Govt should bring in regulations to counter selling of fake goods online: CEO, LatestOne

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Saurabh Gupta | 14 Mar, 2016
The Government of India should bring in regulations to counter selling of fake goods online, said Ameen Khwaja, Founder/ CEO, LatestOne.com.

LatestOne.com is an e-commerce business defined in the category of specialty online retailers focused on tech & mobile accessories. Speaking to SME Times, Khwaja also said, "Most of the e-commerce marketplaces are selling sub standard products at cutting prices since they have less control or no control over quality of products sold by the sellers."

Excerpts of the interview...

Please tell our readers about your online platform - LatestOne.com
Ameen Khwaja: LatestOne.com is an e-commerce business defined in the category of specialty online retailers focused on tech & mobile accessories. LatestOne.com also continuously introduce new gadgets in this vertical. The range of products on Latestone.com include Bluetooth devices, Smart watches, Bluetooth speakers, various types of cover and cases for mobiles & tablets, power banks, chargers, mini-PCs or Android TV's, HDMI cables, VGA, Audio & Video cables etc.

There are numbers of online platform for tech & mobile accessories. Why LatestOne.com? What is the USP of your platform?
Ameen Khwaja: This is not true. LatestOne.com is the ONLY online retailer focused on tech & mobile accessories. The others are supplying through market place models and not from their own inventory/store or supplying a very small sub-category of products. It is unique because we stock over 10,000 SKUs and currently by all parameters, we are country's largest online retailer in this vertical in terms of product range, no of customers, orders processed, online ranking etc.

LatestOne.com has recently received funding of Rs 20 crores from its existing investor, Palred Technologies Limited (PTL), bringing in a total investment of Rs. 50 crores. What is the size and shape of LatestOne.com now?
Ameen Khwaja: We receive 1.2 lac visitor daily, 4000 orders per day, 1 million registered customer base, Alexa website rank under 1800, monthly net revenue (after returns, refunds and taxes) is INR 5 crores, 10,000 SKU's, two 12,000 sq-ft warehouses located in Hyderabad and New Delhi and 200 employees currently.

How you see your market in India and what are your plans to capture market more?
Ameen Khwaja: LatestOne.com is an e-commerce business defined in the category of specialty online retailers focused on tech & mobile accessories. India's online market size is approx INR 25,000 crores, out of which online market size for mobile and tech accessories is about INR 1,000 crores. We plan to capture more online market by expanding our product categories, selling quality products to create long term goodwill, more SKU's and opening more warehouses closer to customers.

What were the challenges you had counter with during your journey of success?
Ameen Khwaja: Most of the e-commerce websites are marketplace selling sub standard products at cutting prices since they have less control or no control over quality of products sold by the sellers. Latestone.com is on inventory based model, we have 100% control on the quality of products we sell. Another challenge was high undelivered returns, to overcome this challenge we introduced multi-layered order confirmation process.

What Government can do to overcome those challenges? Your views.
Ameen Khwaja: I think Government should bring in regulations to counter selling fake products online and GST should be implemented quickly, since current tax structure is complicated.

How you see the government's 'Make in India' and 'Start-up India' movement?
Ameen Khwaja: I really appreciate 'Make in India' and 'Start up India' movement started by Indian Government. The benefits mentioned under 'Start-up India' initiative will give wings to the entrepreneurship and will also create job opportunities. With regards to 'Make in India', I strongly feel that government should help to create better infrastructure.

What are your future plans?
Ameen Khwaja: In next 3 years we target to achieve INR 500 crores revenue which means 15,000 - 16,000 orders per day with an average order value of INR 900.00. We will also explore opportunities to go global.