

But at the end of season seven in the autumn of 2017, it wasn’t the clan warfare that had us cliffhanging, but the thought of the army of undead white walkers and their zombie dragon bearing down on Westeros.

Many millions of fans are waiting breathlessly for the denouement – and it’s a legion of fans that has grown exponentially over the eight-year run. In the US, for example, the audience has grown from 2.5m viewers in the first season (2011) to an average of 10.3m during season seven, which peaked at more than 12m viewers during the season seven finale on August 27, 2017.

According to MUSO, a magazine which specialises in piracy, the first episode of season seven alone was pirated 91.74m times and the season accumulated more than a billion illegal downloads a week after it ended.

So many people viewing outside of the official channels doesn’t just suggest the incredibly large audience GoT can attract, it also demonstrates the growth in illegal downloading of television shows – 11% last year – despite the effort of the streaming technologies to kill off piracy.
Piracy has its rewards


 But this hasn’t necessarily been a problem for HBO. In 2013, the boss of Time-Warner (which owns HBO), Jeff Bewkes, declared that piracy was: “Better than an Emmy” because more people watching the show inevitably led to more people deciding to pay for subscriptions.

Mukesh Ambani's plans to take on Amazon and Walmart hit a legal firewall

Companies News:

There’s a wrinkle in plans made by Asia’s richest man to take on Amazon.com Inc and Walmart Inc on his home turf in India: his telecom and retail businesses can’t share data.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries Ltd., has outlined how he will marry the might of his group’s 9,900-plus retail stores and 280-million strong telecom user base to bolster his e-commerce venture. A senior Reliance executive says that any data sharing on customers between the two, could run into a legal wall.

“They are different companies so there are data privacy rules,” Ashwin Khasgiwala, Reliance Retail Ltd.’s chief financial officer said at a conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. “They’re different platforms,” he said while declining to elaborate on how the group plans to overcome it.
While its brick-and-mortar retail businesses are housed in Reliance Retail, the telecom operations are in a separate legal entity Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. Legal hurdles in sharing information can stymie a variety of lucrative uses of that data to sell more products to customers.

Ambani, who calls data the ‘new oil’ and has warned of ‘data colonization’ by overseas firms in India, can potentially find workarounds for the legal snarl. One option would be to merge the two Reliance units.


 Data sharing between “two legal entities is going to be very difficult,” said Abheek Singhi, head of Boston Consulting Group’s consumer practice in India. “My view would be at some point in time, at least from a legal entity perspective, it will come together.”Read More

Walmart CEO unfazed by new e-commerce law; hopeful of future with Flipkart

Companies News:

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, it was “disappointed with the recent change in law and lack of consultation” with regard to the new e-commerce regulations in India. But, it was confident of the long-term prospects of its India unit, Flipkart.

The Bentonville-headquartered company, which announced its 2018-19 (Walmart follows the February-January financial year) results on Tuesday, got a major leg up from Flipkart in its gross sales, despite divestment of its Brazilian unit. However, its operating income and profitability took a hit due to continued investment in its Indian subsidiary.

“In terms of the regulatory environment in India, we are disappointed with the recent change in law but the team is working to ensure we are in compliance with the new rules. We hope for a collaborative regulatory process in the future. This will result in a level playing field,” said Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer, Walmart, during an analyst call.

The change in e-commerce policy came into effect from February 1. It bars e-commerce companies from selling products through firms in which they have a stake. Companies operating in this space also cannot earn more than 25 per cent of total revenue from a single platform.

McMillon, however, said the new regulations have not shaken Walmart’s “confidence and excitement” about Flipkart’s long-term prospects as the business has behaved in line with their expectations.


 The company, he said, remained optimistic about India’s e-commerce opportunity, given the size of the market, the low penetration in the retail channel, and the pace at which it was growing.

India-US talks on February 14: Crude oil imports to dominate agenda

Economy & Policy:

A pledge by India to reduce trade imbalance through greater crude imports, US firms’ concerns on the new e-commerce policy and retaliatory tariffs imposed by both nations will dominate the agenda on February 14, when officials sit down for the India-US Commercial dialogue.
Being held after a hiatus of a year, the annual talks will see Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu discuss trade policy differences with US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

India expects Washington DC to push hard against the tough rules on foreign direct investments in e-commerce that have rattled US giants like Walmart.

Officials suggested the US was demanding a clear indication from India on reducing the trade deficit. The US is also in the process of terminating the Generalised System Preferences (GSP), which has allowed duty-free access for 3,500 Indian products to US markets. Officials added India might not put up a fight in this regard.

Last year, both countries had given a wide berth to contentious trade issues in the 2+2 dialogue, instead focus on defence and foreign affairs. The predecessor to the talks, the erstwhile ‘India-US Strategic and Commercial Dialogue’, had started in 2015. However, after two annual rounds, a decision was taken to carve out trade issues into a separate annual discussion — ‘India-US Commercial Dialogue’.


 In the first edition of trade talks, Prabhu had gone to Washington DC in October 2017. But both the nations coming to repeated blows over trade issues throughout 2018 had stopped talks from materialising.

Were Jeff Bezos' plans to dominate Indian e-commerce ambushed by Ambani?

Companies News:

Amazon.com and Walmart Inc.’s plans to dominate India’s online retail landscape have been ambushed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political priorities heading into a tightening election.

The vote, which must be held by May, has increased the influence of local retailers that lobbied for growth-crimping curbs on the U. S. giants. On cue, India this month rolled out constraints on foreign e-commerce players including Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart, which together control 70 percent of its online shopping. The tighter rules, aimed at protecting small traders, may end up benefiting the country’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who is building a home-grown competitor.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party is still licking its wounds after being trounced in three key recent state polls and a year ago fighting an unexpectedly close contest in Gujarat -- Modi’s home state. Among small businesses, which are a traditional support base, the government’s popularity has been eroded by 2016’s surprise cash ban and the subsequent chaotic roll out of a new sales tax.

The rules now bar Amazon and Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd. from owning inventory, and require them to treat all vendors equally, throttling discounts and exclusives -- a huge advantage to homegrown companies including Ambani’s new venture. His Reliance Industries Ltd., which owns India’s largest retail chain and third-biggest telecom network, has the potential to evolve into a local version of Amazon or Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., UBS AG said last month.


 “Whether serendipitous or not, India’s tightened regulatory regime for online retailers is a huge win for Reliance with its new retail ambitions,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief executive officer of consultancy Greyhound Research. “This could be a field leveler for them..Read More

Walmart, Amazon shape online sellers lobby to fight new e-commerce rules

Companies News:

Hit by the latest e-commerce rules, American majors Walmart and Amazon are planning to pitch the sellers on their Indian platforms against the domestic lobby groups such as the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), it is learnt.

The newly renamed Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) had last week clarified that there would be no extension to the February 1 deadline for e-commerce firms to comply with the conditions related to the FDI policy in the sector (known as Press Note 2), triggering panic among prominent online firms such as Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart.

Since CAIT and SJM have been pushing the government for an e-commerce policy that keeps in mind the interests of traders, the foreign majors are trying to get their sellers together and put forward their cause. Since the two biggest e-commerce companies have been adversely affected by the new conditions in Press Note 2, they are arming themselves with a parallel lobby group represented by sellers ahead of a proposed e-commerce policy.

The financial hit


 DPIIT’s move to not extend the February 1 deadline has had an adverse affect on business as both Amazon India and Flipkart have had to cut down their number of sellers by as much as 30 per cent. They have had to slash sales in almost 60 categories involving 45 million products...Read More