This Bindaas Wall is definitely a double-edged sword! It helps bring out the positives about the good deals, so more and more users feel comfortable buying. But on other days, it can totally ruin a deal. If there is any flaw with a deal, all the users find out about it immediately. It affects our sales tremendously, sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. We are still proud that Bindaas Bargain is one eCommerce site in India that has an open wall, where users can write anything about the products offered at the site (as long as it is not spam or malicious). We have accepted the powers of this mighty wall now. I personally think of the wall as a great tool of democracy - everyone has a voice and every one collectively decides if a deal will rule or will be sent to ruins. I have a firm belief that eCommerce websites in India will have to embrace the concept of Social Shopping , and the wisdom of crowd and recommendation from friends are going to change the shopping paradigm in India.
There is one challenge - a handful of people want to dominate the wall. There was this instance when a certain person formed an opinion about a deal and wrote it all over the wall. He wrote his opinion once and then replied to ten other comments on the wall with the same opinion, verbatim, all in a matter of minutes. On days like that, I really wonder if we are really ready for such open wall or an eCommerce democracy! For this open communication to take hold, both sides have to show some restraint - we, as a company, have to be fair and open to criticism and customers have to control their urge to rule the wall. Each customer is entitled to his/her opinion, but writing the same opinion 10 times on the wall is like one person putting in 10 votes for his/her favourite candidate. Please put your one vote and let democracy play its part.
Other thing it made us do was to develop some internal controls over the process, in case we need them. Now we have the system where we can restrict a particular person from writing 'freely' on our wall. In all honesty, we don't want to use this control, but a person with bad intent can’t be given a chance to dominate the wall. He should only be able to cast his one vote.
I was on a vacation while we had our first Rapid Deal day on July 30, a successful one, I might add. The internet connection was choppy at the place we were vacationing, but I was determined to stay with the process the whole day. We were very worried - about if the web site will support the visitor load, if we will be able to present the whole idea in a simple way, if we will sell, etc. Except for a few hiccups, the day was very successful. Everyone got the concept, a lot of deals were 'Sold Out', the web site didn't fail. Few hiccups were discovered in our systems, especially in deal sequencing and timing. First one or two deals, we sold more than what we had in our warehouse. When we discovered this error, we called up the last customers of the deal and apologized. They graciously accepted the refund of their money. We will correct our systems as I am sure we will have more of these rapid deals in the future.
Just recently, we had to revoke a deal on Swatch watch about two hours into it. The reason was, we got a frantic call from the biggest supplier of Swatch who said that other sellers were complaining to him about our low prices and that we should not be allowed to put the deal with such low prices! We had to back down and rescind the deal, but that serves as a testimony to the extent to which we provide real value to our customers.
Our real focus at this time is on gaining more users. We have grown tremendously during last few months and the deal numbers are starting to look very impressive. Still, we need much bigger numbers to be profitable, looking at our thin profit margins. We need to tap our existing users and their connections. We need to come up with a referral scheme that is interesting to the users and is smart enough to avoid fake registrations (that happened a lot during our first referral scheme). I think we have the right formula this time. We are going to release the new referral scheme fairly soon and it will be a win-win situation - good for our users and good for us.
It is heart-warming to see repeat customers on our site. The following are a few observations from our database:
- There are 60 customers till date who have bought ten or more deals at Bindaas Bargain and few of them have bought more than 40 deals each in a short span of eight months!
- We have shipped 7500 orders to 3600 individual customers so far. About half of these customers have bought multiple deals from us.
- The top two states in deal buying are Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh (in that order). Go Maharashtra!! (or should I say Go Mumbai...)
We are frantically working on a new feature that rewards our repeat customers. In a business model like ours, we have to come up with some creative ways to let our customers "earn" and "burn" loyalty points. You will earn points for doing what you love doing at our site and will be able to burn those points to pay for a portion of the price of any deal. I am so excited about this scheme as this one gives the loyalty points to the people who truly deserve it.
Well, my vacation is over and I got back home this Sunday. I am excited about the coming weeks and about the new features on the website. Are you?
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
The Bindaas user
When we were deciding about the Discussion forum on our website, some of us were of the opinion that Indians in general are complainers and would take every opportunity of writing negative comments and we should be the “moderator” so that every comment posted on the forum will have to be approved before it appears on the website. There were a few of us in the (virtual) room who believed we should take a chance on the “Indian customer” and let him (I am being statistically correct – our 82% users are male) post comments without scrutiny. Today, we are all glad we took a chance. Most of the comments on our Discussion forum are genuine, stemming from personal experience and real reviews. There are some negative comments, but I believe that they are genuine too. The whole purpose it to let the truth show so that other users have some help in making a decision about their next purchase.
I have to mention that there have been rare occasions where a handful of users posted malicious comments, which we believed were coming from vested interest and not from an unbiased personal experience. We replied to them honestly and with respect, but strongly. I think we are slowly earning a (deserved) reputation that we have an honorable and true agenda of making a genuine eCommerce company in a long run. In the short span of 5 months, Bindaas Bargain and our users have earned a lot of mutual respect!
The users have been concerned about the fact that most of the products we sell are from China and are doubtful of the quality. Some of the products are from China. The fact is that China produces a majority of the consumer goods for the whole world today and the world can’t satiate it’s material thirst without Chinese goods. Western world (especially US and Canada) procure most of the consumer goods from China and are happy with the quality. The devil is in balancing out our need for the goods as a consumer and the money that we are willing to pay for them. Indian market has so far settled on the cheaper goods (and thus the lower quality) from China. And thus the concern that our users have is sort of genuine. We are trying to raise the bar a little bit and go for the quality that is usually exported to the western countries. Literally, there are tens of options for everything that we buy from China with varying quality of material and workmanship. It is a very complex array and it is very challenging to pick the best quality. We have made mistakes in judging the quality and got cheated (which in turn affects our users). What we focus on right now is the due diligence we have to do to get the good quality products consistently and still offer discounts to our users. We hope to do that as we have no middle man and we sell in a wholesale fashion to our retail customers.
Our customer has been treated badly in the past by (atleast one) other eCommerce site in India. When there is a slight problem with the delivery or the quality of the product, their past bad experience makes them go really aggressive with us. Somehow, they can’t trust that Bindaas Bargain WILL work on it and WILL make it right. I say this because at a number of occasions, users have written bad language to our customer service in the first email itself. In most cases, they are surprised later that we reply to their emails quickly and that we are ok with replacing the bad product at no cost to them as soon as possible. I wish they could at least be civil in their first encounter with us!
And of course there are those ones that make our day. Nice, gentle, and appreciative users, who verbalize their good feelings to us. They are the ones that keep us going. Just recently, a buyer wrote us a very sarcastic email about her experience with our (delayed) shipping, but the email was written so humorously and in good taste, that I didn’t mind reading even about the complain. It is very encouraging to see that sometimes one user will answer a question or concern posted by other user on our discussion forum or Facebook page. That is the way we intended the forum to be! We are going to stick to our quality standards (regarding products and after-sales support) and wait for the day all our users have faith in us and don’t jump at the slight problem that they spot. We know it is going to happen, slowly and one user at a time. I learnt it at Assigncorp, where we routinely hire new employees who sometimes come from other (not so good) companies and are concerned about everything and are very jumpy in the beginning. As the time goes, they realize that they are in a good company (pun intended). Whenever a problem arises, they know that it will be solved/dealt with in the best possible way and communicate with us very calmly and with respect. My wife sees me on the phone sometimes in the evenings answering a barrage of questions and concerns from a nervous new employee and chuckles. She knows that this same person is most likely going to be our family friend a few months later. She has seen it happen so many times over the years.
I sincerely hope that some day, we (everyone at Bindaas Bargain) have created a bond with our users and have become a sort of online friends with a lot of them. I have a feeling, this Bindaas experience will have a lasting impact on all our lives, especially the ones who are in direct touch with the users – the list includes customer service folks, Bindaas bees, and I, for sure.
See what our users are saying about us:
Bindaas Bargain Discussion Forum
Bindaas Bargain Facebook Page
On a lighter note, see the picture I clicked at Guangzhao airport in China recently :-)
I have to mention that there have been rare occasions where a handful of users posted malicious comments, which we believed were coming from vested interest and not from an unbiased personal experience. We replied to them honestly and with respect, but strongly. I think we are slowly earning a (deserved) reputation that we have an honorable and true agenda of making a genuine eCommerce company in a long run. In the short span of 5 months, Bindaas Bargain and our users have earned a lot of mutual respect!
The users have been concerned about the fact that most of the products we sell are from China and are doubtful of the quality. Some of the products are from China. The fact is that China produces a majority of the consumer goods for the whole world today and the world can’t satiate it’s material thirst without Chinese goods. Western world (especially US and Canada) procure most of the consumer goods from China and are happy with the quality. The devil is in balancing out our need for the goods as a consumer and the money that we are willing to pay for them. Indian market has so far settled on the cheaper goods (and thus the lower quality) from China. And thus the concern that our users have is sort of genuine. We are trying to raise the bar a little bit and go for the quality that is usually exported to the western countries. Literally, there are tens of options for everything that we buy from China with varying quality of material and workmanship. It is a very complex array and it is very challenging to pick the best quality. We have made mistakes in judging the quality and got cheated (which in turn affects our users). What we focus on right now is the due diligence we have to do to get the good quality products consistently and still offer discounts to our users. We hope to do that as we have no middle man and we sell in a wholesale fashion to our retail customers.
Our customer has been treated badly in the past by (atleast one) other eCommerce site in India. When there is a slight problem with the delivery or the quality of the product, their past bad experience makes them go really aggressive with us. Somehow, they can’t trust that Bindaas Bargain WILL work on it and WILL make it right. I say this because at a number of occasions, users have written bad language to our customer service in the first email itself. In most cases, they are surprised later that we reply to their emails quickly and that we are ok with replacing the bad product at no cost to them as soon as possible. I wish they could at least be civil in their first encounter with us!
And of course there are those ones that make our day. Nice, gentle, and appreciative users, who verbalize their good feelings to us. They are the ones that keep us going. Just recently, a buyer wrote us a very sarcastic email about her experience with our (delayed) shipping, but the email was written so humorously and in good taste, that I didn’t mind reading even about the complain. It is very encouraging to see that sometimes one user will answer a question or concern posted by other user on our discussion forum or Facebook page. That is the way we intended the forum to be! We are going to stick to our quality standards (regarding products and after-sales support) and wait for the day all our users have faith in us and don’t jump at the slight problem that they spot. We know it is going to happen, slowly and one user at a time. I learnt it at Assigncorp, where we routinely hire new employees who sometimes come from other (not so good) companies and are concerned about everything and are very jumpy in the beginning. As the time goes, they realize that they are in a good company (pun intended). Whenever a problem arises, they know that it will be solved/dealt with in the best possible way and communicate with us very calmly and with respect. My wife sees me on the phone sometimes in the evenings answering a barrage of questions and concerns from a nervous new employee and chuckles. She knows that this same person is most likely going to be our family friend a few months later. She has seen it happen so many times over the years.
I sincerely hope that some day, we (everyone at Bindaas Bargain) have created a bond with our users and have become a sort of online friends with a lot of them. I have a feeling, this Bindaas experience will have a lasting impact on all our lives, especially the ones who are in direct touch with the users – the list includes customer service folks, Bindaas bees, and I, for sure.
See what our users are saying about us:
Bindaas Bargain Discussion Forum
Bindaas Bargain Facebook Page
On a lighter note, see the picture I clicked at Guangzhao airport in China recently :-)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
An adventure in eCommerce in India
I have been so excited lately! We recently launched a new eCommerce website in India. BindaasBargain.com. One big coincidence - we launched it on Nov 30th last year and then we realized that it was Cyber Monday. Good start - I said to myself.
Seriously, the first 4 months of Bindaas Bargain have been extremely exciting; I work long hours, am awake till dawn (almost), I think about Bindaas Bargain all the time, and I am still happy and excited. My brother recently asked me if I would get into it again if could go back in time. Yes - I said, thinking about the amazing ride it has started out to be. There are ups and downs, with each decision having it's impact on the website and the users. Somehow, it all makes a lot of sense though - the deal structure, user response, user comments, the frenzy of collecting as much information on the product as possible....
The whole team - content writers, customer care persons, technology folks, creative guys, order fulfillment persons - they have all been very calm and composed. And that surprised me in the beginning. I was myself very anxious, but everyone else who was actually involved in the process was not. And then I realized that everyone else had already been doing what they were doing at Bindaas!! The pieces of this operation were all the same as any other eCommerce business. Only the whole design of the operation was different and no one else but we in the management were doing it for the first time in India. So naturally we were the only ones anxious...
We are calming down though. There are still events and decisions to be made that increase our heart rate, but over all, we at least know something - it has been a good start.
I keep thinking about all aspects of Bindaas Bargain - the deals, the user behavior, shipping challenges, payment options.... I will write about these things from my perspective in my future blogs. I guess, I am a person who is not happy with just doing - I have to talk!
Join us at Bindaas Bargain and see what we are upto.
Umesh Lalwani
Director, Bindaas Bargain
Seriously, the first 4 months of Bindaas Bargain have been extremely exciting; I work long hours, am awake till dawn (almost), I think about Bindaas Bargain all the time, and I am still happy and excited. My brother recently asked me if I would get into it again if could go back in time. Yes - I said, thinking about the amazing ride it has started out to be. There are ups and downs, with each decision having it's impact on the website and the users. Somehow, it all makes a lot of sense though - the deal structure, user response, user comments, the frenzy of collecting as much information on the product as possible....
The whole team - content writers, customer care persons, technology folks, creative guys, order fulfillment persons - they have all been very calm and composed. And that surprised me in the beginning. I was myself very anxious, but everyone else who was actually involved in the process was not. And then I realized that everyone else had already been doing what they were doing at Bindaas!! The pieces of this operation were all the same as any other eCommerce business. Only the whole design of the operation was different and no one else but we in the management were doing it for the first time in India. So naturally we were the only ones anxious...
We are calming down though. There are still events and decisions to be made that increase our heart rate, but over all, we at least know something - it has been a good start.
I keep thinking about all aspects of Bindaas Bargain - the deals, the user behavior, shipping challenges, payment options.... I will write about these things from my perspective in my future blogs. I guess, I am a person who is not happy with just doing - I have to talk!
Join us at Bindaas Bargain and see what we are upto.
Umesh Lalwani
Director, Bindaas Bargain
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