Courier Indésirable

One of the things I like about French is that it is full of euphemisms. Also given that anyone speaking French sounds either polite or romantic (albeit in a very facial paralysis kind of way, where the lips are always too close to each other), it’s a great language to be impolite in.

Case in point: Courier Indésirable. You know what we call that in English? SPAM.

The reason I bring this up is because, in the past week, a few different customers have emailed me saying

“What is wrong with Online Bookstore A, B, C? No matter when or where I mention Flipkart, this Online Bookstore A, B, C pops up and adds its 2 cents about how I should try their bookstore. What makes them think that by annoying me— your customer — they’ll get converts? Whoever their marketing/sales person is, he/she deserves to be fired.”

The little snippet on top has been paraphrased and condensed by me, just to TONE IT DOWN. You may think I’m making this up, because I need to spew bile and didn’t find a better place. NOT. I spew enough bile everyday on my Flipkart co-workers; ask them. I am always annoyed about something or the other; once everyday, twice on Sunday.

And if I’m annoyed, well, you should go have a chat with these people who mailed me. People on Twitter and Bloggers.

Again, I am not an authority on an issue such as this, so feel free to correct me or contradict me. All I ask is for you to approach this with an open mind.

There are primarily 2 ways to acquire customers:

1> Find those who have never before tried a product/service such as yours, and get them on your side.
2> Target those who try a product/service similar to yours and get them to switch to your side, because you have the “better mousetrap”.

The way you are going about your No. 2 (pun unintended) is what is annoying people.

If someone was using Vodabone and you advertised that your Fairtel was cheaper, hence getting Vodabone customers to switch to you, that is acceptable. However, when you find Vodabone customers and plaster their house walls with Fairtel marketese (blogs), or their scooter and car with Fairtel bumper stickers (Twitter), then it annoys them.

Maybe it was a bad analogy, but you know what I’m getting at.

No one said marketing and customer acquisition was easy, and for the most part it’s an all’s-fair-no-holds-barred-gloves-off-fight-to-the-death contest. There are a lot of things both you and me do, and we both know we do it, and we both let it slide. It’s my left hook for your jab. We both understand the rules. We don’t cry foul, until of course, now.

Knowing where to draw the line — or spotting a line already drawn, so as not to overstep it — that should have been mentioned by Al Ries & Jack Trout.

If overstepping was bad news, allow me to break the worse bit to you: These people are complaining to US about YOU.

a> These same customers are telling us about you. They were under no obligation to do so, neither do we send probing emails out to people. They volunteered to give me that information.
b> And if it has annoyed them so much that they’ve taken the trouble to tell us, I will hazard a guess that they’ve already told all their friends.
c> You’ve succeeded in losing customers you didn’t even have.

British Airways did a similar thing with Virgin Atlantic and we all know how that story ended. I know, you are not BA and we’re not VA.

There is this term — will be familiar to those who read Clausewitz / Art of War, or are into gaming — “Fog-of-War”. It is used to describe uncertainty, dark areas, the unknown etc. If Indian e-commerce was a battlefield in a MMORPG, you would see a few little fireflies on a canvas covered in Fog-of-War.

Those little fireflies are us. You and me. We.

My advice to you, kindly rethink your strategy. I’m saying this not as a competitor, but as one of the people involved in making Indian e-Commerce a bigger better happier place.

Lest you forget, we are all on the same page.

PS: My apologies if I took too much of your time or sounded too preachy. Now if you will excuse me, I have bags to pack and a flight to catch.

Posted in Behind The Scenes, Book Industry | Tagged | 2 Comments

Breaking News

sachin_bansal_ceo_flipkart_order

It was just reported to us by Ance in Customer Support that the order placed by Sachin Bansal, THE Sachin Bansal (Co-Founder and CEO of Flipkart.com) has not yet been delivered. The package was shipped through a reputed courier service (we will not mention names but it rhymes with FlewDart), and the above screenshot slipped under our door 5 minutes ago, further corroborates the claim.

This is further proof that e-Commerce in India — particularly those portals focusing on physical goods — faces many struggles, but is very much alive and kicking. This article in TechCrunch about MakeMyTrip.com (also mentioning Flipkart.com) sheds further light on the issue.

Back to the main story, however. The delivery of the said article will be delayed. Although Flipkart CEO Mr. Sachin Bansal was unavailable for comment, we did manage to contact the other Flipkart Co-Founder CEO Mr. Binny Bansal, who had some stern comments to make and did not mince words. Here is what he had to say:

“No Comments”.

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Untitled

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EOM.

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Two Examples of Customer Service

The past couple of weeks have been hectic — not necessarily in the simple hectic=busy sense. A few roadblocks got thrown our way, which meant we had to run around a lot more than was necessary. So what does this have to do with customer service?

Flipkart’s an online bookstore, and the basic premise of which includes being online almost all the time (not unlike other jobs.) We’re also big proponents of FOSS, and all of us tote around laptops running Ubuntu 8 or so.

Except me.

I tote around two Ubuntu 9.10 laptops, with a third backup. Why do I need to carry around so many laptops. Because I’m an important man and I need to seem unnecessarily busy while looking like a Trader with my LIBOR on one screen and the Hang Seng Index on the other. There is of course a simpler explanation.

One fine evening — without as much as a warning — my Dell died on me. It went blank, and then refused to boot up. As the saying goes “the blue lights all kept blinking, but there was no one home.” Something had to be done. So I rushed over to the nearest desktop and contacted Dell over their Chat … and soon enough a friendly Ethel_Silo came on and got started on the diagnosis.

We tried a few things, all of which went nowhere. Still, the process of elimination is a critical aspect of anything — Flipkart could have started off selling everything under the sun, but I’m not sure we would have made much headway were we to start that way. By the process of elimination, we narrowed down to books and that has I think held us in good stead. We can now start to explore other categories perhaps…

But I digress.

So by a process of elimination, we realised what the problems weren’t. Now all that was left was to figure out what the problem was — and then it happened. The power went out, and the PC I was on was not sufficiently high up in the desktop food-chain to deserve temporary backup. My desktop gave up the ghost, and with it went Ethel_Silo (whose hand I was convinced I would ask in marriage, were she to fix my Dell).

I resigned to being counted as a Laptop Widower and thought I should grieve, but there was no time. I had to move on pretty quickly.

It was going to be a long night and I needed discomfort food. Domino’s took my call and said they’d be there in 30 minutes. I hung up and realised a few minutes later I had forgotten to order the dip. I called Domino’s back and requested them to send the dip along as well, if their guy hadn’t left yet. They said sure.

Out from the cupboard came the spare Lenovo ThinkPad and I went about installing and upgrading and transferring and salvaging all that I could. So there I was under a dim light — The deceased Dell to my left asking me to be brave, the Thinkpad to my right being loaded and wondering if I will ever love it as much as I did the Dell, and my trusty old Compaq in the middle finishing the artwork so that I could make the Printo deadline.

Domino’s guy came around and handed me my Pizza and Garlic Bread and Fanta. I asked about the dip, he had no idea. I said fine, no problem, paid him and went back to my troika of screens.

From Here On Is Where All The Customer Support Kicked In

20 mins later, another Domino’s guy turns up. Bells went off in my head — it can’t be. But sure enough, there he was— 20 minutes after the order was delivered and 5 mins after I had finished off licking the crumbs from my keyboards — with a tiny container of Dip.

Now ,

a> I’m not necessarily a longtime or loyal customer of Domino’s (though I would like to believe I am)
b> It was my oversight, I was the one who had forgotten to order the dip
c> I did not threaten anyone with dire consequences or swear I would go to Consumer Court

Yet,

There he was, making the solitary trip only so that I got the dip I had forgotten to order. When he saw I had finished the Pizza, he said “Oh well, i don’t think you need this dip anymore!”. I insisted I’d pay of it, it was the least I could do. He smiled and asked me not to worry about it, got back on his bike and rode off.

I have a feeling he did this on his own initiative. Not because of company rules or protocol or getting stars on his shirt; because he thought he should do what he felt should be done. Given a choice between doing things right and doing the right thing, he chose the latter.

After a long night of installations, upgraded and reboots, I woke up late the next morning. Walked into the office and someone handed over a phone message left for me. Delll had called, they were wondering if all was fine because I abruptly went offline. I smiled, but I had too many other things to do.

Sometime the same evening, someone came up to me saying there was call from “one of my foreigner friends”. That struck me as odd, but I didn’t know the half of it. It was Dell again, saying I had abruptly logged off and they had left a message for me but I hadn’t called. Was all well?

I apologised, said all was well but that I was a little tied up to get back on chat support. I would probably get back online later in the week. We hung up.

2 days later, I got a mail from Dell. “Is everything Ok? They would really like to have my problem resolved, but I was always unavailable. When would it be convenient for me to get back in touch with their Tech Support?”

There’s this one line I’m very fond of: “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem”. Looks like with Dell, that line applied to me. They really wanted to help me, but I wasn’t co-operating!

Like it happens with most people who know me long enough and well enough, they soon realise they will have to take unilateral action and I will just go along with it. I think Dell did just that, with a Voodoo doll.

Someone from the office was fiddling around with the deceased Dell, and it booted up. IT CAME BACK TO LIFE, ONE WEEK LATER. So Ms. Ethel_Silo, if you’re reading this, my problem has been resolved, with no intervention from you and even less from me. It has self-healed. I will get in touch with you soon.

To everyone at Domino’s and Dell, I salute you.

PS: This blog post is currently being written on the very same Dell, now with the added flavour of Ubuntu Karmic Koala. Karmic, how appropriate.

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BBF09 And All That Jazz …

One reason I’ve been unavailable and unreachable has been the Bangalore Book Festival 2009 (organised by the Bangalore Booksellers and Publishers Assocation, scheduled to kick-off at around 11am tomorrow. As a matter of fact, we just got back from there, setting up the stall and whatnot.

We’re at Stalls #183 and #184, just down the lane from Blossoms and opposite ICFAI.

As best as I know, Flipkart probably the only Indian Online Bookstore to participate at any such event. Also, as best as I know, we’re probably the only one to have ABSOLUTELY NO BOOKS in our stall. Moreover, as best as I know, we’re probably the only ones to have a 102cm Big and Widescreen TV in the stall, with 5 computers to boot.

It’s looks like a Sports Bar and a Library Bar had an offspring that was decidedly a cyber café. Now if we can only get the interior decorating right …

The idea is for us to not only meet and greet other Publishers, Distributors and Retailers … but also for curious customers to have an up-close-and-personal look at Flipkart. Maybe even have a “Live Tweet From BBF09″ (not sure what that will be like thought, probably like running commentary at a Chess Tournament showcasing the Nimzo-Indian Defence). Looking forward to it!

Spent a lot of time generating order from chaos, so didn’t actually get to see the complete list of all participants. As Jaya mentioned on the Pothi Blog, they will of course be there, Stall 288. My only interaction with Jaya/Pothi has been in ping-pong sessions between them, authors and us. Sure hope we get to see them and get some ball rolling.

What was heartening to see was a lot of Kannada literature on display. Regional languages (in my opinion) don’t get as much exposure as they ought to — or maybe I’m wrong and they do — in which case I’d like Flipkart to have something to do with them getting better exposure.

Looking forward to bumping into you there!

Posted in Behind The Scenes, Book Industry | Tagged | 2 Comments

A Few Reasons Why Online Payment Is Safe On Flipkart

Here’s a mail I received a few days ago:

Hi Tapas,

In your blog can you please write about the security standards which you follow if anyone orders the book using credit/debit card from your site. I am telling you because today I wanted to buy some book and I was browsing through your site [...] and one of my friends asked me not to do that because he suspected that once I give the card number it might be misused. Many people might have inhibitions like that and you can clear it either telling something on the site or on your blog.

Regards,
Rakesh

A very valid concern. One of our main challenges was to get Payment Gateway integration, but that was a cakewalk compared to the challenge of finding customers and getting them to pay online. Hope this helps:

Flipkart.com does not store/save any of your information

When you click on the Pay By Credit Card / Debit Card / Netbanking link, you are redirected to a Payment Gateway like www.ebs.in or www.ccavenue.com. All your details are processed through them and the only thing we receive is a transaction ID against your Order, as confirmation that payment has been received.

All your details get processed and verified by the Payment Gateway and your Credit Card Company / Bank.

As far as how secure the Payment Gateways are, here are some details:

EBS uses seven server architecture model which helps in better encryption of data which protects the clients information. All credit card authorization is done using the high-tech Axis, HDFC and Citibank’s secure servers and the same is encrypted before it is transmitted over the Internet to the Acquiring Banks. Additionally EBS servers are behind security firewalls to ensure maximum protection of our customer’s information. This guarantees that your information is inaccessible to any third party. EBS uses the best industry-standard Verisign Technology, which ensures the security of the data

CCAvenue uses secure servers throughout and adopts stringent security measures to ensure that sensitive information such as customers’ personal details is protected. Customers enter all their personal information and Credit Card details on ICICI’s E-Payments(Payseal) and Citibank’s secure servers and the same is encrypted before it is transmitted over the Internet to the Acquiring Banks. Additionally CCAvenue’s server is behind security firewalls to ensure maximum protection of your customer’s information.

Modes of Payment - Distribution

Modes of Payment - Distribution

This should allay all fears of paying online. Most of our customers do in fact pay online (as opposed to Cheque / DD / Money Order) and in the past two years that we’ve been up, we have had not one instance of fraud or misuse of details.

Online payment is safe. Payment gateways are secure.

Posted in Behind The Scenes, Emails To Flipkart | Tagged | 2 Comments

Startup Saturday: Flipkart & Online Retail

startup-saturday-bangalore

The troops just came home — Shivku and Binny and Mekin and Abhishek and Vishal and Ashwin and Vijay.

For those not in the know, they spent this morning at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore for a Startup Saturday Showcase. Given that “Online Retail” was the agenda, the presentation time was shared between Flipkart.com and Picsquare.com (an Infibeam umbrella brand).

The panel members were a Who’s Who of Indian online retail; Mr. Vaitheeswaran (Indiaplaza.in, turned out to be a no-show though) and Mr. Subramanian (Infibeam.com). Flipkart, Indiaplaza and Infibeam all on the same stage, if that’s not a great party I don’t know what is!

(On a more serious note) For those of you who were present, how did it turn out? What were the hits and the misses?

Was it worth you while?

Do chime in.

Posted in Book Industry, Startups | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Decoding the Promo Code

Ok, here’s why we have the friendly little box that asks you if you have a Flipkart Promotional Code:

a> It’s been there since the first time we had offers through some campaign or the other, co-branded ones, usually. Some of those codes are still valid, which is why we haven’t “disabled” the promo code box.
b> We also have other social initiatives on, where certain NGOs we’ve tied up with get additional discounts.

We also know for a fact that people have managed to get hold of these codes — the same codes that were meant for donations to these NGOs — and ordered books using them, but not for donations to the NGO but for personal use.

So for the record —

i> There is no Flipkart Promotional Code that any of the employees or the customer support have
ii> When we do send out the Promo Code, it is usually as part of a co-branded campaign (with a Cellular Service Network Provider, for example) or …
iii> … as part of our CSR initiatives with certain institutions and NGOs (meant essentially for people who donate to these very causes).

On a related note, we get asked very often about discounts mentioned on Flipkart vis-à-vis that of other online retailers.

First off, competition’s great! I’m not saying that because it’s the politically correct thing to say. It’s just part of any organism’s genetic code — survival of the fittest and dog eat dog and all that. You should either be chasing someone or running away from someone, else you will atrophy.

So all things being equal, here’s how we decide on discounts (this was part of an email I sent someone):

We essentially price discounts based on what we think is the best possible we can offer, while keeping margins for ourselves.

This is also why we don’t have loyalty schemes and so on … because we believe that service should eventually set us apart, and that quality (coupled with price and everything else) should be at par for all users. Whether you are 4 books old or 40 books old, you shouldn’t be treated any different … the quality and price offered to the first timer should be the same to someone who’s been with us for a few months.

Now of course there are exceptions and edge cases and bulk orders and whatever else (like this reflection of a bystander). All said and done though, the above pretty much encapsulates it.

We’re bigger than we used to be, but we’re still a small Indian startup in the grand scheme of things. It’s great when people refer to us as the “Amazon of India”, the flip-side to which is that we are expected to give Amazon like discounts! We cannot, for a couple of reasons:

*Amazon has been around for over a decade and is a monolith. Their relationships with Publishers and Distributors allow them to do what they do at the price points at which they do. Flipkart doesn’t have that kind of clout — not yet.

*Amazon also happens to be in the same country as a variety of US publishers. Flipkart on the other hand happens to be on the other side of the world. We need to bear a lot of the import costs and things that go along with, which is why we cannot offer the same discounts as Amazon — not yet.

In closing, we do not explicitly have any Promotional Codes or Flipkart Promo Coupons laying around spare. We’re doing the best we can at offering as much of a discount to you as possible. It may seem counter-intuitive, but the only way you can help us give higher discounts is by buying from us!

Help us become the Amazon of India (although if you ask me, I’d rather they be called the Flipkart of the US!).

I’ll leave you with the tables turned:

Ramayana by R. K. Narayan on Flipkart — Rs. 190 ($4)

Ramayana by R. K. Narayan on Amazon — $ 15 (Rs. 760)

Have a good one.

Posted in Book Industry, Startups | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

With Every Mistake We Must Surely Be Learning

while_her_guitar_gently_weeps

via Varsha181

Posted in People That Make Us, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

Emails That Deserve A Mention - 2

This mail’s pretty old, 3 weeks or so — just that I had forgotten to mention it then.

From Arun:

You know honey, you owe me some money,
i want to see it, each and every penny,
we all like flipku, why dont you like us,
please take the book वापुस, Where art thou Tapas?

From Me:

It is truly fecund, we’ve reproduced the refund
My beloved, as you remember - on the 5th of September
It’s not a case of fright, or complete BS
I’ll check again with FirstFlight and then with goddamn EBS

We’re a poet and we don’t know it.

Posted in Emails To Flipkart, People That Make Us | 1 Comment