Byapaar.com – The Indian Business Blog

Happy Diwali Greetings – 2009 to all my readers and visitors and to All of India.

It has been a long time that I published a post on this blog – I am sorry for that. But today, on this auspicious occassion – I feel responsible to my readers again and I’ll be discussing some news as well as business opportunities.

During this time last year, the Indian economy – along with the world economy has been in doldrums and people started to compare it with the great depression of the 30′s. But there have been some good news coming around the world about the economies recovering – slowly and surely and Diwali being the festival of light, the forecast that Indian economy has every possibility to top 6% growth has been a boon for all Indians. The stock market has also recovered very well with the benchmark indice the Sensex topping 17,000 over the last couple of weeks.

There are also good news on the international front – the US un-employment rate has come-down by  good numbers, Chinese economic growth might touch 8% for the current fiscal and other major economies too showing sings of positive economic out-llok.

Under these circumstances, I must say that Indian retailing industry has a long way to go to match the international standard of delivering the products they sell. I am specially referring to small-sized businesses who operate single-handedly and not about big organized retailers like BigBazaar or Future Bazzar or Shoppers Stop  for that matter. But I am talking about those retailers who are the real players in India.

The other day – I was looking to buy online for a SLR digital camera at discount price and FutureBazaar came in the search. When I choose my price range and model – I found that the product was not on their stock. This way I tried for some-time and then got tired.

Being online for 3 years now have gained me lots of experience about online and how small businesses are profitting by using the internet world.

Here is an example of a small retailer dealing in embroidery supplies . It sells lots of tools at discounted price such as embroidery needles , embroidery bobbins and so on which are very much essential for making embroidery products, a renowned Indian industry. One just has to order it online and the goods are delivered at your doorstep. No-one has to go to the market and find them painfully.

So, my confusion or to say the truth – dilemma is why are not Indian businesses not taking the online advantage of increasing their sales and reaching out to more clients through e-commerce? It is a custom to send gifts to relatives, friends during the many festivals held all around the year who live far- away. Suppose, I have some relatives in Mumbai and I want to send some good chocolates to them. I can’t do it from where I live due to the time it would take. But if i find a chocolate shop taking bookings online and offering home-delivery services, I can easily fulfill my wishes.

True, the Internet penetration is still low in India, but the latest data ( 81,000,000 Internet users Nov/08 ) is still very very high and a gold-mine of sorts. Hopefully, the concerned business personalities will read this post and make people aware of the endless opportunities that e-commerce will open to increase their reach and thus sales.

As usual, before I do a personal blogpost – here is some business updates that caught my attention over last couple of weeks.
• First and foremost among them is huge decrease in the rate of inflation that is almost @ 0% (.27% to be exact) which is the lowest in the last 30 years (lowest since 1977-78).
There is nothing surprising though with the figure as the Parliamentary election is little bit more than two weeks away and the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government is doing its best to utilize as much economic mileage as possible even if at the expense of the state exchequer. I have serious doubts if this inflation rate is a genuine reflection of the market or a manipulated one as I don’t see any marked reduction in prices of daily essentials which is so important for the poor and lower middle class people like me!
• The second major business development that attracted my interest is the official debut of “Nano” Car by Tata Automobiles Ltd. which has become the cheapest car in the world priced about $2500.
The irony is that, the car is rolling out for the first time from Mumbai, and not Singur or Kolkata as was originally planned. As they say “History repeats itself.” There was a time when the left front came to power in West Bengal after sweeping the rural Bengal on the promise of Land Reform Movement. The left front government did keep its words and introduced laws for sweeping change in land allocation favoring poor and landless farmers. This caused industries and businesses to move away from Bengal. But now, the same Left Front government has been trying to attract new investments and industries after realization that agriculture alone can not take Bengal too far and to bring more jobs, development – industry is the only way. As much power as they enjoy with huge majority in the Assembly, their only roadblock is one lady, Ms. Mamata Banerjee, the Trinamul Congress Supremo. While the left front give red carpet welcome to any industrialists interested to invest in Bengal by way of offering Tax soaps, lands of their choice – Ms. Mamata is leading an ever growing movement against usage of fertile land for industry.
The Clock has now turned full circle in Bengal politics, business and economics. :p
• The third notable development is strong demand by most political parties to bring back the $1456 billion black money kept deposited in foreign banks (mostly Swiss Banks) by Indian super rich, corrupt politicians and officials.

Now, I may write some personal notes which might be helpful for some in credit card debt. Some of my old readers might have read one of my posts that I did few months back on how reckless use of credit card may put someone in serious debt trap.
Now that I have my own credit card and more importantly as I want to use it very frequently on my web business, there is huge chance that I might use it for just about everything and might have to seek help of credit card debt consolidation companies offering help to people suffering from the bad habit of misusing a credit card.
But I promise, as I know the danger before-hand, I’ll not fall into the trap and use it with out most caution. Besides paying for hosting and domains of my sites from time to time, my primary usage will be to invest money in domains. Domain business has been one of the most mysterious and interesting of all online businesses for some time now. One has to learn a lot, do huge amount of research about the market, find premium domains and invest in them. Thousands of $$$ might be left unused for long, but it might also fetch huge profits. (business.com was sold for $8 million). So, I am planning to join this business and use my credit card only for this purpose.
I already bought a domain for $110 and I reckon it is worth around $250.
In the beginning I’ll start slowly, going one step at a time. Once I am confident, I will get into this seriously. And for this I must need a credit card. Domain registrars accept payment only through credit card or Paypal (also require a card for verification). The great advantage fr

It has been almost two weeks that the biggest and most heinous terror attack on Indian soil had ended. Life is slowly coming back to normal. But the post mortem and ghost hunting will continue for a long time to come. Here, I will try to express my views on roles played by the media.

I was watching the Mumbai carnage on T.V. Suddenly the channel switched to broadcast a news conference called by the Indian government where a government spokesman had to appeal to the media (especially the electronic media i.e. TV) not to show everything live live as intelligence sources suggested that terrorists were getting wind of rescue moves by security forces well before they were actually being carried out. After the news conference was over, the channel switched back to the war zone and resumed live broadcasting. It was seen that hundreds of journalists – both from electronic and print media were jostling for the best coverage while commandos were seen getting ready to fire from their mortars at a particular target and the cameraman following the target and showing a very close picture of the same using the advanced zoom. No wonder, terrorists could see where the attacks were coming from and what was the target as the correspondent was explaining everything clearly for the viewers.

No wonder a great commercial move as it had the audience glued to the screen.

The question is, is it responsible journalism especially when those heinous terrorists were taking advantage of the live TV broadcasting? There was a time when the media used to practice restraint, act as keeper of (continue reading…)

Its so surreal – almost as if I was watching a Hollywood or Hong Kong flick! When I opened the TV yesterday to get myself updated on happenings around the country – I was shocked to hear live gunshots and police personnel moving around Mumbai streets with their firearms firing at something. Before I understood something – I saw India’s premiere train station Victoria Terminus being attacked by terrorists. Two other seven star hotels ( The Taj Mahal Hotel & Oberoi Grand) also came under attack. As news agencies rushed into the spot- reports of more attacks poured in thick and fast and it seemed Mumbai was transformed into a battle-ground. I could not help but remember the live scenes of World Trade Center towers burning on 7/11.

Mumbai has always been the target of terrorists as it is the financial and business capital of the country handling around 50 percent of India’s overall trade and also 48 percent of international arrivals. It is also a favorite with foreign tourists and CEOs of multinational companies much like New York.

As I write this post, I can see live images of hotels burning, commandos exchanging fire and ambulances rushing to hospitals. Till now, there were terrorist attack on 10 places, over hundred people including 7 foreigners and 15 security personnel have died and many people are being held hostage by terrorists at the Oberoi tower. It is reported that around 25 terrorists came by a Vietnam registered boat from Karachi, Pakistan.

Although the Maharashtra government has called in 800 military personnel and 200 special unit commandos (National Security Guards who are the top most commando unit in the country) along with undisclosed number s of Navy commandos, still there is no report of the battle subsiding. Officially the government maintains that there will be no negotiations or talks with the terrorists, but media reports suggest that talks are being held. The government’s efforts are also hampered by the fact that terrorists are holding huge number of hostages who apparently are big shots. And the government must give top most priority for the safe release of them.

May the problem get settled quickly without much harm.