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Amazon launches as Junglee in India

• playhard 15y ago
  RIP flipkart
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  • sathyabhat 15y ago
    Hardly. As of now it's more of a marketplace listing, like eBay India.
    • playhard 15y ago
      But they dont include flipkart
    • pyth0n 15y ago
      that means RIP ebay IN ?
      • vidyesh 15y ago
        Not really, eBay has a different business model. eBay enables local trade and allows small businesses or individual to sell products. And junglee is discovery website, it discover products from online and offline retailers in India and from Amazon.com ( which are shipped to India).
  • plinkplonk 15y ago
    "RIP Flipkart" it isn't that simple. Flipkart is aggressive, funded (150 million $ a few days ago), has superlative customer service and (generally) satisfied customers. Meanwhile the law of the land does not allow 100% Foreign Direct Investment in retail, and while that will inevitably change, it will take some time, thus giving Flipkart more competition free runway. Junglee.com is just a 'dip toe in water' move, trying various things "for free" in a new market (and hence non use of the Amazon trademark). "Amazon launches Junglee in India" (the original Junglee.com was a comparison site) is a more accurate title than "Amazon launches as Junglee in India". The site is close to useless for anyone actually trying to shop,but it will enable debugging of parts of the logistics chain Amazon is trying to set up. The 'real' war begins when Amazon.in launches. Junglee is just a sideshow (and everyone knows it) Eventually,assuming they don't enter into some kind of partnership, there will be a huge fight between Flipkart and Amazon, but it is going to be long and bloody and last at least a couple of years, and will not be a quick knockout. Amazon's advantages (when it finally starts full operations) - existing client base (I was told that Indian customers spend more on the Amazon website than Flipkart's turnover), the Kindle devices and ecosystem adapted to the local publishing landscape (this will, imo, be huge), better recommendation systems, better payment systems, efficiencies of scale, (better tie ups with foreign publishers and so) better deals for foreign books and products, way deeper pockets. Flipkart's advantages - (relatively) nimble, speed of decision making (Amazon will likely replicate its middle management heavy organizational structure, and bureaucracy), a satisfied customer base and good will, and a time advantage in working out the kinks in logistics and delivery. Most importantly, Flipkart is running for their life, where Amazon is running for an extra spoon of dessert. I wouldn't underestimate this factor. So if I had to bet, I'd bet on Amazon to "win" in the long run, but I would bet only money I am prepared to lose, and it is a very long way from "RIP Flipkart"
    • vidyesh 15y ago
      Moreover Flipkart don't have sub-sellers or retailers to sell items, whereas Amazon works on a different model altogther. And here, Junglee is just like a aggregation of all the products which are shipped to India.
    • playhard 15y ago
      i heard this is just the beginning of things to come for Amazon India
    • gnufied 15y ago
      "Indian customers spend more on the Amazon website than Flipkart's turnover." Got anything to support that? My experience suggests otherwise.
      • plinkplonk 15y ago
        No source I can point to, just something that a friend who works at Amazon told me when we discussed the coming Flipkart vs Amazon war. I don't think Amazon publishes revenue broken down by country. (and even if they do I am not aware of it - I am a hacker, not an Industry/finance analyst :p). There are some 'figures' here. http://www.quora.com/What-is-an-estimate-for-revenues-gross-or-net-and-the-number-of-transactions-per-day-on-popular-e-commerce-sites-in-India-Flipkart-Naaptol-etc http://www.quora.com/What-is-an-estimate-for-revenues-gross-... According to Mahesh Murthy Flipkart (or did, at some random point in time) Rs 55,00,000 worth of revenue (not profit) a day . That is about 100,000 US $ worth, which equates to about 36 million US $ a year Again these are all estimates, by hearsay.I don't think anyone except people working at or investing in the companies have solid information.
  • shad0wfax 15y ago
    It would take way more than just a price comparison/best-deal site to compete (let even kill) Flipkart. Flipkart is executing certain things in this market very well: - 1) A fantastic delivery/courier system (in major cities). They have homegrown service that does a reliable job. Courier deliveries in India is a painful experience. I won't be surprised if they spinoff a logistics arm!. To me this is their secret sauce. - 2) Good customer support. I have bought quite a few things in the last few months and have sent them a few queries for which I have received quick responses. I think they are able to scale this with the current demand. - 3) Fairly priced (not always the lowest, but definitely on the lower end compared to brick and mortar stores). I have found better deals on other online stores, but have resorted to buying on Flipkart due to their reliability. The key to success in India will be reliability, which is not something the public actually expects, but can become the differentiator. - 4) Cash on Delivery for most items - Most people here don't use credit cards for online shopping. Cash on delivery is a safe and trusted option. The Junglee linked sites might offer the same option, but it can probably become confusing if some of the stores don't. Yet, I feel there are areas in which a new entrant can do better and compete (keeping the service on par with flipkart): - 1) A bigger inventory - I don't find all I need on flipkart. It pales in comparison with Amazon's inventory. - 2) Product reviews - Right now Flipkart's reviews are just mediocre at best. What we need is more editorial reviews and organic reviews tailored to Indian market. I keep looking up Amazon reviews before purchasing stuff. - 3) Better inventory management - A lot of popular products I purhase here in Bangalore (where Flipkart is headquartered) seem to ship from Delhi/Chennai. That is a loss of a day or two in delivery. Amazon can be a game changer if they invest in better warehouse management. End of the day for a similar price, the one to deliver quickest will win. - 4) Better recommendation engine - No guesses why Amazon can recommend better (way higher sales and more data to learn from). Flipkart can get better at this over time, but Amazon can come equipped already. I am an extremely satisfied customer of Flipkart, but feel it can get better and a new entrant might just make it a a competitive market.
    • avinashv 15y ago
      I am a bit surprised that you say courier services are poor in India. I think they are fantastic! They are extremely cheap, very fast within cities (my corporate package guarantees 24 hours within the greater bombay area and most packages from the morning make it by the afternoon), reasonable within the country. Insuring packages is cheap, you can arrange cash-on-delivery, signatures, etc.
• bigtones 15y ago
  Why did they not launch as Amazon ?
  • Andrenid 15y ago
    I'm curious about this too. Does Amazon have a bad reputation there? They also seem to mention themselves as little as possible on the site... the Kindle is "made by Kindle" rather than Amazon, etc. Yeah they've got prominent links in the footer, but it just feels like they've tried to mention themselves as little as they can as you peruse the site.
    • anand_nalya 15y ago
      No. Infact, amazon.com get more traffic from India then any other Indian e-commerce site.
  • Zakuzaa 15y ago
    Because what they have launched is basically a price comparison site not an ecommerce destination. In that light, launching as Amazon.in would not have been good for the brand and/or might have caused some confusion, IMO.
  • gsa 15y ago
    FDI has been a problem in India, and as far as I understand, Amazon can't do business here yet. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-01-30/news/30676364_1_multi-brand-multi-brand-retail-trading-fdi-level http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-01-30/news...
  • thigbee 15y ago
    Amazon can't directly sell products in India due to FDI (foreign direct investment) laws. These are laws that restrict foreign companies on multi-brand retail in the country.
  • vamsee 15y ago
    We have pretty quaint notions about FDI. Foreign capital is always looked at with distrust (at least by the older set of politicians) so there is a lot of political hand-wringing about how allowing 100% FDI in retail will destroy small traders, etc. Of course, this stance is also encouraged by food suppliers/speculators, so this will take some time to work itself out. But most people say allowing 100% FDI in retail is only a few months away. So Amazon might just be preparing ground for a eventual entry.
• Zakuzaa 15y ago
  Disappointed that they won't be selling things themselves. They are probably waiting for Government of India to approve 100% FDI in multibrand retail.
• notatoad 15y ago
  i wish the amazon i used had such a clean interface.
• siculars 15y ago
  Note the use of the word "crore" as in "We help you discover over 1.2 crore products." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crore
  • deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    • kumarm 15y ago
      India's Population is more than 100 Crores (More than Billion)
    • reitzensteinm 15y ago
      A crore is 10 million, not 1 billion.
• jbarham 15y ago
  "Customers can discover over 1.2 crore products and 14,000 brands..." I'm honestly curious: Is it prevalent to use units like lakh and crore[1] on Indian English language websites? I would have guessed that Western units like million or hundred thousand would be more common online. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_numbering_system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_numbering_system comes in handy.
  • plinkplonk 15y ago
    "Is it prevalent to use units like lakh and crore[1] on Indian English language websites?" If you are exclusively targeting an Indian audience, then yes it makes sense. Indians calculate salaries, house prices etc in lakhs and (for rich people!) crores. If you also want non Indians to use the site, then you probably need to use "million", "hundred thousand", etc
    • jcampbell1 15y ago
      I assume the local languages use 100,000 as a unit, and it is hard to switch units. Chinese uses 10,000 as a unit, so it also makes translation to English difficult. There are also weird words that Indians use that are Latin rooted words, but uncommon, like "lacuna". I have never met an American that uses that word, nor an Indian that doesn't know what it means.
      • r00fus 15y ago
        It's probably no worse than the "quatre-vignt-dix" ... 90 in french, literally (4*20)+10... the conversion for those fluent in the language are automatic.
        • cgrand-net 15y ago
          Well, while peculiar, "quatre-vingt dix" is not a unit: nobody is going to say "4 quatre-vingt dix" for 360.
          • 15y ago
• j45 15y ago
  Wow, what a great name. I am so jealous that I didn't register it.
  • jarsj 15y ago
    http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/08/03/daily10.html http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/08/03/daily1...
  • nrbafna 15y ago
    It might actually be a bit confusing when passed through word of mouth with users looking for jungli.com
• drivebyacct2 15y ago
  I'm jealous of their clean interface. Amazon is honestly a bit annoying to use due to the density of stuff that feels jumbled. That and their over use of really-super (sorry typograph enthusiasts, I don't know better) over-hinted font text images.
• sid6376 15y ago
  "Customers can discover over 1.2 crore products and 14,000 brands, and purchase items directly from hundreds of retailers including Homeshop18, UniverCell, Hidesign, Gitanjali, The Bombay Store, Fabindia, Bata India Limited, Dabur Uveda, Microsoft India Store, Reebok, and Amazon.com." Flipkart is a notable exception. Also a simple Steve Jobs biography search did not list Flipkart as a seller. Great for other companies in the space, at least until amazon.in makes an appearance.
• jarsj 15y ago
  This is hardly amazon. It's merely a product search engine that takes you directly to the product site and shop there. Yikes.
  • inconditus 15y ago
    Amazon made Junglee, at least according to the "service provided by Amazon" on the bottom.
  • noodle 15y ago
    Its an amazon product. See their "hiring" page for more obvious proof: http://www.junglee.com/f/1000604193/ref=footer_hiring http://www.junglee.com/f/1000604193/ref=footer_hiring
    • jarsj 15y ago
      I know it's powered by "Amazon Inc.", but this is not "Amazon, the seamless online shopping portal, entering India". Get it ?
      • noodle 15y ago
        It isn't "powered by" Amazon. It is Amazon's own product. Whether or not it is "Amazon for India" is not the argument at hand.
      • deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
  • spudlyo 15y ago
    Amazon acquired Junglee in 1998. Folks from that acquisition went on to work on the Amazon recommendation system.
• paraschopra 15y ago
  Very disappointed that they launched as price comparison website! But probably this is just a beta-test they are doing. I know they are huge practitioners of testing and experiments.
• vineetdhanawat 15y ago
  Its still in beta. and more like a Product Search Engine as of now. You can see none of Flipkart.com / Letsbuy.com / Infibeam.com (major e-commerce players in India) products/prices being listed there.
• spravin 15y ago
  Interesting. 1998: Amazon acquires price comparison site junglee.com from Indian cofounders (later of kosmix/walmart labs fame). 2012: Amazon launches price comparison site for India called junglee.com
  • abecedarius 15y ago
    Incidentally Peter Norvig was the chief scientist there. To connect to another recent HN thread: my negotiation with them broke down after they asked for my current salary and I was naive enough to tell them.
• omarkassim 15y ago
  In some North Indian dialects, the word Junglee literally means "Crazy Person". Seriously. When we went with JadoPado (jadopado.com) (which equates to "fatty"), I thought I was going with something funny, but this is on a whole new level :)
  • manish_gill 15y ago
    Not really. Junglee means crazy, but most of the time, it's in a good, fun way. (At least that's what it has been for me.). And I imagine it also fits with the whole "Amazon" thing going on. (Junglee, derived from Jungle.)
    • abhaga 15y ago
      The literal meaning of Junglee is "wild", not "crazy".
    • rahoulb 15y ago
      My mum would use it as an insult to try and shame me into behaving better :-/
• vishaldpatel 15y ago
  In case anyone is windering about the name, junglee means "wild" in Hindi.
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• robk 15y ago
  I presume this is driven by the runaway growth of Flipkart in India right now. Surely Amazon wants to build a footprint so when they have products stocked locally, then can move to a full Amazon.com model with additional sellers also available.
• sagarun 15y ago
  Co-founder and CEO of flipkart on amazon's junglee.com: "Finally, Amazon has found use for the $250m domain name that they bought 14 years ago"
  • yeggeyeggeyegge 15y ago
    This will kick Flipkart's overpriced ass (Algorithms on Flipkart)[http://www.flipkart.com/books/8120340078 http://www.flipkart.com/books/8120340078] Rs.333 (Algorithms on Junglee)[http://www.junglee.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Cormen/dp/8120340078 http://www.junglee.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Cormen/dp/812...] Rs.255 (Steve Jobs on Flipkart)[http://www.flipkart.com/books/1408703742 http://www.flipkart.com/books/1408703742] Rs.559 (Steve Jobs on Junglee)[http://www.junglee.com/Steve-Jobs-Exclusive-Biography/dp/1408703742 http://www.junglee.com/Steve-Jobs-Exclusive-Biography/dp/140...] Rs.538 (Steve Jobs on IndiaPlaza, found through Junglee)[http://www.indiaplaza.com/steve-jobs-walter-isaacson/books/9781408703748.htm http://www.indiaplaza.com/steve-jobs-walter-isaacson/books/9...] Rs.479
• ck2 15y ago
  Basic kindle is $113 USD in India and $79 in USA ? http://www.junglee.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-6-Ink-Display/dp/B0051QVF7A http://www.junglee.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-6-Ink-Display/dp/B0051QV... http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-Ink-Display-Screensavers/dp/B0051QVESA http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-Ink-Display-Screensavers/...
  • w1ntermute 15y ago
    I don't see any mention on the Junglee page of the "special offers" (aka ads pop up on your Kindle when you're not using it) deal. I'm guessing that the potential advertising revenue in India isn't enough to make a big difference, so they don't have that option. This would mean that the $113 Indian Kindle is equivalent to the $109 US Kindle (no advertising).
    • djt 15y ago
      This is correct. It is the same in Australia
• sharjeel 15y ago
  I'm not sure about India but here in Pakistan, the word "Junglee" has quite negative connotation attached with it. Unless used for an animal, "junglee" usually refers to an illiterate person with no manners.
  • colanderman 15y ago
    "Yahoo" has (had?) a similar connotation in the US.