The lockdown declared by the government in view of the COVID19 pandemic, resulted in small retailers closing shutters and consequent huge job losses especially amongst the lower and mid-level store and sales executives.

Per recent reports based on the data collected from primary sources like companies, job portals and Linkedin, almost more than one lakh people are looking for jobs. And the numbers continues to grow unabated.

However, like the other side of the coin, good news is that e-commerce sector is able to absorb a large part of this talent at the entry and mid-levels in delivery/logistics and at warehouses. Some of the entry level talent is also willingly turning into delivery boys for e-commerce players per a recruitment agency.

According to reports, the surge in job seekers is the highest at the level of middle operational managers from the physical (brick & mortar) retailers, as the sales figures have almost evaporated compared to the pre-Covid monthly figures as well as uncertainty surrounding the revival. They are rightly worried if their current employers will be able to sustain them for long.

Pandemic enforced lockdown has contributed in significantly enhancing the prospects of digital commerce because while on one hand Digital retail and supply chain companies have stepped in to fill the gap left by brick-and-mortar retail, the customers have also been forced to opt for this new way of shopping and getting used to it.

Someone’s loss is other’s gain, as they say, for E-commerce companies like Flipkart, Amazon and Udaan are on a hiring spree and picking up these aspirants. Given the evolving scenario, even senior executives have also moved over to these digital platforms, though in smaller numbers.

We are on a hunt for talent too. Want to grow your skills as a content writer? We are currently looking for content writer interns.

The post E-commerce helping jobless entry, Mid-Level Retail Talents appeared first on Growthonomy.

With the noticeable increase in Novel COVID-19 cases in the nation day by day, the Government is taking all necessary steps to bring the situation under control and eliminate all the mistakes that other nations have committed.

Several measures have been implemented like Janta Curfew followed by the complete lockdown for 21 days. Along with Section-144 implemented in several states to ensure that we see a drastic fall in the statistics of COVID-19.

While these policies have been implemented, still close to 2000 people have been identified as victims or prone to disease. All the services have been locked down expect a few essential services.

Doctors, Police, Social Activists and Media all are on their forefront in the battle to overcome this situation. These people without even thinking about their loved ones are putting their life in danger each day.

COVID 19 Relief Package announced by Government of India

Looking at the criticality of the situation our honorable Union Finance & Corporate Affairs Minister Smt. Niramla Sitharaman has recently announced a relief package to support the poor and needy under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana by sanctioning an amount of Rs 1.70 Lakh Crore.

The major aim behind this initiative is to make sure that there is proper management of food and other essential resources for the needy people during this time. And to ensure that there is no scarcity.

Honorable State Minister Shri Anurag Singh Thakur (Finance & Corporate Affairs), Shri Atanu Chakraborty, Secretary, (Department of Economic Affairs) and Shri Debashish Panda, Secretary, (Department of Financial Services) all were present during the announcement.

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package is going to offer following benefits: —

1. Health and Life Insurance scheme for all health care workers helping overcome COVID-19 in Government Hospitals and Health Care Centers.

• Cleanliness staff, nurses, ward boys, ASHA workers, paramedics, technicians, doctors and specialists and all other health workers will be covered under a Special Insurance Scheme.
• Any health care professional, who during the treatment and identification phase of Covid-19 patients comes across with any accident, would be compensated under this scheme with an amount of Rs 50 lakh.
• All government health and wellness centers, along with Centre and State hospitals will be covered under this scheme. Providing insurance cover to approximately 22 lakh people involved in the services to fight and overcome this pandemic situation.

2. PM Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana

• To ensure that no person in need especially the poor people suffer with starvation due to the lack of food grains during the disruption in next three months. Government of India has come up with this step.
• Approximately two-third of the entire Indian population will be benefitted under this scheme and this service will be provided as an addition without any cost.
• The entitlement of each individual will be doubled during this entitlement period over next three months.

Pulses

• In order to ensure that there is no malnutrition due to lack of proteins, all the above mentioned individuals will be provided pulses according to regional preferences for next three months. i.e. 1 kg per family and that too absolutely free of cost by Government of India.

3. Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana

Benefits offered to the farmers

• Benefiting approximately 8.7 crore farmers of our nation, the first instalment of Rs 2,000 which is due in 2020-21 will be front-loaded and paid in the month of April 2020 under the PM KISAN Yojana.
• Cash transfers Under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana:

Help to Needy Women

• Under this MPJDY scheme, women account holders will receive an ex-gratia of Rs 500 per month for next 3 months. An approximate amount of Rs. 20.40 crores will be distributed under this scheme.
• Under this scheme, free LPG cylinders will be distributed done under this scheme, free of cost for next 3 months, to ensure 8 crore poor families do not face any problems during this pandemic situation.

Benefits to low wage earners in the organised sectors

• In order to prevent disruption in the services of low wage earners who earn less then Rs. 15000 per months in small business with less than 100 workers. The Government has proposed to pay 24% of their monthly wages for next 3 months in their PPF accounts.

Support offered to the senior citizens, Divyangs and Widows

• In order to overcome the difficulties during this pandemic, the Government will be offering Rs. 1000 per month over a period of next three months. As part of the COVID-19 Relief Package, this is expected to benefit approximately 3 crore aged people.

Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Gurantee Act

• With Effect from 1^st April 2020 there would be an increase of Rs. 20 that will be done to the wages of the workers under MNREGA, that will annually provide a benefit of Rs.2000 to the workers and is expected to help approximately 13.62 crore families.

 4. Self-Help groups (SHG’s)

• Under this scheme free collateral lending limit will be doubled i.e. from 10 lakhs to 20 lakhs and will benefit approximately 6.85 crore households that are engaged through 63 lakh SHG’s (Self Help Groups).

5. Other Essential components offered under PM Garib Kalyan package

Organized sector

• During this Period EPFO’s (Employee Provident Fund Organizations) will amend their policies and benefit approximately 4 crore people registered under EPF. By allowing a non-refundable advance of 75% or three month wages whichever is higher.

Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Fund

• In order to support the building and construction workers i.e. approximately 3.5 core workers, this fund has been created under the central Government act to provide relief to these workers.

District Mineral Fund

• In order to support state government for screening, monitoring, medical testing and to further facilitate all other requirements in context to prevention and spread of COVID-19 pandemic along with treatment of the identified suspects, District Mineral Fund (DMF) can be utilized.

Apart from all these initiatives, the Government is strictly working to get the situation under control as soon as possible. By taking a step forward and learning from the mistakes of the others. Although there will be a huge hit on the economy, but it is certain that once we are able to overcome this pandemic situation, we will be able to quickly pull up the economy as well.

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With a recent announcement made by one of the innovative robotics pioneer Soft Robotics Inc. regarding the launch of a specially designed solution for handling the major problem of product return by the end-users.

The SuperPick Polybag Picking System, which can be considered as an extension to the SuperPick platform is a highly effective and efficient new age end to end robotic material handling technology. That majorly focuses to provide e-commerce industry operations an ability that will allow them to automate the scanning, handling, and loading of the outbound orders and returns of polybagged items by the customers.

The SuperPick Polybag Picking System is the latest offering from the Soft Robotics SuperPick platform. All SuperPick solutions have been specially crafted to reduce dissipated material handling challenges in the market that is labor starved and can easily be integrated with a variety of applications across the globe.

Comprising of ultra-fast 3D vision with the state of art gripping technology, the SuperPick Polybag Picking System caters to the items including those with even the highest degree of variability. The turnkey system has been specifically designed for order fulfillment and return processing of the items in polybags or in self-sealing mailer bags.

These capable and durable plastic bags have become the preferred packaging method/choice in the e-commerce industry because of the lower shipping costs versus cardboard boxes.

Handling the different variety and the nature of unstructured items in polybags has always been a challenge that traditional automation systems have not been able to reliably address.

The SuperPick Polybag system has successfully overcome these challenges and with multiple benefits i.e. to handle multiple SKUs without re-programming or time-consuming, eliminating complex training.

It can easily pick, scan, and deliver identified products that may vary in size, shape, fragility, and weight to any material handling system in the market.

“Reverse logistics and returns handling have become the center of attention for many e-commerce companies as recent studies have shown that 41% of people who purchase items online do so with the intention of returning at least some part of their order. This problem is only getting worse day by day as consumers continue to increase their volume of online shopping each year,” said Carl Vause, CEO of Soft Robotics.

“We’ve introduced such an innovative automation solution that will not only address the complexity and variability in the unstructured environment of the reverse flow of merchandise, but will prove to be an end to end solution for the order fulfillment process.”

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In the latest installment, the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has proposed a huge sum i.e. approximately US$4.72 million to help these Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises speed up the transformation from the traditional market and increase the adoption rate of digital solutions- channeled to the Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC).

The proposed growth fund is a part of a recently announced Economic Stimulus Package 2020, that has been carved to strengthen the country’s overall economy and make it ready for any impact arising from the outbreak of COVID-19.

Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) will also be further utilizing these funds to empower the Perkhidmatan e-Dagang Setempat (PeDAS) transformation program that has been designed to further focus on modernizing and digitalizing the rural internet centers of Malaysia. With the ultimate goal to convert or transform these internet centers into the e-commerce hubs. With the establishment of these hubs, the rural SMEs and micro-enterprises will be able to expand their future business prospects through the exploration of the massive market opportunities that e-commerce has in store.

In fact, the PeDAS (Perkhidmatan e-Dagang Setempat) program has been launched with the end goal to help the rural MSMEs (Malaysia Digital Economy Corp) become acquainted with the knowledge of how to reach and cater a bigger consumer market through the e-commerce platforms.

Even before the news of allotment of US$4.72 million, the thought of benefitting the rural micro’s and SME’s was still in place and instrumental. However, the allotment of these funds will provide a massive boost and SME’s will be able to develop their skills at these rural internet centers and will be able to get insight into the actual digital, entrepreneurial and e-commerce world.

Also, with the availability of the tools and applications that will be provided, it will certainly help SME’s deliver great values and take business to new heights. Having a good number of products listed in the e-commerce market will not only lead to the growth of the digital economy but will also put the nation on a fast track process of establishing themselves as an online retail hub.

So this is seen as a great opportunity to help the small business grow and touch new horizons.

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With the spreading of education amongst the people and a high rise in pollution because of a large number of vehicles on road, which is increasing day by day, the demand for electrical vehicles is touching a new horizon. And with this steadfast increase and non-fulfillment of the demand amongst the consumers, the big giants of the industry are all set to acquire the small startups to increase their production and profit.

People knowledgeable in the entire matter said that the company is still in the process of finalizing the deal. Also, the proposal us that the entire deal transaction will be cashless, wherein Grow Mobility will be offered shares within the company itself.

Grow Mobility – Emergence and Losses

Grow Mobility has emerged as one of the most promising and prominent startups of Latin America. It was a merger of a Mexican Scooter Company Startup named GRIN and its Brazilian Counterpart YELLOW last year. It has attracted huge interest from the top venture capitalists in the Silicon Valley.

As is well-said, Business is not meant for everyone. You need an effective and efficient strategy to run a business. However, as per the close people of the company, the Mexico based startup has badly struggled in recent months. It has faced a lot of losses due to the lack of a sound business model.

Grow Mobility’s search for a buyer shows a broader shift in the scooter industry. Investors and entrepreneurs have realized that the sector can accommodate so many players, an analyst said.

“Most of these things have been a quick boom and quick bust,” said analyst Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research.

Who will be profitable?

Now the bigger question is who is able to outlast the other? As per some tech industry insiders, it is better and profitable for mobility startups for 2 wheelers i.e. bikes and scooters, to operate on a large portfolio rather than as standalone companies. So if the deal successfully completes, it would certainly be a profitable deal for both Peixe and Grow Mobility.

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Nowadays, everything is available with the help of a click. On Wednesday i.e. Mar 04, 2020. Tata Coffee Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Consumer Products has announced its entry into the E-Commerce world with the launch of its new platform – The Sonnets (www.coffeesonnets.com).

TATA is one of the major producers of consumer goods and with its entry in this field, it can be assumed that it is just the beginning and TATA has a lot to offer.

The 3 Variants of TATA Coffee

Currently, TATA has made its debut by advertising three variants of Finest Indian Origin Coffees i.e.

• Arabica Coffee Yellow Honey
• Arabica Coffee Red Honey
• Arabica Coffee Gold Honey

With a tag line: The Sonnets “VOICE OF OUR ESTATES”

With this initiative, TATA is all set to offer the finest quality coffee. And, nestled amongst the forest in the giant rolling hills to offer the consumers a next-level experience of coffee. As said in a statement by one of the person “Through this online platform, Tata Coffee aims to make its finest estate coffees available to consumers across India”

As per their TATA Coffee Sonnets website:

Our Reserve Single Estate Coffees highlight the unique stories and tastes that our estates have to offer. Diverse in characteristics, they unite under the well-established processes of Tata Coffee to bring you the finest of coffee beans from India.

Our Coffee is intercropped and cultivated with pepper and fruit trees, which impart unique and delectable flavor along with aromatic nuances to the coffee beans. All these estates are unique in themselves and have a story of their own. While some of these estates were founded by the legendary planters, others are characterized by their distinct location, flora, fauna and exotic strains of the coffee.

As per TCL “Only the rarest and the best coffee beans are selected and used to prepare the range of The Sonnets Coffees”. And, they source the Coffees directly from 2 of TATA’s 19 estates, situated in the Coorg region of Karnataka.

As per the company, these estates named Goorghuly and Woshully are well recognized for plating and growing some of the best Arabica Coffees in the country, the company said.

TCL MD and CEO, Chacko Thomas, said, “The Sonnets – The voice of our estates’ aims to give coffee lovers across the country access to some of our finest estates’ coffees through our e-commerce platform.”

So with the release of this news, the coffee lovers will keep their eyes wide open to other variants that TATA will have to offer shortly.

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With a huge announcement on Monday, OPPO has decided to enter the huge and rapidly raising arena of Fintech Services, with its new app named as OPPO Kash. Looking at the market statistics, after the demonstration, Fintech market is growing at a fast pace speed. People are switching to digital platforms for everything.

Mobile wallets like Paytm, Amazon Pay, UPI, Phone Pay, Google Pay and a lot of others including the cellular service providers are getting into the race. Currently, the beta version or we can say the testing version is available to download from the app store and play store. Said Sumit Walia, vice president—product & marketing at Oppo India, “Eventually we plan to position it as an end-to-end financial services platform.”

OPPO Collaborates With Other Smartphone Giants

At this time, OPPO has come up with a collaboration with a few other big smartphone giants of the industry. One of this is Xiaomi also known as MI and RealMe. These companies have already tied up with a few banks and are also offering loans and credits to the consumers. With the news of OPPO stepping into this field, it is now certain that lot of other companies will soon be stepping in. This will certainly lead to a great boom in the digital transaction or we can say Fintech world.

If we look at the market and analyze the situation, OPPO and RealMe are the subsidiaries of the same Chinese company – BBK Electronics. The current services that OPPO would be offering are basically Mutual Funds, Insurance, and SIPs. The best part is that in order to encourage the public or the consumers to opt for mutual funds, the investment value is set to very minimal. After successful testing of the app, one can assume that OPPO will make these apps pre-installed in future phones.

“All financial needs should be fulfilled when a user has an Oppo phone within few clicks and with a simple, mobile-first experience. We are the first smartphone brand in India to launch mutual funds and will continue to innovate,” pointed out Zafar Imam, lead at Oppo Kash.

The Future of Fintech Looks Bright!

With the entry of all the major service providers, industry leaders and major companies in the field of Fintech, the future of the digital market is definitely quite bright. The statistics back the same. As per statistics, during December 2019, there were transactions of a major chunk of money. The total transaction amounts were approximately Rs. 2 Lakh Crores using different digital payment modes.

So now, in the coming future, the consumers can expect a lot of such platforms offering the fintech services. Thus making a huge transformation in this sector.

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What’s the news?

As the race continues, the news broke regarding the construction of 1 million square feet huge warehouse just adjacent to the international airport of Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW International Airport).

What’s in it for the traders?

With the construction of the warehouse just adjacent to the international airport. There will be a huge convenience for the transporters and shippers. The reason being the accessibility to all the major state and interstate highways and vast storage capacity.

About the Project owner.

Dallas Based, Perot Development Co. is the one taking care of the project. The company majorly focuses on Air/Cargo, Warehouse/distribution and logistics. In past 7 years, Perot has leased almost 5 million sq. feet of logistic space, including the 2 massive fulfillment centers of Amazon.

What’s the current status?

The first phase of Dallas-Fort Worth or we can say DFW International Airport project is expected to be completed in 12 months. Soon after the completion, the project will be able to cater to three fulfillment centers. If we talk about the largest storage space in the project it will be approximately 646,190 sq. feet with 171 trailer positions and 136 dock doors. 

From the CEO’s mouth:

CEO of the company Pat Perot stated that they are targeting E-commerce companies. The major reason behind the same is that we are located in the middle of the metroplex and will be able to offer great proximity to the huge population base along with the labor. Along with that the last mile deliveries and you can get the cargo coming in easily be it through the airport or by the truck.

It is being built on a speculative basis due to strong market interest in infill sites centrally located in major metropolitan areas with significant international trade volume, he said.

The site of the warehouse directly fronts the President George Bush Turnpike, along with the access to two huge exits. Other major advantage we will be able to offer is easy reachability to FedEx and UPS regional hubs and centers, the United States Postal Service bulk mail centers, and all the major freight forwarders, not only that Foreign Trade Zone benefits and local tax exemptions.

In Phase 2 of the project, the major emphasis will be laid to feature smaller lease of around 50,000 sq. feet or more that will be built to suit any kind of logistic purposes.

E-commerce industry is the one which is reshaping the demand for industrial properties and how warehouses are rapidly built. Currently E-Commerce accounts for almost 10% of the total retail sales and is growing at a rapid pace i.e. three times faster than the traditional store sales for the past few decades.

As per a study conducted by Real Estate Services and investment firm CBRE (Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis) in 2018, It was found that more than 30% of the distribution space is attributed to E-commerce on lease. And for every $1 billion e-commerce sales growth, approximately 1.25 million sq. feet of warehouse space is required. And it is because of this demand for effective and efficient logistic space that supports quicker and faster deliveries, new warehouse designs have been introduced which are wider and larger. If we look at the dimension’s new warehouse in the United States have increased by 108,665 sq. feet, or we can say 143%, in size and 3.7 ft. in terms of height in comparison to high-development period previous 20 years, according to CBRE report.

So it becomes quiet clear that the growth of E-commerce platform is in a tremendous state and will require a lot of storage space as the consumer base is shifting at a great speed from traditional market to E-commerce platforms.

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Target’s sale has been projected to be more than double in 2020 if we compare the same with the year 2017.

“At such a time where brick & mortar stores are struggling each day to keep up with the rapidly changing retail landscape, Target has used its trump card and seems to directly have hit the bullseye,”

Cindy Liu, the forecasting analyst of eMarketer during the release said that, “Store renovations & expanding fulfillment promises on the same day, such as direct store pickups, drive up and delivery using Shipt, are paying off very well. Target has strategically developed a plan to smoothly process and fulfill orders from within the store itself, along with ensuring that customer demands for convenience and speed are met in-store as well, while catering to the huge online market.

Another important aspect that Target has been climbing up the ladder very well using the digital marketing potential was its sales from the toy segment in the year 2019 which rapidly increased. While the in-store sales in this segment were found to be overall flat which was like a disappointment for the executives and analysts. However, Target’s online toy sales grew rapidly around 12% year on year during the fourth quarter, as per the 1010 data report. Also during a survey, it was found that Target has taken some share from Amazon as well in the online toy sales.

Shipt acquisition by Target has also provided the retailer with more options for delivery, while Target has also worked upon and expanded its pickup & drive-up capabilities. This has allowed Target to offer more options to the consumers, whereas store fulfillment has tremendously helped to make online orders more efficient, effective and much profitable.

Some Statistical data that proves Target’s tremendous growth:

• Target overruled three major competitors to become the 8th largest e-commerce player in the United States of America, as per the eMarketer’s latest rankings of market share. This rank marks the entry of the giant i.e. Target in the top 10 list.

• It is assumed that the Target’s e-commerce business will be touching new horizons with an expansion of approximately 24% to $8.3 billion in the current year. eMarketer has also estimated giving Target 1.2% of the market share in the year 2020, according to an emailed press release. Further moving in its journey to the No.8 Rank, Target has edged past Qurate Retail Group, Costco & Macy. ​

With all kinds of strategies adapted by target day on day, along with acquisitions happening at a rapid rate, Target’s investment in its digital marketing is tremendously helping them grow with a huge success rate. Looking at the current analysis, the day is not far when Target may enter the top 5 and in leaps and bounds, will start ruling the market.

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Taking advantage of this, a lot of middlemen come in to picture and the profit ratio that the SHG women should get is reduced to pennies. The major reason this situation arises is because of the lack of education and knowledge of the digital world amongst these workers.

The Government, in its initiative to take India to a new horizon, is taking new steps each day and a major focus is also laid on improving the lives of the rural parts and regions of the country.

Taking a step forward in this direction, the Rural Development Ministry of India has proposed to provide a wider market for the products manufactured by women Self Help Groups by listing them on the center’s e-commerce platforms, as revealed by the sources on Sunday. Not only that, the Government has also decided to take some more steps in this direction by providing all necessary support to SHG’s like branding, packaging, pricing, etc. to make the products more marketable.

With the proposal of this strategy, products made or manufactured by the SHG’s will just be a click away, same as Amazon, Flipkart or other e-commerce platforms. As per one of the senior officials of the ministry, the groups or the products will be listed on the center’s e-commerce portal, Government e-Marketplace (GeM).

“This step will help in a big way in making women in villages financially independent and in overall improvement of the rural economy, officials in the ministry said.”

If we look at the current statistics, there are approximately 58.5 lakh Self Help Groups under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojna- National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM), with almost over 6 crore women as members or part of this mission.

It is expected that Ministries and Departments under the Central Government and Public Sector Undertakings (PSU’s) may start the procurement from the GeM platform which is currently managed by and is under the control of the Commerce Ministry.

Talking about GeM, it was launched back in August 2016 in order to increase transparency and efficiency in the process of public procurement. Currently, GeM has almost 3.36 lakh sellers doing business on the platform. Out of which 74,240 are small and micro sellers. And looking at the total transaction value so far it is somewhere around Rs. 47,612 crores.

As proposed by honorable finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, going forward, the expected increase in GeM’s turnover would be somewhere around Rs.3 Lakh Crores.

So, looking at all the proposals and the necessary steps taken by the Government, the proposal is expected to show a great boom in the Indian economy by making SHG’s digitally effective and allowing them to attract more audience/buyers that will automatically help raise the standard and condition of Rural India.

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