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New Delhi, Apr 8 () From uncertainties pertaining to the lockdown to career-related anxiety and symptoms of depression due to being away from home, helplines and counselling services being run online by various universities are dealing with the psychological concerns of students during the coronavirus pandemic. Earlier this week, the University Grants Commission (UGC) directed all universities and colleges to set up mental health helplines to address students' concerns during the health crisis.Even before the UGC directive, many universities like Delhi University (DU) and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) here had already begun counselling services for students. Private universities like Ashoka University in Haryana are also providing such services to the students.Dr SP Jena, head of DU's Psychology Department, said the counselling services were started through email on March 3."We have been getting 10-15 queries every day. The queries pertain to panic attacks and general anxiety which students might have been experiencing earlier but have got aggravated due to this situation," he said. Dr Jena said he asks students to not follow news about coronavirus and engage themselves more in entertainment activities to divert attention.They want to expand the counselling services to help staffers of the varsity but right now, they are only focussing on students, he said."Students also call for queries about their academics, with problems of concentration. They do not have a time management plan and I suggest to them to have a time table. It's a good thing they are approaching us," he added.DU's Rajdhani College has formed a committee comprising a counsellor who retired from AIIMS, college officials, students, incharges of National Cadet Corps (NCC) Girls and Boys divisions and northeast students to help the students overcome issues related to mental and physical health during this time of crisis."The students call about queries on when the exams will happen and whether the varsity will promote students in case exams are not able to take place," said college principal Dr Rajesh Giri.The JMI has also started tele-counselling services for students and staff members distressed by the coronavirus crisis.Najma Akhtar, vice-chancellor of JMI, said the main query the counsellers are getting is when will the lockdown end."There are around 300 hostellers who had to stay back. They keep on asking, 'What will happen to us? When will be go back home?' There are around 40 foreign students in our hostels. The main query is how they will go back home," she said. "We have written to every embassy informing them about the students. I am scared that they should not suffer from depression. They had the impression that they would be going back home during the summer break but now they are uncertain," Akhtar said.Dr Arvinder Singh, director and founder of Ashoka Centre For Well Being at Ashoka University, said the centre currently has six counsellers and students can book online sessions."We use Google hangout and Zoom app to reach out to students. We also have a telephonic helpline which runs for a couple of hours every day for students and faculty members," she said.Singh is also conducted group therapy sessions online to help students cope with anxiety."It's a time when students are going through a lot of anxiety, fear and are also feeling boxed in. There is uncertainty about what will happen, how will we graduate and the job market when the economy has taken a downturn," she said. Dr Singh said they have a multi-pronged approach to help students – a counselling centre, group therapy sessions, peer student groups – cope with this extraordinary situation. "We give self-care tips and also tell them about the importance of sleep hygiene," she added. Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD) runs the Ehsaas Psychotherapy and Counselling Clinic to meet the needs of those experiencing psychosocial difficulties.Professor Anu Singh Lather, Vice Chancellor, AUD said members from the clinic are available daily since March 23 on phone and email to help the varsity's students in dealing with the anxieties created by sudden isolation, change of routine and stress about academic and career plans. The opportunity to share problems and difficulties with therapists leads to considerable reduction in distress, she said, adding that faculty members are also being encouraged to incorporate mentorship and counselling while conducting online teaching sessions. According to counsellors at AUD, most students have reported distress associated with the pandemic and the other changes in lifestyle associated with it. They are worried about their future even in the immediate context. The likelihood that job opportunities will go down is a great concern, they said. In addition, a large number of students are feeling anxious because they are far away from their families and cannot travel home because of the lockdown. SLB RDMRDM

COVID-19: Varsity helplines face students' anxieties due to uncertainty, lifestyle changes

Lalbhais is the most rooted business family in Ahmedabad. <keyword id="192475" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kulin-Lalbhai">Kulin Lalbhai</keyword>, who belongs to the family, had a tough time when he decided to move to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Bengaluru+">Bengaluru </a>for his new venture. He had to go through a series of disapprovals, but the 29-year-old finally moved out with his wife and daughter. 
 Many thought he made this move because he split up with the family, but Kulin disagrees. He says, “It's nothing like that. My family is very dear to me I'm still in Ahmedabad at least once a month. But I realised I need to be in <keyword id="6354321" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bengaluru">Bengaluru</keyword> 90% of the time for this venture. It's a sacrifice for all of us." 
 
He told Economic Times that how his family business always had a major presence in Bengaluru, but the family never felt the need of having someone based over there. 
 The garment brand’s major manufacturing has been done in Bengaluru and the CEO of <keyword id="589879" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Arvind-Lifestyle">Arvind Lifestyle</keyword> has traditionally operated from the city. But in its expansion plan, the another creation, Arvind Internet has now started creating an ‘omni-channel’ that combines the group's physical retail presence with eCommerce and the leadership needs here are very different from the garment business. 
 
"The tech business is driven by entrepreneurial energy," says Kulin. 
 
"It's not easy attracting people, putting together a team. You need to be there yourself, to lead them," he added. 
 
It’s not just about Lalbhais, over the past couple of years, most of the ambitious and young enthusiasts have shifted their base to the city. 
Recently, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Paytm-founder-may-permanently-shift-his-base-to-Bengaluru-Know-why/articleshow/48855924.cms">Paytm founder Vijay Sharma</a> made and announcement that he is planning to move to Bengaluru. 
 
Kunal Shah of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Freecharge">Freecharge</a>, Pranay Chulet, of Quikr and Pankhuri Shrivastava, founder of Grabhouse are three Mumbai entrepreneurs who moved to Bengaluru recently. Shah has lived in Mumbai all his life. "My operations were in Bengaluru anyway and I was spending 60% of my time there. Any change is hard, but I think this change will be good for me. When you're creating a disruptive business, you're better off being away from the old companies," Shah says. 
 
"You have to be here if you need tech talent," says Pranay Chulet, founder of Quikr. "In Mumbai, we could find marketing people, but we were not able to hire enough engineers. Since I've moved to Bengaluru, I've plugged into the local ecosystem and created a team of 200 engineers." <keyword id="1417134" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Shishir-Baijal">Shishir Baijal</keyword>, MD Knight Frank India estimates that the cost of housing here is half that of Mumbai and commercial space is 40% cheaper. 
 
While Quikr found it hard to attract engineers from Bengaluru to Mumbai, it had no problem at all persuading its existing tech team to move to Bengaluru. Maybe it's the opportunity to work with like-minded people that are reimagining business or maybe it's the weather, but young engineers are all too happy to move to Bengaluru. 
 The city's ecosystem includes venture capitalists (VCs), startup accelerators, social impact funds and an urban market that serves as an experimentation lab. When <keyword id="250677" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vishal-Bali">Vishal Bali</keyword> quit his job as the CEO of <keyword id="735105" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Fortis-Healthcare-International">Fortis Healthcare International</keyword> in Singapore to turn entrepreneur last year, he decided to locate his company, Medwell Ventures, in Bengaluru. He has since bought Nightingales, a local home healthcare company, and is expanding it pan-India. 
 
"Technology will play a major role in healthcare in the future, which is why many new healthcare start-ups are in Bengaluru," he says. "The city is also good for proof of concept. We were able to prove our idea works in Bengaluru. We couldn't have done this if we started in a city like Mumbai, where the cost of learning is high."

Bengaluru: Tech lovers’ paradise in the making

India is becoming a better place for children to live in with top global retailers eyeing the market here. The Children's Place, top childrenswear retailer in the US, is tying up with hospital chains in India to visit patients in maternity wards and gift merchandise for their newborns.
 "As the child grows, we are hoping they become regular consumers for our brand and we kind of adopt their fashion sense since birth," said J Suresh, managing director and CEO of <keyword id="589879" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arvind-Lifestyle">Arvind Lifestyle</keyword>, which has a franchisee arrangement with The Children's Place (TCP) and plans to open 50 stores of the mass premium brand in the next four years, to ET. 

	TCP is one of the several international brands foraying into kids' clothing and accessories market in India to cash in on a growing demand for branded products and to fill a vacuum created by domestic brands' failure to scale up.
 British denim brand <keyword id="737532" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pepe-Jeans">Pepe Jeans</keyword> plans to bring in its kidswear range into the country this month and open 10 exclusive outlets, while French childrenswear brand Jacadi and Malaysian brand Poney are looking to expand their presence. 

	Industry insiders say there's a gap in this market because Indian brands such as Weekender Kids, Catmoss, Gini and Jony, Jack n Jill and Lilliput have had to either shut shop completely or scale down operations over the last decade as they couldn't sustain the rapid expansion cost.
 

	Even Mahindra Retail that entered the segment over five years ago with Mom and Me chain has shut nearly one-fourth of its stores.
 "New players will fill this void," said Govind Shrikhande, managing director at department store chain <keyword id="64373" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Shoppers-Stop">Shoppers Stop</keyword>, to ET. "Most players lost out due to their own internal operational issues and not external factors since demand for such products has always been good," he said. Shoppers Stop — which runs nearly 38 shops of <keyword id="128528" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Mothercare">MotherCare</keyword>, a British retailer of products for expecting mothers and newborns, within its department stores — has seen share of kidswear in its overall sales double to 10 per cent over the past few years. 

	Many global brands are exploring growth opportunities in emerging markets as economic growth and birth rates slow in western markets, and India is seen as a high-potential market.
 

	"Among the emerging economies, India has the distinct advantage of being a country with promising economic outlook coupled with growing kids population and increasing discretionary spending on kids," Amit Gugnani, senior vice president at consultancy firm Technopak, told ET.
 

	As much as 29 per cent of India's population is below 14 years, he said. For the US, Europe and Japan shares of children in their population are 19 per cent, 16 per cent and 13 per cent, respectively.
 A study by industry body <keyword id="6355988" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Assocham">Assocham</keyword> has estimated that kidswear market in the country will be worth Rs 95,000 crore by 2016, growing at a compound annual growth rate of about 20 per cent. 

	The market is, however, largely controlled by unbranded local players.
 "While the kidswear market is very huge, the contribution of branded segment is not very high," Kavindra Mishra, CEO of <keyword id="3014364" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pepe-Jeans-India">Pepe Jeans India</keyword> told ET. He, however, pointed out organised players are growing much faster than the overall market. 

	"There is a vacuum in the branded kids wear category. And that is why the growth of the branded segment in this category is four times more than the rest of the category," Mishra said.
 

	Industry insiders said childrenswear is not an easy market to be in.
 

	The biggest challenge is, retailers have to handle 8-9 different sizes, nearly double the number of different fits for adults, putting constant pressure on supply chain.
 

	Another issue is that since kids are expected to outgrow the clothes in less than a year, people expect their prices to be relatively cheap.
 

	Some Indian kidswear brands are finding it difficult to compete with private labels and regional brands that have managed to decode the requirements of value conscious consumer better.
 

	"What parents expect is that the price compared to the market abroad should be half, whereas the manufacturing cost is not half. This is one of the problems why no brand is being able to do well in kidswear in India," said Suresh of Arvind.
 

	But this price restriction is slowly changing as kids begin to influence buying decision.
 

	"Kids today are also becoming brand conscious and have their own preferences while the parents are ready to shell out money; probably it is the feeling that they couldn't do it so they want it for their kids," said Veena Satish, CEO of Raavee House of Chic that launched the first Jacadi store in Bengaluru earlier this year, to ET.

	 
	 
	(Image credits: Indiatimes)

India becoming a hotspot for global kids' fashion retailers

Bollywood’s reigning queen <keyword id="2201" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kangana-Ranaut">Kangana Ranaut</keyword> is all set to launch America’s high-end fashion brand <keyword id="6431981" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="gap">GAP</keyword>’s first store in India. But do we know why the brand roped in this pretty lady of all the big names that are ready to pose with this iconic brand for their store launch? 
	 
	Well, the story goes that the petite actress was spotted in one of the GAP clothing sometime back, which made the brand approach her instead of any other Bollywood actress for the store launch. 
	 
	“Well, it was a coincidence that she has been wearing GAP clothes. So, we decided to approach her because of her preference for our brand,” Ismail Seyis, vice president of GAP International Strategic Alliances tells BI India. 
	 
	Ranaut, who is believed to be a wildcard entry in Bollywood, is also considered to be a fashion icon-- hailed for edgy looks and her experimental fashion sense. The actress showed her loyalty to the brand when she chose to wear a simple white GAP t-shirt in her latest blockbuster <keyword id="2600630" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Tanu-Weds-Manu-Returns">Tanu Weds Manu Returns</keyword>. Not only then, she has often been spotted in apparels or flip flops from the house of GAP. 
	 
	But does the brand plan take this mutual love to the next level. “No,” says Seyis. He explains that while the brand is looking at different marketing tools for its promotion in the market, however, it definitely has not though of any brand ambassador as of now. “ May be later, but nothing in the pipeline at the moment,” he notes. 
	 
	GAP will launch its first store on May 30 at Select City Walk, which is considered to be the largest mall in the country. The brand is in a 20 year long partnership with Arvind Lifestyle, and will be available in 15-20 cities. The fashion house will only focus on tier 1 cities and has claimed to be price competitive in the market.
 
Representational Image: Indiatimes.com

Read on to know why iconic fashion brand GAP chose Bollywood’s
‘It’ girl Kangana Ranaut for store launch!

The first Gap store will open in New Delhi on May 30, and with it India’s retail market is expected to see dramatic changes, for Gap is one of the world’s most iconic brands. The launch proves India’s growing market strength for foreign brands. 
 “Last time I visited India in 2010, I saw the market and went back. The weak market was not favourable for foreign brands. There were not too many malls and the market response was not good,” <keyword id="2873705" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="Stefan-Laban">Stefan Laban</keyword>, Senior Vice President of Gap told BI India. 
 He also added that the company was not able to find good partners for the Indian market, which made them defer their plans to enter the Indian shores. “The infrastructure was not good. But now, we have entered into a 20 year long partnership with <keyword id="589879" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arvind-Lifestyle">Arvind Lifestyle</keyword> and we see ourselves doing well in the Indian market,” said Laban. 
 India’s changing FDI norms have helped immensely in building up such strong markets for global brands. Though Stefan is quite optimistic about the growth of <keyword id="2873706" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Gap-in-India">Gap in India</keyword>, but he added that it is too early to predict any definite results. 
 
In fact there has been a tremendous growth in retail industry since 2013. India’s retail market is expected to double to US $1 trillion by 2020 from US $600 billion in 2015.the industry is driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts. 
 
Also, right now there seems to be not much competition for Gap in India. 
 
“We see every brand in India as a competition. We don’t see any particular brand as a competitor right now. We have been encouraged by the positive response from our launch efforts thus far. We are looking forward to providing a unique branded shopping experience across India,” said Ismail Seyis, Vice President of Gap Franchise. 
 With Modi’s <keyword id="6354869" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="make-in-India">Make in India</keyword> campaign on the run, will Gap really find a suitable market now is yet to be seen. Though they don’t have any plans of local outsourcing at present, but the idea is kept on the stack for future. 
 (image credits: <keyword id="149265" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Gap-Inc">Gap Inc</keyword> and Arvind Lifestyle)

Why Gap waited 5 years before deciding to enter India

Starting on May 30th, the first <keyword id="6431981" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="gap">Gap</keyword> store will open in New Delhi in partnership with <keyword id="589879" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arvind-Lifestyle">Arvind Lifestyle</keyword>. Though for now, it will open in Delhi, but they have plans to expand in other cities soon. 
 

	“Through this partnership we plan to open 40 stores across the country,” said J. Suresh, MD and CEO of Arvind Lifestyle Brands Ltd. 
	 

	Delhi was chosen because the market response was better here than any other city, Ismail Seyis, Vice President of Gap Franchise told to BI. 
	 

	Gap plans to capture the Indian market with its strong representation of kids wear which few other brands have. Though it is too early to predict the market, but they have started with a target to produce revenue of Rs. 1000 crores in five years. 
	 

	“Our brand awareness is very high and it’s apparent there is deep affinity for Gap in India,” said Ismail. 
	 

	In these times of e-commerce growth in India, Gap is yet to start an online venture. But online strategy is likely to roll out very soon. Stefan Laban, Senior Vice President Gap International, also said that it was an easy choice to partner with Arvind for he believes Arvind will bring to the table for Gap what Gap itself couldn’t have brought. The reason is Arvind’s stronghold in retail in India and in the largest mall in Delhi, <keyword id="194788" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Select-Citywalk">Select Citywalk</keyword>. 
	(image credits: Usha Rani Das)

Gap to open first store in India on May 30!

<ul><li>Netaji <keyword id="100207" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Subhas-Chandra-Bose">Subhas Chandra Bose</keyword> was born 123 years before on this same day. </li><li>He is India’s most famous as well as controversial freedom fighter who founded Azad Hind Fauz. </li><li>He continues to intrigue curious minds after his mysterious disappearance on a cold winter morning. </li></ul>Netaji Subhas Chandra <keyword id="6371315" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bose">Bose</keyword> is the creator of the slogan, Jai Hind which has become a popular Indian chant today. And, he was born 123 years before on January 23. He is India’s most famous as well as controversial freedom fighter who founded Azad Hind Fauz. He continues to intrigue curious minds after his mysterious disappearance on a cold winter morning. Kabir Khan’s The Unforgettable Army Azaadi Ke Liye on Amazon Prime Video which will be released on January 24, will pay homage to his heroics. The story will revolve around the formation of Bose’s National Army after British failed to defeat Singapore in World War II. Here’s a look back at his life: Bose had always been a fighter — he quit a lucrative job to liberate India 
 
 
 
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 Bose was born in Cuttack, Odisha on January 23, 1897. He was a brilliant student who went to England to study — where he was also preparing for Indian Civil Services. He got selected in the ICS in 1920, but chose not to work for an alien government. He came back to India at the time when the country was fighting for freedom against the British government. He met Deshbandu Chitranjan Das, the editor of newspaper ‘Forward’, and Bose became the editor later. For Bose, the meaning and purpose of life was very simple: to seek freedom from bondage of every kind. From journalist to congress president 
	
 
 
 
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 Credits: IANS After becoming the editor of Forward, apart from writing against the Raj, he organised a boycott in Calcutta during Prince of Wales’ visit. This landed him in prison. A year later, he criticised Mahatma Gandhi for cancelling the non-co-operation movement after the Chauri Chaura incident. During the incident, Indians set fire to a police station killing many Indians and Britishers alike. Bose kept moving from jail to jail between 1924 and 1938. In 1930, Bose became the mayor of Calcutta even as he was jailed. He was released after he got sick and needed to travel abroad for treatment. That is when he took his call for freedom to other shores. The most controversial political leader of his time 
 
 
 
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 In January 1938, he became the president of the Indian National Congress. And at Tripuri session 1939, he defeated Gandhi’s candidate, Patabi Sitharam Iyer, to win a second term. However, he distanced himself from Congress after the party’s ideology didn’t match his own. He formed the Forward Bloc to carry on his struggle. He started looking for allies outside India — and for that he escaped his house arrest in Calcutta and fled to Europe again. He met a Nazi leader who is known to have promised him assistance to weaken the British in India. Bose believed India could attain freedom if they fought against Britain during World War II. Following his idea, he freed several Indian freedom fighters in Europe to form a Mukti Sena. The Azad Hind Fauj and Bose 
 
 
 
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 The Azad Hind Fauz was formed in 1941 in Berlin and comprised of Indian prisoners of war from Europe and North Africa. In December, Japan marked the beginning of World War II in Asia after it attacked Pearl Harbour. The fall of Singapore during that time shook the foundation of British Raj across the world. Meanwhile, the Indian freedom struggle was at its final round after Gandhi called for the Quit India Movement in 1942. In 1943, Bose became the commanding officer for Azad Hind Fauz — the army which attacked Britishers a year later. His army was able to free several Indian areas including Parel and Tihim from the British. In September 1944, his famous dialogue “Tum mujhe khoon do mein tumhe azadi dunga” (Give me your blood, I’ll give you your freedom) triggered a new wave of patriotism. He established a provisional government of Azad Hind in 1944 with a slogan ‘Chalo Delhi’. Mysterious death and controversy behind it 
 
 
 
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 Amidst all this melee, just a few years before India became independent, Bose vanished. Japanese Domei news agency said Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose died on August 18 in a plane crash at the Japanese-controlled Matsuyama military airport in Taihoku (now Taiwan). The incident left many Indians in a state of shock and disbelief. Even after 75 years, the controversy surrounding the death of Bose refuses to die down. A few believe that he did not die during the accident. Other theories say that he spent his last days in Uttar Pradesh while some say he lived abroad. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/delhi-chief-minister-arvind-kejriwal-achievements-ahead-of-delhi-elections-2020/articleshow/73145839.cms">Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal⁠— the man with a knack for Carpe Diem</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/savitribai-phule-19th-century-indian-feminist-didnt-just-educate-women-she-helped-rape-victims-and-pregnant-women/articleshow/73071238.cms">This 19th century Indian feminist didn't just educate women— she helped rape victims and pregnant women</a>

Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and the mystery of his death lives even after 75 years

This Diwali season is proving to be lucky for leading brick and mortar retailers, as they are seeing double-digit surge in their same-store sales. This has happened despite the big discount sales that top online rivals rolled out last month. This has hinted at a sharp u-turn from last year's trend when we saw physical stores reporting subdued demand because of customers’ growing fondness fro e-commerce players. 
 The retailers that have seen good sales count in big names like Future Group, <keyword id="123895" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arvind-Brands">Arvind Brands</keyword>, <keyword id="64373" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Shoppers-Stop">Shoppers Stop</keyword>, <keyword id="182667" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Vijay-Sales">Vijay Sales</keyword>, <keyword id="138873" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Puma">Puma</keyword> and <keyword id="26842" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Max">Max</keyword>. all these names have reported floating demand for their products in the past two weeks. 
 
Future Group, which is country's largest retailer, is reportedly all set to grow its business by 25 to 30% this Diwali season. Retailers have attributed the rise in demand for their products to fresh merchandise, fewer discounted merchandise of big brands on online portals, and early onset of winter chill in some parts of the country. 
 
"With fewer discounts by ecommerce and new season merchandise offered by physical retailers, we are seeing same-store sales growth of 8-15%," said J Suresh, chief executive at Arvind Lifestyle Brands, which sells brands such as Gap, US Polo, Wrangler and Calvin Klein. 
 
Last year, e-commerce giants Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal pursued an aggressive discounting policy during the festive season, which helped them gain market share and traffic. This in turn left an impact on the demand in physical stores; this forced traditional retailers to approach the government over what they said was predatory pricing. 
 
What has come out of this trend is the fact that e-commerce players and brick and mortar retailers can coexist in the market, without necessarily harming each other. 
 
Govind Shrikhande, Managing Director at the country's largest department store chain Shoppers Stop, stated that the "huge gap" between end of season sales in August and Diwali has also helped the surge in demand. 
 
A survey by global research firm Ipsos reported that nearly 81% consumers prefer to buy from physical stores during festive seasons rather than from online companies, no matter the discounts. 
 
Indian festive season, which starts from Durga Puja and continues till Diwali season sees a quick upsurge in the consumer spending, because of financial issues taking a back step and festive emotions seeping in to the priority. 
 Industry insiders have said that big marketers like LG, Apple and Panasonic started their festive promotions much earlier than usual this year. This was done to ensure that their offline trade is not hit hard by <keyword id="1472817" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="online-discounts">online discounts</keyword>. 
 
Meanwhile, e-commerce majors have started to consolidate their business with a significant increase in the number of vendors and product categories. With more and more people taking to online shopping through mobile apps, this has helped in the expansion of the overall market. 
 
<a href="http://www.rochelleallison.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/real-estate-property-sales-increase.jpg">Image source</a>

For retail shops, Christmas came early!

Instagram is becoming as uncool as Facebook — and it has only itself to blameInstagram is entering its flop era. Despite launching the influencer economy, which has grown into a <a href="https://influencermarketinghub.com/ebooks/Creator_Economy_-_Creator%20Earnings_Benchmark_2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$100 billion industry</a>, the social-media platform is struggling to keep up with its new rival, TikTok. Since its launch in 2010, Instagram's image-first design has helped attract the vanguard of digital creators, brand ambassadors, and marketers. Sponsorships and product integration, while accidental at first, quickly became an integral part of the platform. It was the place where brands could partner with seemingly regular people to sell prospective customers on a more-ambitious lifestyle, with all the trappings that accompany it. <a href="https://www.shopify.com/blog/influencer-marketing-statistics" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nearly every marketer</a> surveyed by Shopify in 2021 — a staggering 97% — considered Instagram their most important channel for influencer marketing.Instagram tailors itself to the crème de la crème of <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/exploring-the-potential-of-the-creator-economy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">online influencers and creators</a>. And the platform is designed with these top users in mind, tilting the algorithm to make it easy for users to keep up with their favorite personalities and for brands to build huge audiences. The platform even lends direct support and advice to its biggest names, some of which have hundreds of millions of followers. This has helped Instagram grow into an estimated $43 billion ad-revenue machine, <a href="https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/facebook-still-generates-most-meta-ad-revenues-instagram-drives-growth" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to Insider Intelligence</a> — but that status as a moneymaker is under threat.Enter: TikTok. In 2016, the competitor entered the market and sent Instagram spiraling. The app's addictive algorithm and snappy videos captured people's attention with its focus on spontaneous discovery, keeping users engaged for longer. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/08/10/teens-social-media-and-technology-2022/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Surveys</a> by the Pew Research Center found the proportion of teenagers who said they're on TikTok "almost constantly" was 50% higher than those who said the same about Instagram.To compete, Instagram launched its own short-form-video feature, Reels, in 2020. But it wasn't enough. According to data obtained by <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/instagram-reels-tiktok-meta-facebook-documents-11662991777?mod=hp_lead_pos10" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Wall Street Journal</a>, Instagram users spend 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, while people spend an astounding 197.8 million hours a day on TikTok. Now, like Facebook before it, Instagram is becoming less and less relevant and struggling to do anything about it. Instagram's trouble lies in the very thing that drove its initial success. Its algorithm is optimized for the users who made the platform popular: influencers. But by focusing on its power users, the platform loses out on engagement by regular people. TikTok's secret sauce is its ability to keep users on the platform, and without sacrificing its core, Instagram won't be able to compete.<h2>TikTok's unrivaled success</h2>In just a few years, TikTok has become an unparalleled success story, growing to more than <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/1-billion-people-on-tiktok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1 billion worldwide users</a> in a fraction of the time it took other apps to do so. TikTok's rate of growth has been roughly double that of its older competitors, partly thanks to timing — the platform launched into a more-mature social-media environment — but also because the app offered users something new."TikTok, when it came into the international Western market, was already pretty well established as a short-video platform," D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Leeds and coauthor of a book on TikTok, told me. "It had been competing with other fairly well-established short-video platforms in China for some time. Some of the strategies that it developed had already been road tested in China. There wasn't as much of a learning curve that Instagram — and also, to an extent, YouTube — has faced in trying to replicate and compete with some of the things that make TikTok so unique and so appealing to its audiences."Specifically, TikTok excels at quickly engaging users and keeping them on the platform. The average user spends as much time on the app every day as the length of an average feature film, according to internal data I've seen.Part of the key to the platform's success is how it recommends videos. In a recent article on TikTok's algorithm, the researcher Arvind Narayanan explained that on TikTok, <a href="https://knightcolumbia.org/blog/tiktoks-secret-sauce" target="_blank" rel="noopener">every video had an equal chance of success</a>, whether it was made by an account with 12 followers or an account with 120,000 followers. That means videos on the platform become popular purely based on their entertainment and engagement value, not on the size of the account that posted the video. Because of this, the likelihood of a random person going viral is greater on TikTok than on other platforms. But once a creator hits the viral-video jackpot, it's challenging to make their popularity stick. That's because on TikTok, every video a creator makes has to outperform every other TikTok video.While the never-ending roulette is a boon for TikTok users, who are constantly enthused by the most interesting content, it's a pain for Instagram, whose users are accustomed to being able to build a following without the whims of an algorithmically dictated feed swapping them out for whoever's post is more interesting. <h2>Victim of its own success</h2>Unlike TikTok, Instagram has long been seen as a secure place on which to build a digital following. A year ago, when the researcher Valdovinos Kaye was interviewing TikTok creators for his book, he found that they desperately sought to transport their audiences over to Instagram. "There was a little bit more stability there, and they could be a little bit surer that videos they posted would be seen by their followers, as opposed to the gamble dice roll that they were experiencing on TikTok," he explained. That's because Instagram's algorithm works differently. On Instagram, whom you follow is weighted more heavily in terms of what content you see, meaning it's easier for larger accounts to grow and maintain their success since they can almost guarantee that anything they post will be served up to their entire audience.Because of this, Instagram's cadre of top creators grouse about being penalized whenever the app tries to shift to be more like TikTok. Often, these shifts result in fewer people seeing the posts of big-time creators. Plus, <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/11/10175023/twitter-fleets-instagram-layout-update-reaction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">people typically don't like change</a>. Users who liked the clean, image-centric view of their feeds were annoyed by the intrusion of videos when Reels came along. And the people who have grown their audience on Instagram through photography have become discomfited by the forced pivot to video. Over the summer, the app's biggest names — including the Kardashians, who collectively have more than 1 billion followers on Instagram — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-social-media-creators-influencers-fight-back-instagram-tiktok-youtube-2022-8">rebelled</a> against the platform's push to be more like TikTok. But the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri,<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-boss-responds-to-backlash-says-video-will-be-key-2022-7"> doubled down</a> on the idea that video would be the future, saying the changes were for the good of all users. Despite that, two days later, the<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-walks-back-full-screen-feed-changes-kardashians-influencer-backlash-2022-7"> app quietly rolled back some changes</a>."After the whole Kardashian intervention, it seems to have stopped Instagram becoming a real TikTok clone," Marcus Bösch, a TikTok researcher and fellow at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, told me.It's a catch-22 for Instagram. The thing that gave it early success — its focus on building large, loyal audiences and rewarding users for doing so — has trapped the platform in an outmoded model for serving up content. Making too significant a change could spell disaster for the app, alienating power users and undermining its core business. For now, it is stuck somewhere in between the original Instagram model and a TikTok look-alike, not quite succeeding in either arena. "Instagram these days is such a weird place," Bösch told me. He believes Instagram faces an identity crisis between at least three generations of the app: its first iteration, which was largely photo- and feed-based, its second one, which introduced stories, and its third, most recent version, which is focused on Reels.If it were any other company, that would be enough to count it out of the social-media race. But because of its importance to Meta, its parent company, it's one of the few companies that is able to — and needs to — continue throwing ideas at the wall. It's uniquely well resourced to try and find the thing that helps it catch up with, and overtake, TikTok. However, to do that, the app would need to find a solution that kept its restless user base happy.Part of what made TikTok so successful was that it stood out. It was different in a world where every social-media platform looked the same. Rather than copying TikTok's success, Instagram might need to focus on what separates it from the pack. Without that, the app will likely be stuck in second place forevermore, unwilling to annoy its creators while unable to make the changes that could keep it competitive.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/chris-stokel-walker">Chris Stokel-Walker</a> is a tech reporter and author of the book <a href="https://affiliate.insider.com?amazonTrackingID=biauto-61297-20&amp;postID=63da7883aa8499022364b7be&amp;site=bi&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FTikTok-Boom-Chinas-Dynamite-Superpower%2Fdp%2F1912454793" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener sponsored">TikTok Boom</a>.

Instagram is becoming as uncool as Facebook &mdash; and it has only itself to blame

New Delhi, Feb 1 () The Union Budget 2020, presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday, would help revive dampened consumer sentiment and put consumption back on track, leading retailers said.
 Besides, government's push towards creation of a strong agriculture infrastructure, and efforts to revive local manufacturing along with micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector and simplify GST, would help many small traders.
 "Budget 2020 would lead to creation of a new aspirational India, anchored around agriculture, health and education. This Budget seeks to strengthen grassroots of the economy with its positive push towards creation of a strong agriculture infrastructure, which will give a big push to India's rural sector," said Walmart India President and CEO Krish Iyer.
 He further said: "The rate cuts in the personal income tax rates would increase disposable income in the hands of the Indian middle class which will enhance consumption through improved purchasing power. These two positive budgetary intervention together would drive a strong demand growth that drives the Indian economy in turn".
 According to METRO Cash and Carry India's MD and CEO Arvind Mediratta, the Budget would revive dampened consumer sentiments, and announcements on tax incentives on incomes will put consumption back on track, he said.
 Mediratta also welcomed government's move to revive local manufacturing and MSME sector.
 "Tax holidays to startups will encourage existing and new entrepreneurs in doing business. The government's announcement to simplify GST from April 2020 returns will help lakhs of small traders, kiranas and restaurant owners," he said.
 Retailers Association of India (RAI) CEO Kumar Rajagopalan said that it had two expectations from the Budget this year - Ease of Doing Business and a national policy for retail.
 "We are pleased that Budget 2020 paves the path for both in some way. The mandate to states for adopting model laws and decriminalisation of statues are some welcome moves on those fronts. More money hands in the consumers definitely boosts consumption, however, we have to calibrate for non-allowance of deductions," he said.
 While, Spykar Lifestyles CEO Sanjay Vakharia said that there are no "feel-good measures" in the Budget.
 "Beside a few changes to the personal income tax rates, not much is seen impacting the demand and consumption story. The big gun announcements that the industry was expecting to stimulate the economy were missing," he said. KRH ANS
ANS

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