Rakshith R Srivatsa

R oyal E nfield is a motorcycle brand known for its sheer ruggedness and its rich history. Every brand has loyal customers and fans. But one would say customers of Royal Enfield are "Superfans". Being a proud new owner of a Royal Enfield motorcycle, it made me think how they are able to sustain their place in the market without any traditional promotions nor do they promote themselves extensively compared to competitors taking them on. Remember the Bajaj Dominar 400 “Haathi mat paalo” ad? So how is it that Royal Enfield has been able to do it continuously, being one of the oldest motorcycle brands around the world. RE is an Indian company with British origins. RE falls under the luxury segment of motorcycles and has become a status symbol for people. RE, though it seems to have been a great success since the year 1906, facts don’t tell the same story. Around 17 years ago, the stock price for Eicher Motors was Rs. 48.75. This was in the year 2000. The stock price today ...

The internet is changing the lives of people around the world so much that it is as good as a daily commodity. Santhosh Muruganantham, founder of Kolapasi in Chennai, India, mentioned in a meeting, "Apps like Swiggy, Foodpanda have made people so lazy that they don't even want to cook two minute noodles at home, but they rather order it online". One thing that is creeping up in this situation is the retail distribution of consumer goods. Research has found that India's digital economy will be a $1 trillion a year industry by 2022. This is so insane but at the same time sane enough because of the amount of internet penetration that India has. So, why is it in a company's best interest to have an e-commerce model over a traditional model for distribution, especially in India. Yes, there is a majority (70%) of Indian population that lives in rural areas but internet penetration is growing in these areas too. The internet penetration is at around 20% as of 2017...

Advertisements have been a part of our lives all throughout since the invention of mass media and has been growing ever since. TV ad industry is running out of business ever since advertising giants started choosing internet for promoting awareness about their brands. A recent study  shows that 84% of the respondents who participated in the research wanted to fast forward through the ads they watch.  Switching of channels at the end of an over in cricket is not new to any family in India.  This is where Social Media platforms like Facebook step in. Facebook allows entrepreneurs to create ads and market them directly to their target audience. All this at a comparatively lower price. Though Facebook is providing such a well organised platform for companies to engage their customers with their ad videos, a lot of advertisers are still looking to sell their products on the television. An article on the Economic Times says that Quantified Commerce, a vertically...

Meta search engines are the future of e-commerce. E-commerce giants like Flipkart, Amazon and many such giants have acquired such a huge market in India that people think of only them when they hear the word online shopping. So, what can new e-commerce aspirants look out for as a prospect for growth? A meta search engine is a platform that searches and compares the prices out of multiple other e-commerce shopping websites. They are basically "aggregators". These are now available for all travel related websites and apps. They aggregate several Online Travel Agents(OTA's) and suppliers so that they are all available under one roof. For example, users can sort search results by price, simplifying their buying decision. If one hotel has the lowest price on Expedia for the dates and price range but another hotel has a lower price on Booking.com for the same search criteria, the user can easily see and pick their favorite. Trivago is the best example in India fo...