Indiaplaza was an Indian

electronic commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...

website. It was one of the pioneers in the

online shopping Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the r ...

space in India. Earlier known as Fabmart and then Fabmall, the company later acquired US-based online shopping firm Indiaplaza.com and rebranded itself as Indiaplaza.in in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, and as Indiaplaza.com in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, which were later merged into a single website.

History

In June 1999, K Vaitheeswaran 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 Fabmart.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 their first offline grocery store in Bangalore, India.

Funding

Indiaplaza.com received angel funding from The Indigo Monsoon Group (IMG), a private investment firm based in the USA known for investing in Indian Internet and mobile domains. IMG's other investments include Sulekha.com, an online community for Indians integrating social media with local commerce and EShakti.com, an online India-inspired and customized apparel retailer aimed at a global audience. In February 2011, Indiaplaza successfully concluded a deal for Series A US $5 million funding from Indo-US Venture Partners (IUVP) who had previously invested in other internet companies like

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, and

Snapdeal Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company, based in New Delhi, India. It was founded in February 2010 by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Snapdeal was one of the largest online marketplaces in India. Snapdeal targets the value e-commerce segment, ...

. Despite securing these funding sources, Indiaplaza was unable to raise sufficient funding in 2012–2013, which meant that the company had to cease trading.

Product range

Indiaplaza offered a few thousand products online including books, CD-ROMs, cameras, mobile phones, apparel, jewelry, flowers, chocolates, watches, and food items.

Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Award

The "Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards" were instituted by Indiaplaza in 2008, to be conferred 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

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External links