Sarat Buddhiraju

CLSA published a detailed research report on India quick commerce. Recommended reading. Who will be the first to create a $50-100Bn company in India internet? #Zepto #Zomato #IndiaInternet

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Sharing an interesting story from around the time when e-commerce started becoming a thing in India. Snapdeal at that time was a couponing business (similar to Groupon). We were selling restaurant, spas, travel coupons and even date with a celebrity as lightning deals on the platform. The sourcing team then started bringing in products like bean bags, perfumes and watches to be sold on the platform. From a technical perspective, we kept the data model as same and fit these products to be sold as deals on the platform. Everything was selling like hot cakes. One fine day, the sourcing team came up with a men's shirt to be sold. But there was one problem. "The shirt came with multiple size options." What started with a small data modelling problem fitting multiple sizes into a deal became a multiple day discussion of whether we need a rewrite the platform into a full fledged e-commerce. Seeing the traction on product deals, the answer was a definitive yes. Once we got the nod, began a marathon of sleepless nights and relentless brainstorming sessions, as a tight-knit team of 6-7 engineers poured their hearts and souls into making our vision a reality. Despite the inevitable challenges and hurdles along the way, we persevered, and against all odds, we succeeded. Now, thirteen years later, as I look back on my career journey, I can't help but smile at the memory of those exhilarating days. Building that e-commerce platform from the ground up remains not just a highlight, but a testament to the power of teamwork, innovation, and unwavering determination. Karun Singla Rahul Narang Shubhanshu Srivastava Praveen Garg Anand Kishor Dubey Kuldeep Singh Karan Sachdeva Snapdeal | AceVector Group

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Zepto cap table - less than 1% ownership with each founder and 6-8% each with their UAE based family members. Looks like highly optimized tax structuring in case of a liquidity event (IPO). With this ownership, pushing nationalism narrative is a lost battle. Introduction of nationalism narrative in the internet consumer categories is typically not a good sign. Amazon is preferred because of its faster deliveries and better customer experiences, and not because of being American or Indian. Grocery + FMCG market has a fixed TAM at a local level with very minor increase y-o-y. It would be unreasonable to assume that because of economy growing or onset of quick commerce, an individual household will start consuming more fruits, cereals etc or food habits/lifestyle will change drastically in a short period. It will not. This means that the demand which earlier used to get fulfilled by Kiranas and other hypermarkets is getting shifted to QC. One doesn't need market reports/data to arrive at this conclusion. Hopefully, everyone could find a middle ground in this reality.

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Zomato's Q1FY25 Earnings Soar: Revenue Up by 74% to Rs 4,206 Crore, Profit Skyrockets to Rs 253 Crore https://lnkd.in/d4YNQHFi Great to see regular profits from startup darlings of India. way to go 🎉🥳 #zomato #startup #india #indiastartup

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Open frameworks such as the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) are flagship frameworks in India which have standardized joining and usage of services and resources within their network - be it aggregation of services like Auto/Cab/Food delivery or seamless access to making & receiving payments. Scaling of other networks - which includes resources like city-level air quality data, water usage data or even quality of living parameters like medical, health and wellness can scale immeasurably using an Open Network for Public Commons framework. The prestigious ACM, Association for Computing Machinery COMPASS conference this year is having a session on RIC - Research to Industry Collaborations. https://lnkd.in/deyTG6RV If you are interested in understanding, participating or collaborating on how Standardized frameworks like ONDC can be applied to building scientifically-validated air quality networks and scaling them to 100,000 locations in India and globally - do consider participating in this RIC COMPASS. More details to join the ACM COMPASS RIC is available its website: https://lnkd.in/deyTG6RV #ACM #COMPASS #OpenNetworks #ONDC #UPI #AirQualityNetworks Swami Manohar Yogesh Simmhan Aaditeshwar Seth Abhishek Jain R (Subu) Subramanian (he/him) CV Madhukar Santosh Harish Kunal Kumar

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Building a composable solution requires a robust orchestration layer to avoid creating too much dependency on one solution or any one vendor. Similarly, using vendor-provided solutions will ultimately tie you up with their solution and defeat composability. At Assurex, we built Assure.Mart, a comprehensive solution which works along with your chosen vendors, be it CMS, Commerce, CDPs, Marketing Automation platforms, and Digital Asset Management platforms. Best of all, it provides a robust plug-and-play solution without compromising on SaaS-capable features offered by the platform. Don't let your implementation defeat composability. And if you want to see all this in action, drop a note at -> bit.ly/assure-me and request a customized demo. . . . . . . . #Assurex #CRO #MarketingStrategy #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #commerce #cdp #personlize #search #accelerators #dxp #delhi #dubai #delaware #london #uae #uk #india #usa #seamless #saudiarabia #middleeast #microsoft #google #aws #technology #experience #azure #composable #startups

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If you are building and selling for India, do read this - deep insights by Aakrit Vaish

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Finsire has recently started its learning series - Ideally by chatting with the best folks in the Industry. Here, with Siddharth Shetty, Co-founder and CTO of Account Aggregator (AA) from DigiSahamati Foundation, we speak about the data exchange's inception, growth, and future in India. - We use AA for various reasons, including pushing boundaries in India's data exchange layer with various use cases. - It's been about three years since it went live, and over 70 million cumulative Indian accounts are linked. - One-of-a-kind data sharing network from India that is not seen anywhere across the globe, baring Singapore with https://lnkd.in/gyrCQtVQ - Different approach to protect consumers as compared to the previous models that existed to attain consumer data by various methods used by Plaid or Salt Edge Onemoney Finvu (Cookiejar Technologies) Protean eGov Technologies Anumati by Perfios AA NADL - Account Aggregator Computer Age Management Services Limited KFin Technologies Ltd. Enjoy - Please click on the link below and watch the video!

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So, today’s Election results are totally aligned with the India’s salary structure:- Overall Package (CTC) - 400+ Gross Salary ~ 290-300 In hand salary ~ 245 And Nitish Kumar is a variable component ( Always Uncertain ) 🤣

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AICPDF, which claims to represent around eight lakh entities, is concerned about the expansion of quick commerce platforms alleging that they are creating an uneven playing field and impacting small retailers. Two things working in favour of these quick commerce platforms are having captive audience and the other is home delivery in place - retailers can give them run for money too - but the question is who will help them get the tech that fixes customer discovery and delivery

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Did you know that over the last 30 years, Walmart has sourced products worth over $30 billion from India? Now, Walmart has set a new goal to source $10 billion worth of products from India annually, aiming to play a bigger role in the country's e-commerce landscape. This ambitious target shows Walmart's commitment to India's economic development, particularly through its collaboration with Flipkart. This partnership is making a positive impact on India's economy by supporting the growth of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Walmart and Flipkart's collaboration not only increases opportunities for these businesses to export globally but also fosters economic growth and job creation across the country. By enhancing the capabilities of MSMEs, Walmart is helping to build a stronger, more resilient economy in India. And this is just the beginning. As Walmart continues to expand its sourcing from India, the future looks bright for the nation's e-commerce sector and its small and medium enterprises.. #Walmart #India #ECommerce #MSMEs #EconomicGrowth #GlobalTrade #JobCreation #Flipkart #FutureGrowth

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🚨 Making of a billion-dollar exit 💰 Accel has sold shares worth over $300 mn in Freshworks over the last 12 months, according to research done by The Arc The VC firm had not sold any shares during the IPO in 2021. It still holds over 13% stake in the Nasdaq-listed company 👨‍💻 The returns on this will be a multi-bagger for Accel 🤑 Series A entry price - $0.05 a share Current price - $18.44 a share Accel's average price increased as it participated in follow-up rounds. More 👇 #venturecapital #software #saas #freshworks #accel #vc #exits #returns https://lnkd.in/g65TbjGR

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Quick commerce vs E-Commerce   Has Amazon left behind or taken the Quick commerce space lightly?   Quick commerce is increasingly making inroads in India, giving customers the option to get range of products within minutes. The top 3 quick commerce firms: Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart are on the track to record a sales of about $4.5 billion annually. The quick commerce is growing at the rate of 125% whereas the e-commerce is growing at the rate of 10-12%.   Amazon has hardly done anything to address this space, in fact it has mocked the competitors who offer quick commerce offerings through advertisements. From what it seems Amazon hardly has any plans to enter into this space anytime soon. Even Flipkart has launched its quick commerce offerings such as Flipkart minutes (although I feel it’s a little late to the party). Is this the missed opportunity for Amazon as the quick commerce is growing at a rapid space? Does it make economic sense to venture into quick-commerce or is it more relevant for groceries only? This quick commerce seems to be the next big thing and it would be interesting to see who takes the lead here. #Quickcommerce #Ecommerce #productmanagement

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Revealed: the results of the largest survey of current PMs in India. Ankit Shukla and I collected data from over 1,019 PMs. We found that average PM CTC grows from 17 Lakhs per annum as an APM to 130 Lakhs as a CPO. Of course, there's some bands around all of this. Here's the total comp 25th to 75th percentiles: Associate PM: 14 to 20 lakhs PM: 18 to 38 lakhs SPM: 37 to 62 lakhs PPM/GPM: 62 to 97 lakhs Director: 61 to 133 lakhs VP: 77 to 135 lakhs CPO: 52 to 194 lakhs But it's interesting to look at the average. For instance, here's the average split between Fixed/Variable/ESOPs Associate PM: 82%/ 11%/ 6% PM: 81%/ 6%/ 13% SPM: 76%/ 9%/ 14% PPM/GPM: 74%/ 13%/ 14% Director: 65%/ 7%/ 28% VP: 65%/ 7%/ 28% CPO: 55%/ 7%/ 38% The ramp up in variable and ESOPs is very dramatic at senior levels, from 17% to 45% of total compensation. And that leads to huge increases in Total CTC. For more details - mediums, locations, company, and other cuts - check out the full report: https://lnkd.in/e-v2F27p

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🚀 #D2C Brands Surge Ahead of #Marketplaces! In a major shift, D2C brands outpaced marketplaces during the recent festive sales, recording a 64% growth in orders vs. 26% on marketplaces. This marks a growing shopper trust and confidence in D2C brands. 🎯 Key Highlights: 🛍️ Footwear led the charge with an astounding 273% growth in orders. 👗 Fashion & Beauty (Nykaa Purple SUGAR Cosmetics) saw impressive growth: 84% and 73%, respectively. 💍 Jewellery (BlueStone ) witnessed a 38% surge, solidifying trust in D2C for offline-dominant categories. 📉 Electronics saw a slight dip of 3%, likely due to QuickCommerce and offline deals. 💡 Why It Matters: D2C brands are no longer sidelined during marketplace sales but are running strong sales alongside, seeing continuous order volume growth. Average Order Value (AOV) for D2C brands grew by 11%, led by jewellery, increasing from ₹1,207 in 2023 to ₹1,809 this year. 📊 Payment Preferences: 5% increase in prepaid orders, with UPI remaining a favorite and EMI gaining popularity, especially among GenZ shoppers. 🌍 Regional Insights: Tier 1 cities saw a 96% spike in orders, with #Maharashtra, #Karnataka, and #UttarPradesh leading the way. D2C is here and thriving 💪, with brands like Lenskart.com,Neeman's, and Shoppers Stop driving growth. As we approach Diwali, expect these trends to continue!

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#Take2 Why the Market May Be Overestimating Quick Commerce's Future Despite Damodaran's Optimism As a genuine admirer of #AswathDamodaran and his insightful #valuation frameworks, it's fascinating to see how his evaluations cut to the core of a business's #financial #health. However, with #quickcommerce, it’s possible that the broader market has overestimated the long-term potential of these businesses. Quick commerce is undeniably enticing in terms of #growth and #marketshare grabs, but as Damodaran himself has noted, the sector faces headwinds like narrow #margins and dependency on high-frequency, low-value transactions. Quick commerce relies heavily on the temporary advantage of local #logistics and #labor #arbitrage, but as cities become more congested and labor markets tighten, these operational “advantages” could quickly erode. Furthermore, the political landscape may not always be welcoming, especially given the impact on local #kirana stores, which are integral to India’s #retail fabric. While Damodaran’s framework rightly emphasizes lifecycle positioning, it may not fully capture the #political and #inflationary risks that quick commerce facilitates and faces as it scales. This could mean that valuations, even if optimistic now, might not reflect the long-term stability or profitability the street expects. One critical factor that quick commerce models often overlook is India's regional #diversity —it's anything but a #homogenous market. Local preferences, purchasing behaviors, and infrastructure vary widely from city to city. Quick commerce platforms will need to adapt to these variations, constantly refining and expanding their product categories to cater to local demands. This could mean shifting beyond the basic groceries and essentials model and embracing more regional product mixes, which further adds to complexity and costs. The sector's reliance on ultra-fast delivery and inventory optimization only intensifies these challenges, as what works in a metro city like Delhi or Mumbai may fail in smaller towns where consumer habits and logistical networks differ significantly. This makes scaling in India particularly #complex, and could limit the profitability of the "one-size-fits-all" model that quick commerce often tries to implement. All things considered, I’m confident that these companies have the talent needed to evolve. Just look at how Zomato transformed from its early days to what it is now. The real question is: what will they evolve into, and will that future model justify the premium they currently command? For now, I’ll take advantage of my exclusive offer on Coke Zero from quick commerce and enjoy it while it lasts.

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