Hi Kiran, the dataset used for the study is composed of a little over 135,000 hotels to which our data partner Rategain has access. But the number varies from country to country. Hence, we've mentioned only the scale and not the actual values. The idea is to show growth over a period of time for the same number of hotels in each country.

Prajakta Patil

Thanks Aritra, these are some really interesting points you've made.

Prajakta Patil

Hi Devadas, the story presents an overview of the impact that lockdown has had on e-commerce companies and is not a one to one comparison between the players. With respect to price hikes, the numbers presented in the story are averages based on data collected by Dataweave on over 25,000 products in 30 cities across India, and at an individual level the prices for some products could be much higher.

Prajakta Patil

Hi Ankit, while comparing data for two separate periods would be interesting, the idea of the story is to quantitatively understand the impact of lockdown on e-commerce companies, which is why a much larger timeframe was chosen.

Prajakta Patil

Hi Kardam, yes stock availability and price hikes have seen fluctuations geographically in some categories but nothing to establish a trend yet.

Prajakta Patil

Hi Soumalya, I agree that the pure play e-grocers have an advantage over other e-commerce players, but this did not translate into revenue because they were logistically unprepared to cater to a high surge in demand. We've done a detailed story on this, here's the link: https://the-ken.com/story/covid-19-spurs-indian-e-commerce-to-raise-stakes-in-grocery-gamble/. About your question on price increase, I think the data provides limited evidence to suggest either causation or correlation, especially in these exceptional times.

Prajakta Patil

Happy to hear your appreciation. Yes, the data is based on listings. I agree, that only availability cannot be an indicator of consumption. The factors that we have considered are whether the prices rose and whether availability rose or fell in two periods of lockdown to give us a slight hint of what companies chose to replenish and raise prices for. Perhaps an indication of what they think consumers are buying. Comparing two periods within the lockdown may have presented an interesting picture, but a little unfair given the initial problems the industry faced. That is why we chose a larger timeframe.

Prajakta Patil

Happy to hear you that you find our charts useful. We are working on several ideas to take our visualisations to the next level. Perhaps, gifs would be one of them. Stay tuned.

Prajakta Patil

We use Adobe illustrator to create most of these charts.

Prajakta Patil

That's a good point. Noted :)

Prajakta Patil

Hi Vijay, data suggests that 2019 was not a year of mega-deals. There could be various reasons why this could’ve happened: This kind of investment sizes are usually limited to late-stage rounds. Since, major players in this segment had already raised huge amounts in recent past, there is a possibility that they will not require more resources of this size at least for a few years. On the other hand, start-ups that are today in their early/mid stage of funding might require funding of $500 million and more in the coming years. Hence, you could be right when you predict more rounds in this bracket in coming years. On a personal note, I hope you are. :) That being said, popular VC’s like SoftBank and SAIF partners have participated in less number of deals in 2019 than in previous years. So the picture is definitely not rosy.

Prajakta Patil

Hi Chinmay, you're right, the story does intend to paint a broader picture about Venture Capitalists and their investments patterns. Delving deeper into the specifics of these investments will definitely make a good story some day. Thank you for your suggestion.

Prajakta Patil