E-tailers have no solution for demand spikes
This rush is fas ter than an
F1 race. Unable to cope with the unprecedented festive demand from
online shoppers, a New Delhi-based e-commerce logistics compa ny has
been forced to ask even its top executives to handle phone calls from
irate con sumers waiting for their de layed packages, suggesting that
e-commerce giants and their logistics partners still have not figured
out the shop
ping patterns of Indian consumers.And what's worse, these problems are
not going to go away soon. Says Praveen Sinha, founder and S MD of
Jabong: “It is
impossible to gauge demand and boost capacity according ly, especially
during the fes tive season. You can increase your capacity from one
lakh to two lakh but not to five lakh because that extra capacity is
going to remain idle for the rest of the year. We can try our best but
mistakes will happen. The problem is, in the fight for market share,
e-tailers are ac cepting orders without think ing about logistics
issues.“
The concerns over capaci ty building to handle demand surges comes in the wake of Flipkart's Big Billion Day sale debacle when stocks disap peared within seconds, orders were cancelled at the last min ute and the website crashed several times, leaving mil lions of shoppers high and dry, and very angry . When asked about the measures be ing taken to cope with such de mand surges, most e-tailers, including Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, preferred to re main silent. Questionnaires sent to all three went unan swered.
Says Vidmay Naini, direc tor and business head with eBay India: “It's important to be transparent and sensitize your customers about delay in delivery times. Also, one should try to get more sellers on board, work on the tech front and plan for at least three cycles (one cycle equals a festive season stretching from Diwali to New Year) in advance.“
Research by UK based trend-forecasting firm WGSN reveals that Indians don't like to wait and they choose retailers on the basis of how fast they can deliver with over 60% preferring same or next day delivery . But during this festival season, shoppers had to wait for two weeks for products to arrive compared with 2-3 days during normal days.
The concerns over capaci ty building to handle demand surges comes in the wake of Flipkart's Big Billion Day sale debacle when stocks disap peared within seconds, orders were cancelled at the last min ute and the website crashed several times, leaving mil lions of shoppers high and dry, and very angry . When asked about the measures be ing taken to cope with such de mand surges, most e-tailers, including Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, preferred to re main silent. Questionnaires sent to all three went unan swered.
Says Vidmay Naini, direc tor and business head with eBay India: “It's important to be transparent and sensitize your customers about delay in delivery times. Also, one should try to get more sellers on board, work on the tech front and plan for at least three cycles (one cycle equals a festive season stretching from Diwali to New Year) in advance.“
Research by UK based trend-forecasting firm WGSN reveals that Indians don't like to wait and they choose retailers on the basis of how fast they can deliver with over 60% preferring same or next day delivery . But during this festival season, shoppers had to wait for two weeks for products to arrive compared with 2-3 days during normal days.
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