E-Commerce in India

 

Vocabulary

spice	psyche	pudding
extra	startup	cut down (2)
aside	share (2)	anchor (2)
earn	recipe	home made
lentil	founder	entrepreneur
set up	earning	infrastructure
24/7	kitty (2)	discount
focus	impetus	flash (2)
boom	delivery

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Video

 
 
 
 

Transcript

Poonam Thapa is making domanyu, rajma and firni: lentils, a spicy potato specialty and rice pudding.

And not just for her boss Fana and his wife: today it’s five portions.

For the last two weeks, she’s been cooking for the Million Kitchen app, developed by a start-up company in Delhi.

Poonam Thapa, Cook: “I do it to earn some extra money: costs are rising. My children are studying and they don’t have any income. My husband only earns around 12,000 rupees as a driver.”

That’s only around €160 a month. Poonam is putting her earnings from the app aside to help pay for her children’s education.

She’s proud that the people who are ordering her food through the app enjoy it.

Those orders arrive here first.

Vimlendu Jha and some friends brought the app to market.

Vimlendu Jha, Startup Founder: “It’s the first time we’re actually creating a platform for sharing home-cooked food.

In the process of sharing, we’re creating a value economy. And we’re creating an economy for thousands and thousands of women and men, who never thought they would actually be earning money out of their own recipe.”

The food is packed for delivery, up on the roof in the same building.

Over a hundred orders have come in over the last two weeks.

Hindol Sengupta has written a book about India’s startup scene. He says entrepreneurship is anchored deeply in people’s psyche’s here.

But that the government has to do more to support it.

Hindol Sengupta, Author: “We have to cut down the time it takes to set up a company in India. That’s number one.

Number two is infrastructure: entrepreneurship needs infrastructure. It needs 24/7 electricity, right? It needs good roads. It needs water.

And in large parts of India, all of these things are not available.”

“FashionAndYou” is a star company in the Indian startup space. It’s grown into one of the top e-commerce platforms for style in the country.

AAsheesh Mediratta, CEO FashionAndYou: “The focus has been to add more and more brands into the kitty. And that worked for us because India as a country is quite brand-hungry. And coming at a discount, they only give an impetus to do more sales.

That helped.

And as for sleepless nights, I think I didn’t sleep for over six months.”

Flash sales offering huge discounts for some articles over a limited period of time helped turn the startup into a major player within just five years.

FashionAndYou now processes six thousand orders a day and employs 500 staff.

Whether it’s fashion or home-made food, e-commerce is booming in India, even though only about a quarter of its population has regular access to the internet.

Questions

1. Poonam Thapa is a full-time cook in a restaurant. Is this correct or wrong? Does she do this primarily as a hobby, because she loves cooking?

2. Vimlendu Jha says he and his friends created the home-cooked food sharing app to make profits and money. True or false? Why did they create it?

3. Is the venture (becoming) successful? How does it function or operate?

4. Is this entirely new to Indians or do have a tradition of entrepreneurship?

5. There are major challenges or problems to startup, enterprises and industry in India. Yes or no? What are the major problems and how can they be solved?

6. Are Indians fashion conscious? Are they concerned about fashion?

7. What was FashionAndYou’s secret, method or technique to achieving success?

8. Is there an irony about India’s digital success?

 

A. Are you or your friends, neighbors, classmates involved in e-commerce?

B. What are some examples of e-commerce in recent years?

C. Do you have any ideas for an online startup?

D. Is online business great, good, both good and bad, neither, bad or terrible for people and the economy?

E. What will things be like in the future?