subject: Jabong A Head Of Competition [print this page] Jabong.com was launched in October and was live from January 2012, with great effort and hard work it has now become one of the most successful e-commerce websites in India. Internet rankings by the website Alexa measures different websites around the world. Jabong is the 63rd most popular website in India, beating every retail website except Flipkart (at No. 15). The site focuses on fashion and retail, and has grown quickly by focusing on customer service.
Mr. Manu Kumar Jain is the co-founder and managing director of Jabong.com, Gurgaon. The 31-year-old entrepreneur (a product of IIT Delhi and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta), says: Fashion and apparel is still a largely untapped sector in Indian e-commerce. Its got the right kind of profile for e-commerce as well, because its an aspirational product category, but people lack access to fashion. Today, this idea of E-commerce is practiced by a lot of people, but what gave us success was our customer care. For Mr. Jain, the mandate was clear - Roll out new features and build an audience before the established players could react. He says: We did a lot of things that shouldve been there already. We were one of the first sites with a 30-day return policy, and today we are trying to offer same-day delivery in the top 10 metros. We pioneered card-on-delivery payments, so customers who arent comfortable with using a card online dont have to keep cash handy.
The company has concentrated on building depth while staying focused on fashion. With over 400 brands and 50,000 products, we have possibly the largest selection right now and were building that up still.
Jabong.com looks a lot like other websites, each department is followed by pictures and each product is displayed from different viewing angles. The website is easy to use and it focuses on making the product the real Hero. Certainly the company is doing far better than planned. Jain says, We have gone in the right directions, and grown better than expected.
Jabong has been growing through word of mouth and targeted online advertising on social media. Jain says: We listen to customer feedback and weve had a great response. We see repeat visitors at well above the industry average because of the commitment to customer service, and this is going to help us grow profitably.
Despite the quick start, Jabong has a lot to do. The brand will keep introducing new reasons for customers to keep visiting. For long-term success, it needs to be able to balance growth and profitability.
