Indiaplaza
|
Indiaplaza logo. | |
| Web address |
www |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | K Vaitheeswaran |
| Launched | 1999 |
Alexa rank |
 3,698 (October 2013)[1] |
| Current status | inactive |
Indiaplaza was an Indian electronic commerce retailer.[2] Indiaplaza was one of the pioneers in online shopping in India.[3][4][5] It was earlier known as Fabmall after which the company acquired US-based online shopping firm Indiaplaza.com and rebranded itself as Indiaplaza.in in India, and as Indiaplaza.com in the United States, which were later merged into a single website.[6] In 2013, after failing to raise funding, the company ceased operations and the websites shut down.
History
In June 1999 K Vaitheeswaran (also referred to as the "father of e-commerce in India") and five of his friends including V S Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Hari Menon, V S Ramesh and Sundeep Thakran founded, India’s first online departmental store. The website Fabmall.com was launched in September 1999 which then offered only music CDs for sale. Between February and October 2000, the website introduced additional categories including books, movies, watches, and groceries. In February 2002, they launched the first offline grocery store in Bangalore, India.
Funding
Indiaplaza.com had received angel funding from The Indigo Monsoon Group (IMG), a private investment firm based in the USA and investing in Indian internet and mobile domains.[4] In February 2011, Indiaplaza successfully concluded Series A US $5 million funding from Indo-US Venture Partners (IUVP).
Indiaplaza was unable to raise funding in 2012-2013, after which the websites became inactive.[7]
Partnerships
Indiaplaza had many alliances with media companies including Business Standard, Sify.com, and with publishing houses like The Hindu for e-commerce initiatives.
Product range
Indiaplaza offered books, CD-ROMs, cameras, mobile phones, apparel, jewelry, flowers, chocolates, watches, and food items.[2][8] However it is advised by industry experts that services & the products are very unreliable. There were few cases of piracy that also came in light last year that were shipped by Indiaplaza.com to customers.
Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Award
The Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards were instituted by Indiaplaza in 2008, to be awarded to an Indian author domiciled in India. The award was for an original full-length novel or work of fiction in English or a translation into English of an original full-length novel or work of fiction of any Indian language published in India in the previous calendar year.
References
- ↑ "Indiaplaza.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2012-10-15.
- 1 2 "Indiaplaza.in Looking At $10M Fundraise". Reuters. 2011-03-15.
- ↑ "Site for shoppers". The Hindu (Chennai, India). 2007-09-13.
- 1 2 http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/fabmallcom-acquires-indiaplazacom_262749.html
- ↑ "Online retail: Are e-retail firms in India building a bubble again?". The Times Of India. 2011-07-19.
- ↑ http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-marketing/article1646912.ece
- ↑ Ramanunni, Jalaja (April 28, 2014). "IndiaPlaza.com goes offline". Medianama.com.
- ↑ http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/indiaplaza-raises-vcnea-indous/442210/