Multiple Revenue Streams using Multi-Channel approach

In the times of Economic Recession, Revenue generation could be tough for many companies and undoubtedly for start-ups. A good way to look at operational excellence is to offer more for same cost.

Case in point is Cleartrip.com . This portal started off with Online air travel business model and then later on added Hotel booking to its portfolio. Now they have announced to offer Online Train Ticketing with a nice interface to the back end data from IRCTC. Clearly they are headed in the right direction of making Online travel easy for customers by adopting a Multi Channel approach. It would be a great idea if they could also add another offering of Bus Ticketing,..they could think of acquiring someone like Redbus.in or someone in that space. This will surely make their portfolio comprehensive for prospective travellers.

Similar multi channel services could be attempted by many such service providers. At RevenueMantra we have pioneered to get this going from day 1.

Where is the Intellectual Property ?

What is your IP ? is a typical question asked by any investor or VC to a startup venture.

If you are a platform provider, then it is imperative to have a solid IP of your own. Be it Amazon or Ebay or Cleartrip all of them come with some great back end technology and a neat looking GUI in the front.

But oflate there are many ventures (even some funded by VCs) who are just using some other’s technology to bring faster service to market. Though there is nothing wrong with the strategy but there is no differentiated value one offers. Also as the market changes, you are not able to deliver your customer’s expectations.

At the end of the day, a business thrives because it solves a business problem or a consumer pain. In the internet era most of it is done through the medium of technology. If the technology is outsourced then what you are doing is just Sales. For doing just Sales, you don’t expect valuation.

This is getting very common with Ad Networks. Companies like Right Media are lending their Ad exchange to prospective businesses for running an exchange service. Though it is great for Right Media but I wonder the value provided by the business which runs the service. And why should a VC invest, if it is not their IP ?

Mobile Advertising

With the announcement of 3G service in several countries, Mobile Advertising is poised to grow exponentially. This medium is expected to have a larger penetration in emerging markets, even more than internet penetration.

All Mobile Carriers, Portals, Games Content, SMS providers, Mobile Social Networking and  Application providers will be able to participate as Publishers and earn a lot of money by monetizing their traffic.

Advertisers get to target their message to a widespread consumer audience and assess its performance.They will be able to use the formats of Text, Image, Video, SMS,..etc to comeout with their creatives.

Technologically there is a challenge of rendering Ad images to various types of Handsets, Screen sizes, form Factors, etc , so that the Image is legible. Also there is a challenge of tracking performance of Ads and providing various Pay-Per-Action methods.

The opportunity is big and some companies have already announced their plans to be in this space such as RevenueMantra.com, Mkhoj.com, ZestAds etc…

This crisis is Unprecedented!!!

As the Dow hit 8600 today, there was panic all over despite a Fed rate cut of 0.5%.

Is there an opportunity to make money ? Absolutely,..It is very hard to stomach the loss but Generals dont backout from a war,..they fight it hard. If you cut your loss and miss the bottom opportunity, you miss the bus squarely. So guys watchout for the bottom prices,..there is a crisis and there is a great opportunity.

Now Ebay is hurt by Slow US economy

Ebay announced to simplify thier operation to become more nimble. Ebay has announced to cut jobs by 10% which is about 1000 employee reductions.

The ongoing Credit crisis and Wall St turmoil is affecting businesses in the main st. Silicon Valley was so far not affected by this but a slowing economy gets everyone down. Investors are concerned that the US housing lump, rising commodity and fuel costs and credit crunch have  started affecting the already slowing business of Ebay. Ebay is all set to keep its cost structure in control and offer value deals for the holiday season quarter to attract more of the traditional shopping time in the US.

Post bailout package, the market is still under panic and has not seen any move in the positive direction. So it will be clear in a few days, how the markets will play out and easing of credit through the banking system is felt.

Ecommerce in India

Ecommerce in India is a much talked about topic nowadays. As the world looks into the growth story of India and its huge consumption opportunity, India is building the basic infrastructure required for supporting a huge population. Organised retail has just begun to happen and one sees a lot of Malls and different formats of Retail stores and chains offering variety of products.

Natural extention to this is Ecommerce, buying and selling. The internet penetration is slower than the mobile phone penetration, but the behaviour is going through a cultural and mindset change from buyer’s perspective. Some of the areas where buying on the Internet is quite evident is travel sector ie air, train, bus ticketing. Shopping engines have just started offering Price comparison features but they are surely in an early stage of this market development. There are lots of business model to catch up in various categories of products to be sold.

But there are certain areas to be addressed in ecommerce business :

1. logistics - Shipping has to be efficient and priced on transaction volumes.

2. Whole Sale - Drop Shipping business models have to be established

3. Returns - Return policies have to be very customer friendly

4. Payment Gateways - Price of these transactions have to be minimum and PayPal and Checkout type of models have to be adopted

5. Marketing - Affiliate marketing and various other Online marketing methods to be adopted

Once the above areas gets addressed,  one could see a big Industry emerging here. The likes of Ebay, Amazon, 1800flowers, petmeds, etc will eventually be taking shape in India as well.