Jabong.com - a third eye view. Some good, some strange findings

Its a lazy Sunday morning and I was just sitting at home, having a cup of tea with Sunday Times. My roomie turned the television on among all crappy Sunday morning shows, one thing noticed my attention - All new online lifestyle store: JABONG.COM!

Lot of things have been written about current and future shape of e-commerce in India, and this subject being one of my favorite, I decided to do some 'khufiapanti'! While TV ad seems quite boring and uninteresting, they have managed to create a good looking product. Lot of options and filters to choose product of your choice. Messaging is simple: Free Shipping, Cash on Delivery, 30 day return policy and Free Hotline! Enough to excite an Indian online buyer.

Then I decided to go more deeper and check out some other facts about site. Name 'Jabong' means a tropical fruit. Neither logo, nor anything on site relates to Jabong fruit btw! I don't even know how many Indians would be knowing about this strange name. This led me to check traffic on site, and here are some interesting facts:

• Alexa traffic rank: 119 in India (now that's impressive!)
  
• 1.6 Mn Unique visitors / month
• 8.2 Mn page views
• More than 6 page views / visit

Some images for better understanding of traffic on site:

Site page views:

Site traffic details from Google Ad Planner:

Visitor Demographics (Alexa):

Well, everything is interesting about site traffic, isn't it? A lesser known weird name, in highly cluttered e-commerce market generates so much of traffic. I was surprised. I decided to check how much of this could be organic. I went on to check popularity of site on Google's organic search and found this:

• 'Jabong' keyword has very 'low' search volume and generates approx 8100 search queries on Google
  
• 'Jabong.com' is even lesser popular and generates approx 1000 queries on Google

I could not figure out exact % of organic traffic, but its clear that name 'Jabong' is not popular among people and visitors do not search for 'Jabong' on Google. So, where do they come from?

Well, here is a possible answer: Social Media!

I went on to check social presence of Jabong, and it was a sweet surprise!

• Staggering 192,138 'likes' on facebook!! However, none of those is my friend :-(
  
• 11232 followers on Twitter! Btw, none of these followers in my network, again!
  

This brand is definitely doing some wonders on social media! Its kind of silent penetration which nobody noticed till date. I also checked if Jabong has been covered by news portals. Google News search throws only 4 relevant news items, most of which including ET, Hindu Business Line and Tech Crunch covers Jabong as just another e-commerce portal. So, Where does this site get traffic from? Paid promotions?? May be.

This led me to check origin of site and and a quick whois check revealed that domain was created in 2004 and last updated on 9th feb 2012. Even traffic data shows minimal traffic before february. So, its clear that site started operating only in february. Now, if that's the case - getting 8.2mn page views within 2 months is a huge success!

I also landed on this linkedin page, clearly suggesting they launched site 2-3 months back:

Now I strongly feel that getting such numbers organically in 2 months is highly difficult... and if you get it, you must get covered by all technology blogs and news media for sure! Question is why isn't anyone talking about it?

Also, here is an interesting finding. Google search of 'jabong' results shows a negative review on mouthshut on first page of results (written just one day ago). mouthshut.com shows overall rating of 1 star, out of 4 ratings. People talk about poor service and bad experience.

So, site's quality and 'look n feel' is nice. Site traffic is impressive and growing exponentially. It has managed to get huge numbers on Social Media profiles as well! However, some facts and figures shows different picture. Also, their huge TV advertising campaign is supported by online campaign and that should be driving traffic for the moment.

It will be interesting to see how Jabong.com fares in long run. E-commerce is game of trust service and quality. Jabong.com has a long mile to catch up on these factors. While flipkart, ebay, snapdeal and infibeam of the world are enjoying leadership position, I would love to see how Jabong differentiates and establishes its connect with consumers. Surely, there is a market for everyone and its up to Jabong.com to leverage potential of it.

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Vodafone launches Pocket Life - Location based social networking application

Vodafone has partnered with Pocketlife - a location based social network. This application does something which is beyond current services available. This GPS friendly application allows you to update your location updates automatically to social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.

Full Story...

This, I would say is a new era of communication. Telecom business is not just about providing Voice / Data services. It actually means to enabling people to CONNECT. As we all know, social networking is latest buzz and powerful tool for social animals, such efforts would surely pay for Vodafone. A brilliant step for telecom industry, a new wave of revolution for telecom operators. Especially in India, Internet and Telecom industries are about to gain its presence in exponential way. Initiatives like Pocket wave, would surely encourage Indian operators to think over their role in upcoming 3G network rollout.

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Social Networking: New way of recruiting people

What do you think is the future of recruitment agencies? More and more companies are using social networking and Web 2.0 for their recruitment needs. Recruitment Agencies aka 'Headhunters' have observed downward trend and they are keen on future of their business.

It is also evident that people of so called "Digital Generation" does not communicate in same way as our seniors are doing. We love online space and it is becoming a tool to follow our interests, passion and career goals. There are plenty of groups, newsletters and communities available for one to stay in touch with latest happenings in the industry. Also, professional networking and personal referrals are becoming buzz for new age job applications. News reports says that twitter is playing roll of headhunter for many recruiters.
Follow this news for more details: http://cli.gs/H9a26y

My question is that if this is going to be the case for next generation job recruitment, what will be the scenario like? Is there any chance of people faking their profiles and pretending to be someone what they are actually not!

Media RoundUp: Yahoo!'s open strategy, Facebook devalued, ESPN Relaunching website...

Yahoo! announces “open” strategy — In an effort to tie all of its services together under the same technology, Yahoo! has announced its new “Open” strategy. As a result, services like Yahoo! Mail will now feature applications from companies like the blogging system Wordpress, and the photo sharing site Flickr. Yahoo! also plans on adding social networking capabilities across services, which notify users of their friends’ actions. [Source: TechCrunch]

Facebook devalued — Once valued as high a $15 billion, Facebook now has a more realistic valuation of $2 billion. The social networking’s new valuation is based on the current trading of the social networking site’s common stock. Facebook has also struggled to fully monetize its massive user base. [Source: Silicon Valley Insider]

Layoffs at New York magazine — Reports place cuts at New York Magazine at around half a dozen. The cuts were done in an effort to reduce redundancy as the magazine shifts more resources to digital production. [Source: Portfolio]

AP writers and photographers on byline freeze — In order to protest management’s stance during contract talks, AP workers will withhold their bylines. The two sides are at odds over a proposed wage freeze. [Source: Editor and Publisher]

ESPN to relaunch site — In an effort to simplify its homepage, and include more advertising space, ESPN.com is unveiling a substantial redesign. The site is due to launch today, with a “formal introduction” planned for January 5th. [Source: New York Times]