Times Internet acquires minority stake in logistics company Delhivery

Times Internet has invested in New Delhi based logistics companyDelhivery to boost last mile delivery service for Indiatimes Shopping, its ecommerce vertical. Gautam Sinha, Director, Technology and Ecommerce, Times Internet has confirmed the development to India Digital Review saying that Indiatimes now owns a significant minority stake in Delhivery. "After pivoting from a marketplace to a retailer model, we had to strengthen our warehouse network and last mile delivery. This acquisition is done to boost our delivery capabilities. Some ecommerce companies in India are doing this by launching their own courier network, but that requires time to scale, hence we have decided to take the acquisition route. Indiatimes Shopping currently has three warehouses and we are planning to open two more by the end of this fiscal," said Gautam Sinha. In January 2012, Nokia India had partnered Indiatimes to launch an online store for its range of mobile phones called NokiaShop. Speaking about that partnership, Gautam Sinha said that Indiatimes Shopping has earned revenue at Rs 3 crore per month through that partnership and expects this to reach a figure of Rs 10 crore per month. The company is also launching similar ecommerce sites for two different brands by August 1, 2012. The model of setting up partnerships with various brands is that the warehousing and last mile fulfillment is done by Indiatimes and the company is paid a commission on every transaction. Sinha further said that the company is expecting to do Rs 300 crore of revenue by the end of the current financial year. Indiatimes Shopping currently employs 200 people and plans to increase the headcount to 340 people by the year end. Meanwhile, Times Internet has also launched a shopping application for Android phones. The new application allows users to view the product range that Indiatimes Shopping has for mobiles and compare prices and seal the deal with easy payment options. Users can also compare the prices of products listed on Indiatimes Shopping with other websites by using their mobile's camera to scan the QR code or ISBN code. The codes, which are mapped to a unique product, are then compared with prices on other e-commerce sites.  
http://techgig.com/tech-news/editors-pick/Times-Internet-acquires-minority-stake-in-logistics-company-Delhivery-13092