In its highest ever reduction in seller fees, ecommerce giant Amazon India has introduced zero referral charges on over 12 million products on its platform that are priced below Rs 300. The move is aimed at boosting seller growth on Amazon.in and supporting hundreds of thousands small businesses across the country.
After dipping by as much as 17 per cent in April, readymade garment (RMG) exports of all textile categories in India are showing signs of recovery in May. Exporters in Tiruppur are indicating a rise in rupee terms during the month, while it may take at least a month for volumes to be back in positive terrain. Among the global majors that are placing orders in the textile hub include Walmart, H&M (Hennes & Mauritz AB), Tommy Hilfiger and Target.
Many Walmart India associates made immediate in-kind contribution.
If Sachin Bansal sells his stake at a little over 5 per cent and steps down from Flipkart, as reports have suggested recently, either Binny Bansal or Kalyan Krishnamurthy, CEO of Flipkart, could be an option for the leadership position.
Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is tripling its sourcing from India to about $10 billion a year by 2027, said Judith McKenna, president, and chief executive officer of Walmart International, the segment which includes the company's operations outside the US. "To achieve this, we are growing our sourcing team in India," said McKenna, during a fireside chat with YourStory founder Shradha Sharma at Converge@Walmart, the flagship event of Walmart Global Tech India. "Walmart has a 20-year history of sourcing from India and already exports more than $3 billion worth of Made-in-India goods each year to 14 markets worldwide." McKenna said the company has expertise in processes such as international standards and demand forecasting that businesses need to get ready to export.
The latest cash-and-carry or wholesale outlet, for selling products from grocery to apparel and consumer electronics to businesses, offices and organisations, is coming up in Agra by the middle of 2015, it is learnt.
Walmart's JV with Bharti hinges on policy clarity
More than 30 technology startups, collectively valued at $100 billion, are poised to go public by 2027, signalling a potential rebound in India's stock market activity, according to a report by investment bank The Rainmaker Group. Walmart-owned Flipkart, financial technology (fintech) leader PhonePe, SoftBank-backed Lenskart, Razorpay, Zetwerk, and Meesho are among the top companies preparing to go public in India.
The US-based retailer Walmart Stores Inc, which has a wholesale joint venture with Bharti Enterprises, said its immediate focus in India will be to scale up operations before aiming to be profitable in a medium to long term.
Whether it's Carrefour, Ford, or other foreign majors, they are ready to adjust their strategies and design their plans in a way that would address the Indian consumption story.
Sachin Bansal, who had co-founded Flipkart with Binny Bansal in 2007, would exit the company
Scott Price is learnt to have conveyed to Sharma that Walmart remained committed to the India market.
US retail chain Walmart is awaiting a decision by its board decision on its India strategy, including its partnership with the Bharti group.
E-commerce pilot for wholesale begins from July in Hyderbad and Lucknow
Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has crossed 500 million lifetime registered users on its platform. With this milestone, 1 in 3 Indians are now on PhonePe. The company said it is the first Indian internet company to have reached this scale globally. This milestone has been achieved in just over 7 years since the PhonePe UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments launched in August 2016.
After Chennai, it is Coimbatore, Madurai, and Tiruchirappalli, that are emerging as manufacturing hubs. Coimbatore is India's top Tier-II city in terms of the number of GCCs, according to a report by Cushman & Wakefield.
The firm is likely to spend $600 million in total for the new stores. The average size of its stores is about 55,000 sq ft.
American retail giant Walmart is not keen on opening direct-to-consumer physical stores in India, but will focus on growing its acquisitions - online marketplace Flipkart and payments major PhonePe, a top official said on Friday. It can be noted that the company acquired Flipkart and PhonePe in a $16 billion deal a few years back. "We've got an omnichannel strategy that includes both of those components.
Retail giant Walmart on Thursday said it is inviting select Indian sellers to join Walmart marketplace, a curated sellers community that serves more than 120 million US shoppers each month. India is already one of the top sourcing markets for Walmart and the retail major has set an ambitious goal of exporting $10 billion from India each year by 2027. "This initiative expands on over 20 years of Walmart's engagement with Indian exporters," said a statement from Walmart. Walmart is seeking new sellers from India as part of a global drive to attract international sellers and expand the marketplace's product assortment.
The Indian retail segment has its own uniqueness and the country is one of the most exciting markets globally that is poised to grow to over a trillion dollars by 2025, according to Walmart Inc President and CEO Doug McMillon. Speaking at the Converge@Walmart event, McMillon noted that given the diversity of the Indian market, the company has to "think local and execute locally". "India is such a diverse market, it's not one country in some ways and so we have to think local and execute locally, and it has its own rules, and so, we've got to comply with those rules," he said.
This could mean an end to the talks for a possible partnership between the two firms in the multi-brand retail space -- less than a year after 51 per cent foreign investment was allowed in the sector.
For now Walmart has said it remains optimistic about India. But that could change without prior notice, says Nivedita Mookerji.
US retail major is in talks with Flipkart, Snapdeal, ShopClues and Grofers for partnership.
Manish Tiwary plans to take up a new role at another firm.
US retail giant Walmart has asked the government for more time to convert $100 million of debentures held in a Bharti Group unit, an investment that's being investigated for alleged violation of norms.
Walmart agreed to pay more than $ 144 million to settle US Security and Exchange Commission's charges and approximately $ 138 million to resolve parallel criminal charges by the Department of Justice for a combined total of more than $ 282 million.
Walmart's US Senate filings on Indian market missing
'The favourable rupee-dollar exchange rate, there are opportunities we can tap.'
In the shadows of a sliding rupee, India's knitwear hub Tiruppur is weaving a success story. While the domestic currency edges closer to the 86 mark against the US dollar, triggering concerns for many sectors, this textile town in Tamil Nadu is finding opportunity in adversity: Between April and December alone, Tiruppur's exports reached Rs 26,000 crore, almost eclipsing last financial year's total of Rs 30,690 crore.
The two former partners own about 100 such properties; expansion of Best Price, EasyDay stores only after transactions linked to the split are over.
Besides Jeff Bezos-led Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart is also facing a threat from Asia's richest man and RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani, who is also betting big to grab a share of the country's e-commerce market.
US retail giant Walmart has said it is "open to an IPO" for its Indian e-commerce arm Flipkart but there is "no specific timeline" for the share sale. Both Flipkart and payment app PhonePe continue to do well, Walmart International president and CEO Judith McKenna said while speaking at the DB Access Global Consumer Conference on June 7. "We always made it clear from the day we made the acquisition or the investment, that we would be open to an IPO," said McKenna. However, she noted that there is no specific timeline for the IPO.
Some workers in India were also make to work on Sundays and national holidays "in sweltering heat, without adequate supply of clean drinking water or any breaks".
'"We want to get the learnings from Flipkart and take it to other parts of the world," Walmart CEO Doug McMillon was quoted as saying.' 'That is a very large tuition fee for an MBA in a country that outdoes Brazil and perhaps even China in busting multinationals' knees and sometimes their heads as they try to crack a market of mostly impoverished people run by a government that has never really given up the sadistic pleasures of administering the license raj,' notes Rahul Jacob.
The one-year extension would give Walmart and its Indian joint venture partner in the cash and carry business, Bharti Group, more time to sort things out and decide on a retail foray together, people in the know said.
'Walmart will source globally and more from China and will dump these cheap goods in India, making our country a dumping yard.'
The appointment will be effective January 20, 2014, the company said in a statement.
It entered India in 2006, with the aim of tapping the promising consumer market.
Bentonville-based Walmart has also raised apprehensions about the ongoing probe by investigating agency Enforcement Directorate, said an internal note of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.
Bharti Walmart on Monday denied allegations that it spent money in India to gain market access.