• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Ecom city portals to support shopping

Neha Kapoor

MUMBAI, Sept. 7

ECOM Concepts India Pvt Ltd, the company behind city-specific portals, Mumbai123.com and Delhi123.com, will set up

e-commerce shop fronts for the two portals by October this year.

``The software, which allows small and medium enterprises to set up a store front on the Web sites, is at testing stage right now and should be functional by the third week of October,'' Mr. Yateesh Srivastava, Chief Operating Officer, Ecom, told Busines s Line.

``Talks are on with Citibank and HDFC bank for a payment gateway. We will also tie up with two courier service providers, one in town and another in the suburbs, for logistics.''

The company plans to start with low-value items such as books, cassettes, CDs, flowers and home furnishings in a co-branding exercise with 10-15 stores at a non-competitive level.

``Eventually, we plan to set up a cyber mall and apart from a revenue sharing model, we will charge for the application service,'' Mr. Srivastava said.

With listings on the Web site expected to contribute 50 per cent of total revenue, advertising 20-25 per cent and the rest from e-commerce, the company expects to break even on an investment of Rs. 3.5 crores by 2003.

Ecom will also venture into the wireless market in Delhi and Mumbai next month through a tie-up with a leading cellular operator for its WAP (wireless application protocol) offering, Mr. Srivastava said.

``Our USP will be a large database of localised content which is a strong strategy for pulling in more customers. For instance, we have a list of 1,500 restaurants around town and 15,000 local stores that our customers can chose from.''

He added: ``Another unique feature will be our GPS mapping product which provides driving directions for the two cities.

``The textual driving instructions are being transferred to WML (Wireless Markup Language) for WAP content and will be available to customers in Delhi in the next 45 days, followed by Mumbai.''

Apart from its foray into e-commerce and wireless, the company also plans to launch city-specific portals in six other cities including Pune, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Calcutta and Chandigarh this year.