Ideas|Products|Startups|VCs

E-commerce ventures have suddenly taken off in india since couple of years and lot many players foraying into this segment, some selling books, flowers, apparels, shoes etc. Important marketing and acquisition tool for ecommerce portals are affiliate programs. Affiliate program is form of marketing by which you drive traffic from one website to another.

Let’s investigate if affiliate program is really helpful and the need for your ecommerce portal. You may need to find the answers for these queries -

• First and foremost question is does your product will appeal affiliates to sell, is it good enough users will buy online, affiliates will thoroughly assess your product offering against other vendors.
• Do you have the right kind of setup, infrastructure to support the affiliate program, need to have marketing team which will work with affiliates like true partners. Ui team will be needed to handover the htmls, banners, images etc to the affiliates and guide them in its implementation.
• How easily affiliates can join your program. Steps to be taken to make sure joining is simple and hassle free.
• Do you have billing system in place to pay out their commission – billing system has to transparent and robust to display all their sales and conversion commission and can be easily accessible by the affiliate partners. Does your affiliate program stand out with other ecommerce players, why they should choose you.
• How easily you can carry out payment. End of the day what matters is the commission amount to the affiliates. Any delay or tedious procedure to redeem commission can really hamper your affiliate program.

In short affiliate programs are not easy to set and run it. Having said that portals like shaadi.com, simplilearn are doing well from their affiliate programs.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com

Simplilearn is Bangalore based startup targeting global audience who aspire for PMP certification. Simplilearn is a SaaS based online learning platform, integrated with essential Web 2.0 tools, which provides professional organizations and training solutions providers with a fast and flexible way to configure and deploy their learning contents.

Simplilearn is a certification preparation Portal. Simplilearn provide working professionals the option of attending Live virtual classes from the convenience of their home or office. It provides a balanced mix of e-learning, classroom learning and live virtual classes to address the unique learning needs of working needs of working professionals.

Simplilearn is founded by Krishna kumar a serial entrepreneur, earlier he cofounded TechUnified, which got acquired by a public listed company in Feb 2007. By the time of acquisition, TechUnified had world class products in the areas of Mobile Banking, Voice Banking and Telecom Self Care.

SimpliLMS the LMS from Simplilearn, helps them create, manage and deliver various standard as well as customized courses that are of global values and provides them all the features of a good blended learning. Simplilearn also addresses those organizations that have a good course curricula and a strong base of learners but are looking out for economical LMS to go online. SImplilearn develops fully customized learning portals that yields higher ROI.

Simplilearn has trained more than 3000 PMP aspirants from across 100+ countries. Simplilearn provides customizable solutions to meet unique training requirements of organizations. Simplilearn plans to introduce other certification training programs like ITIL Training, CAPM Training, CISA, and Six Sigma training in the near future.

Simplilearn competes with global players like PMCC, CELTEM, PMSTUDY.

Simplilearn USP -

• Live Virtual Classes from India to global audience.
• Pioneers of blended learning approach for certification preparation.
• Intuitive and excellent user interface.
• Product bundling done quite smartly, user can buy the complete package or individual item like online courses, mock tests.

-Hitesh, vcBytes.com