The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Bahl: Indian e-commerce mirrors China's marketplace ecosystem, not the US
“The Indian market is evolving much more similarly to the Chinese market than the U.S. Market.”
Bahl: Local Indian startups will out-execute distracted global players like Amazon
“Any big multinational company can't focus all their energy, all their resources, however vast those may be, only on one market. Our speed of execution is materially going to be higher and faster than any market player which has a very large global mandate.”
Bahl: Low shipping costs guarantee strong long-term Indian e-commerce unit economics
“I think that's a structural advantage for the Indian market, which will ensure that in perpetuity, the economics of e-commerce in India will actually be quite good. Because as people buy more and more high margin stuff and more discretionary items online, the …”
Bahl: Indian FDI rules rightly favor marketplace efficiency over capital scale
“We feel it's a very encouraging development. It's actually good for our market, because suddenly building the right and the most efficient marketplace Is far more important than how much capital you have to go and buy a bunch of product and stock it in your wa…”
Bahl: Indian e-commerce is unregulated and FDI policy was merely a clarification
“E-commerce in India is Not a regulated space. There are different laws, whether it's a consumer protection law or a labor law, different laws we have to adhere to. But when something is regulated, I would say telecom is regulated in India. There is an authorit…”
Bahl: India's retail market will hit $1 trillion by 2019
“In India India's retail market is about six hundred billion dollars. Going to a trillion dollars in the next three years.”
Bahl: Unorganized small businesses make up 93% of Indian retail
“Out of which only seven percent is organized. 93% of India's retail is small businesses.”
Bahl: India's largest fashion brands cap out at $250M annually
“The largest fashion brand in India would be maybe two hundred fifty million dollars. There are a few that are at that scale, but that's the scale, even though the market itself is tens of billions of dollars.”
Bahl: Nationwide shipping in India costs just $1 per package
“It costs about a dollar to ship a product in India. Nationwide.”
Bahl: E-commerce supply chain control does not require full asset ownership
“Controlling doesn't necessarily mean owning. You can choose to own and build certain parts of the supply chain, because there aren't existing high quality service providers, which is the case for some parts of the supply chain in India. But for certain parts o…”
Bahl: Logistics infrastructure deters hyper-competition in Indian e-commerce
“Also, I think that it's become a big deterrent. For new players, because unless you've built those capabilities, why would your service quality be better than someone who had? So it's actually become a deterrent for hyper-competition in India.”
Bahl: C2C e-commerce is winner-take-all globally, unlike B2C
“I think, at least as we've observed e-commerce around the world, we've seen that C to C tends to be a winner-take-all in most markets. Like, even in the U.S., you have one C to C player, eBay. In China, you have one C to C player, which is Taobao. Whereas B to…”
Bahl: FreeCharge processes one million transactions per day
“Free charge processes you know, million transactions a day, which is a lot by Indian standards, and with very, very high retention of cohorts, and those users over a period of time are becoming transactors.”
Bahl: Messaging will play a major role in commerce and payments apps
“But we do believe that within existing, let's say, commerce apps or payments app, chat will play a very big role, messaging will play.”
Bahl: Snapdeal sells $30 Delhi retail sarees for $12 nationwide
“So to take an example of a sari that's made in Gujarat, it'll typically be made for about five to six dollars. It'll be sold for about 30 dollars in a market in Delhi. That same saree is sold on Snapdeal for about 12 dollars, including free shipping across the…”
Bahl: Cash on delivery once drove 80% of Indian e-commerce
“That's why cash and delivery was so high, like going up to 70, 80% at one point as a percentage of all transactions, because it was just very,”