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Jaldi.com shuts out financing services -- Shores-up core areas -- electronics & consumer durables

P.T. Jyothi Datta

NEW DELHI, June 20

THE business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping portal, jaldi.com, has decided to streamline its operations following a recent site audit.

As a first step, it will be exiting from the personal loans services that it offered. It will, instead, concentrate on its strengths -- electronics and consumer durables.

Mr. Sanjay Trehan, Vice-President, content and strategy, Jaldi E-Commerce Pvt Ltd, told Business Line that the company had undertaken an internal site audit and decided to exit from services that were not in alliance with its activities. These include ba nking and personal finance services, he said.

The audit also had site promoters rethinking on their advertising strategy. ``We had earmarked about Rs. 15 crores as ad spend for this fiscal. But, we will be spending less,'' he said.

However, the site will undertake topical and localised advertising, he said.

``Earlier all dotcoms were forced to enter advertising-driven publicity. But now, following the rethink, we would be ploughing back our funds into strengthening our backend operations,'' Mr. Trehan said.

The online shopping site has also perceived a shift in consumer behaviour in the five-odd months that it has been in existence. ``From dotcom skeptics, the consumer is becoming a believer of e-commerce and online shopping,'' he said.

Reinforcing his observation, he sites the experience of the `jaldi lagao campaign' that they had undertaken this April. ``We had a total of 11,000 orders with a realisable sales of Rs. 2.5 crores and only 5 per cent fake orders. In earlier contests, we f ound more than 50 per cent fake orders, possibly because consumers were testing the waters.''

The site has seen its revenues catapult from about Rs. 25 lakhs in the first three months of its operation, to about Rs. 4.5 crores in the fourth month.

On whether the site would be able to sustain the leap in its sales in April, an experience that could be attributed to the contest, Mr. Trehan said: ``It would be possible as there has also been a behavioural shift in consumers going in for purchasing mo re big ticket items, like split air-conditioners, over the Net. Earlier, it was restricted to low ticket items like provisions. At present, about Rs. 3 crores of our Rs. 4.5-crore revenues comes from consumer durables.''

The site has also appointed e-CRM (customer relations management) specialists, daksh.com, to undertake a pilot study on its focus areas, besides train its staff.

The portal is also putting in all its efforts to beef up its content and logistics and expects to break even within a year, he said. In addition to undertaking community building programmes, to sustain traffic to the site, jaldi.com is also looking at wi reless application protocol or WAP-enabled content, where the consumer could access information, despite being offline.

The company hopes to rope in funds of about Rs. 20 crores, by the end of the month. It is, at present, holding discussions with venture capitalists for the same.

Promoted by KLG Systel and Satin Credit Care Network, a division of Satin Leasing and Finance Ltd, the site was officially launched in January this year.