Chaitanya Patel

You have heard all this from the BFSI salesmen. They could be in the form of a bank manager, IFA, a financial planner, insurance agent, or one more of the same breed. Here are some of the samples. The challenge is to see whether you can spot the true ones and separate it from the false ones:

1. Sir, you do not have the time to manage your own money, I will manage it for you.

2. Sir, you have a child, so you must have a child plan.

3. We will all retire, so please take a retirement plan form….it is India’s biggest pension providing company.

4. IN a term insurance plan you will get back NOTHING, so please take a ULIP. The returns are much better.

5. Sir if you buy from our website, MUTUAL FUNDS are free, we do not charge anything.

6. Having a nomination for your flat is enough, you do not need a will.

7. Having a will for your flat is good enough, you do not need a No Objection Certificate from your other children.

8. Sir your mutual fund portfolio is good, but we need to shuffle it once in 2-3 years ATLEAST…

9. You have medical insurance from your company, so you do not need personally paid medical insurance.

10. You have  dependent parents, your wife is a housewife, and your children are still young, you need to make a comprehensive will, now.

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CPI Inflation for December 2014 has come in marginally higher than the previous month’s all time low of 4.4%. At 5% it’s still considerably below RBI’s medium term target of 6%.

As you can see the slope of the dark blue line has dipped somewhat, giving us hope that prices might have finally come under some control. Much of this of course is related to the price of crude oil, which has continued to see new lows.

Food inflation has climbed back up to 5.1%. This is however not such a big problem as it was expected to rise marginally due to the base effect. Apart from Food and Household Items, everything else is at a near term, or all-time low.

Rural and urban inflation show an uptick.

Both, however are low enough to be below the 6% target for the RBI.

The article title in Businessweek is “Why People Kill People Over Satire.” But the URL reads “Why the terrorists killed the satirists of Charlie Hebdo in Paris.” Curious, isn’t it? The article title generalizes too much, watering down the particular. Sure, Islamic terrorists are terrorists, and certainly terrorists are people. So one can substitute use the general “people” instead of the particular “Islamic terrorists.” The title of the article is overly general, the URL is somewhere along the middle, and the particularized question that needs answering is “Why do only Islamic terrorists kill people over satire these days?”

But that specific particularized question is hard even to ask, leave alone answer these days. Ask and be instantly branded “Islamophobic.” Only those who have immense cojones — such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali — are brave and honest enough to address the specific. Anyway, so Eric Roston asks why people kill people over satire. He quotes Steven Pinker as part of the explanation:

We’re told we respond to threats in one of two ways: fight or flight. There is a third response: the laughter reflex. That’s our way of standing down without running away, or of standing up without really fighting. Greece had Aristophanes. Kings had their fools. France has Charlie Hebdo.

Charlie Hebdo does satire, and satire is weaponized humor. It’s an evolutionary tool that people who are neither in power nor armed can use to reduce the stature of the mighty — or, like radical Islam, the grandiose. It identifies something undignified, corrupt or otherwise low-status about the powerful or sacred, says Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard and the author of several popular science books.

As soon as that happens, laughter automatically ripples through those in the crowd who agree. Simply by hearing and reflexively understanding the joke, a listener acknowledges that the satirist’s target is asking for it.

And that laughter doesn’t mean just that the listeners understand the satire, Pinker says. It means they understand that everyone else understands it.

So it’s an epiphany, instantly transforming the common knowledge that holds communities together, the foundation of social order. In a blink, the emperor has no clothes.

“That’s why satire is not always such funny business,” Pinker says.

Evolutionary explanations make sense to me and I like them.

Now back to the matter of Islamic terrorism. Watch this brief Australian Broadcasting Corporation Jan 9th interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Here’s a bit of from the transcript:

JANE HUTCHEON: Ever since 9/11, the Western world, as you call it, has spent a lot of money on security, we’ve gone to war, there have been wars and yet the problem still persists. What practical measures do you advocate that Western governments, including France and Australia, can undertake?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: If we acknowledge that there is an infrastructure of indoctrination into the young hearts and minds, hearts and minds that are vulnerable, that are impressionable, of young men – mostly young men, but also of women, and that we have allowed this infrastructure to seed in the West and to thrive; if we come to terms with the fact that this is and has been going on for a long time, that we need to dismantle – you asked for practical solutions. We need to dismantle this infrastructure of indoctrination and replace it, replace it with an infrastructure where we inculcate into the minds and hearts of young people an ideology or ideas of life, love, peace, tolerance.

JANE HUTCHEON: As you know, in the wake of the Paris attacks, the media has been showing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo. In your view, do you feel the media in the past years has been self-censoring and will it continue to self-censor?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: You are still continuing to self-censor because you have not published or republished cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. You have not honoured Charlie Hebdo the way they need to be honoured, which is they took a risk, they took a risk to stand up for the core values of Western civilisation. And you, the media, are letting them down. You have drawn and published caricatures of the terrorists, but you have not published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

JANE HUTCHEON: Can I ask you how much of these events – what happened in Sydney, the Paris attacks – how much of this is due to the power vacuum in Syria?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Look, this – the idea of the Islamists, the idea that they can bring the world down through terrorism, among other means, to believe that sharia is the way and the only way that human beings can live, that idea is so much older than what is going on in Syria and what is going on in Iraq.

I have added emphasis in the quoted bit above. Islamic terrorism began in the 7th century CE, under the warlord Mohammed. It’s not new. The Americans think that it began on “9/11.” More likely it began on 9/11 of 675 CE, or some such year.

Anyway, here’s Bill Maher in conversation with Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy starts off with “people were killed by people” and Bill sets him straight. “Muslim terrorists.” :

The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) went up 3.8% but the rise was mostly due to the Diwali effect. Diwali causes IIP to drop, as we have noticed in the past. (See our past post which talks about the Diwali effect). The following graph shows the fact that production falls in Diwali months:

Now look at the current data, which came in for November:

Look closely – November 2013 was a “dip” because in 2013, Diwali was in November. In 2014, Diwali was in October, so the dip happened a month early. Meaning, the year on year growth will look bad in October and good in November, purely because of the Diwali effect!

And that’s played out. October was -4.2% and November is +3.8%.

Here’s the sector wise play:

Manufacturing has bounced back but that might be the Diwali effect.

Electricity did well at 10% growth. This has been impressive.… (Read On...)

IT Department has reportedly imposed a penalty of INR 23.51 Crores on eCommerce giant Flipkart for not depositing their taxes which they collect from the end users. Many of the companies listed as partners with Flipkart have also been found to be bogus!

SHAKEDOWN!

The raid conducted by Noida and Ghaziabad’s tax department had seized the firm’s books and had found the irregularities. The report also mentions that Flipkart had earlier paid a fine of INR 29 Lakhs.[Source]

Flipkart was earlier in trouble with for FEMA violations and was under the Enforcement Directorate’s radar after the Big Billion Day stunt that they tried to pull off.

The post IT Department Puts A Penalty of INR 23.51 Crores On Flipkart [Many Bogus Vendors Listed] appeared first on NextBigWhat.

Wow .. Today I am going to talk about your SPENDING habits and what governs it. Spending money is a critical part of anyone’s financial life and pretty much define’s how our financial life looks like. Spending more is pretty much a reason why we go to our work, because at the end of the […]

The post 7 Incredible reasons why you spend more money each month & How you can control it ? appeared first on Online Financial Planning in India - Jagoinvestor.

In 1993-94 I lost money because of a broker default. The guy who was handling bungled up on the risk profiling. The owner had no clue what was happening, and the guy who was managing the card was the smartest IIT, IIMA product ever. Some consolation that a few years later Wipro’s Premji and a few other big investors lost billions trusting him. That is another story. (DO NOT worry broker defaults can now not happen, they have a huge settlement guarantee fund and decent internal controls).

To put things in perspective, I lost about Rs. 15 Lakhs.

Remember, it was about 21 years ago, and I did my best to retrieve it, but could not. Not a pie. Not a farthing.

To see the enormity of it, it has to be adjusted to some growth opportunities that I could have had.

If I had kept it in the index it would have been worth Rs. 1.5 crores. If I had kept it in Hdfc Equity fund it would have been about Rs. 7 crores and if I had kept it in Hero Motors (then known as Hero Honda) it would have been about Rs. 23 crores!!

This post is to just tell you that any LOSS that hurts you financially actually cuts very very deep. You do not realize it at that point in time. If that money was with me STILL, it would have made a material difference to my personal net worth, surely. Similarly when you lose money, do not think of it as small amount, NO AMOUNT IS SMALL.  What you do not see is the FUTURE VALUE of the amount at that point in time.

I HATE people who tell me “Yes Subra I bought a ULIP…but the premium is ONLY Rs. 5 lakhs a year” – and as you say i need to pay only for 3 years. THIS IS NOT A SMALL AMOUNT by any stretch of imagination. Try keeping this in a good equity share or a good fund and see the difference. It might help you RETIRE a couple of years EARLIER than your statutory retirement age.

Understand the TIME VALUE of money. Buying a penny stock or investing in a lousy fund is a surefire way of losing money. Not just losing money, but even getting a sub optimum return (by buying Endowment plans – with a predominantly debt portfolio) makes NO SENSE. Losing to management fees does not make any sense.

Being in a lowly paying job is a loss. Buying clothes for the next decade is a loss. Living in a house bigger than your need is a loss. Driving a car bigger than your needs is a loss. A qualified person sitting unemployed is a loss.

Start identifying the losses in your life, and put them to work. If you are working hard to earn money, why is your money not working hard to help you RETIRE?

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I got scared when somebody came of Facebook and said ‘Subra said Life style creep should not happen’.

HEY that is now what I said.

A financial planner or a blogger cannot decide what you should do in YOUR life. As a blogger / financial calculator provider I can only tell you the financial implications of each.

1. Should you pay Rs. 45 lakhs capitation fees for your daughter’s medical seat?

2. Should you bear the Rs. 94 lakhs cost of your son’s foreign education? or should he borrow?

3. Should you pay for your wife’s brother’s office purchase?

These are NOT questions that a financial planner can/ should answer. It is the job of the planner / blogger to tell you the IMPLICATIONS of the same.

The implications of anything financial could be:

– you will have lesser amount for your old age.

– you have no financial management skills, so playing a conservative game makes more sense.

– children generally respect a bank’s loan more than a parent’s loan

-own old age corpus is more important than the expense on children’s requirements

– if you have poor fund management skills, you will need a greater corpus than a guy with better fund management skills

– a parent with very successful children needs to be less worried about his own corpus erosion than a guy who MAY have to support his grown up kids.

REMEMBER all this is generic. Not applicable to ONLY you. Generally applicable to you.

As a financial blogger, I can be holistic, all encompassing and generalising. It does not mean it is NOT applicable to you. It just means it is not something specific to you.

It is like if I were to run a food website, I might say ‘honey’ is good for health – and is better than white sugar. HOWEVER, if you have diabetes, it is YOUR CALL – honey is not exactly what the doctor ordered for you. You know your body, not me.

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Jealousy, greed, envy. None of them is a new concept. These sentiments are as old as human civilisation.

If you read the news or watch real life news or read the newspapers you see the following:

– PARENTS selling children

– Husband selling off wife

– Son killing mother just to save medical expenses

– Siblings murdering each other

– Business partner murdering…

All these prima facie look like rage. It is not true at all. What is missing in ALL the cases?Let me list:

– the person has NOT been taught the virtue of patience

– the person is too much in an ‘entitlement’ mode?

– the typical male thinks he completely controls (owns) the women in his life – mother, sister, wife , daughter…

– the money implication of living beyond one’s means for a long period of time destroying family wealth is FAIR, the world owes me a living.

Almost all these actions have a cause and effect of destroying wealth. They also have a terrible impact on the people who live. In many a case the people who die seem to be the lucky ones.

Take the case of a widowed mother whose daughter kills her son. Suddenly for her, the son is dead and the daughter is in jail. She has no sources of income – and no place to live.

Are these cases a ‘Law and Order’ problem? The answer seems to be NO. These are clearly personal relationship problems, and completely financial problems.

The old saying ‘Jameen, Joru, Jaydad, …..’ IS TRUE. Most of these killings happen over land, inheritance, love, ….or a feeling of being wronged. As a personal financial adviser, really there is nothing much to say….

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According to two experts who came on Television on 29-Dec- 2014, the following shares will out do the Sensex:

Sbi, Icici, Maruti, HUL, Infosys …..not sure if you guys want to go with this list. I have Hul and none of the others. Will live with my portfolio, thanks. My Nbfc / banking bets are Hdfc Ltd, Hdfc bank, Cholamandalam Finance. My Auto bets are more varied: Tata Motors, Force Motors, TVS, Hul, PnG, Gillette, Colgate, …etc. and of course TCS.

I will stick to my portfolio and the anchor can decide how to close the arguments…

Immediately another expert said “this whole year Hdfc bank has underperformed Icici bank, so next year Hdfc will catch up..so better to buy Hdfc bank”. The other expert added Tata Motors, Hero , TVS,

Remind me in December 2015….to compare notes that is all.

I am not convinced that somebody can make an evergreen kinda portfolio in 5 minutes while being at a trading terminal. It sucks.

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Prologue

I recently helped my father sell his used car at Pondicherry (my home town). It was a good experience and produced some useful insights (both as a consumer of a service and as a product manager) that I wish to capture through this post for posterity.

As a risk-averse persona, my first thought was to sell it to the used cars section of the same dealer where it was brought from, so that there is no fear of it being used for unlawful purposes later – we would after all have proper documents done. Thanks to a friend of mine, I realized that there could be a difference of tens of thousands between selling to a company versus selling to an individual. It was indeed true! Articles like this in Team BHP as well helped me in knowing that the buyer has more work to do at the RTO than the seller.

I visited Pondicherry during the Christmas week and wanted to finish the sale during that time. Not being a car (used or otherwise) aficionado, I checked with friends and I was suggested CarWale, CarDekho, CarTrade and the like. CarWale, in particular had good brand recall among people (thanks to their recent TV ads I believe).

A week before I left for Pondicherry, I decided to put the ads: Took photographs of the car in multiple angles, wrote good descriptions of the car and created the ad in CarWale. Just out of curiosity, I did a Google search for ‘used cars’ and it showed a bunch: CarWale, CarDekho, CarTrade were on top (so it is not just TV ads, their SEO too is good) followed by horizontals like Quikr & OLX and then by more niche sites like Zigwheels, Gaadi.com etc. I decided to put the ad in all the sites that appeared in Google’s first results page.

Experience of posting

As the brand recall suggests, CarWale proved that it is one site that has spent enough time thinking through the process. The process to enter was comprehensive and as a seller, I did not have to think much. I just had to answer their questions and a good profile was ready. I was fortunate to have gone through CarWale first. It helped in putting description in other sites.

CarDekho, CarTrade, ZigWheels and Gaadi’s user experience was not satisfactory – As I was posting, there were issues in photo upload, descriptions not getting saved, details of the city not appearing properly (like the locality within Pondicherry that my father lives) and so on. I was doing it from my PC on Wi Fi connectivity at home – so there were no issues with respect to those. Overall, I did not get that confidence that these sites would help me in selling the car. When such sites have ‘Google Text/Image Ads’ appearing in them, it straightaway gives a negative feeling. I think many of them had it, including CarWale.

Image: Google Banner Ad in CarWale

If such is the experience at niche portals, I did not expect much from the horizontals. However, I was pleasantly surprised with OLX – the process was so smooth. They of course did not ask me as many questions as CarWale did (there were too few question actually, but this being a horizontal, they probably cannot afford to go deep) but since I had done CarWale first, it was easy for me to add necessary details.

Quikr actually turned out to be the one with the worst experience that day. But for the good experience with them selling my old TV in Bangalore 2 years back, I would have given up. I struggled to enter ‘Nellithope’, the locality in Pondicherry where my father lives. For some reason, the area name would barely appear in the Combo Box and then vanish – this happened across browsers. I thought I would submit without the area name but then it was a mandatory field and caused an error. When I tried with IE chose the name within the few seconds for which it appeared. So I continued with IE for the rest of the process. Uploading photos was such a pain in IE but I still did a few (thanks to the goodwill I had by selling my TV long back).

An aside about Nellithope: It is another story that he actually lives a few Kms away from there in another locality but this is probably based on the post offices. Most sites showed only Nellithope so I had to pick that. In some sites, it was the pin code that mattered.After I entered the name of the place, the pincode would appear. It would have been better to directly ask for pin code so all issues are resolved.

Finally, Quikr was the only one that had figured a way to charge me during the upload process – Though CarWale& others had an option to go ‘Premium’, nothing was as seamless and tempting as Quikr (may be the earlier goodwill still continued so I was biased). It also helped that Quikr asked me only around 200 bucks while CarWale asked for Rs. 1500. So I paid Quikr. There was a problem in IE in selecting the credit card so I redid the whole exercise in Chrome (I knew what to do to select Nellithope by now) and made the payment as well. So the goodwill I had by an earlier sale continued all the way.

Unfortunately, I do not think it exists anymore, with the responses through Quikr this time around. More so, with the way I was made to feel even after becoming a ‘paid’ customer. Note to all site owners – Test your site in all browsers please, including IE! One thing I did not try is to use their mobile sites or apps. May be the focus is all there so they do not bother about the desktop site?

(Update: Just for kicks, I tried this again in Chrome today as I post this – The defect of choosing Nellithope does not exist and I can easily choose that. It has either been fixed since then or it was just a temporary issue that happened due to my bad karma that day)

Quikr had one more Quirk(!) – With one login, I got a feeling that I cannot sell different things in different cities. Since I had chosen Pondicherry for my car, the URL becomes pondicherry.quikr.com automatically once I login. May be I can choose Bangalore while posting another ad. Got to see what happens to the URL then with one listing for Pondicherry and one for Bangalore.

I had spent enough time taking good photographs, adding a few negatives explicitly and setting the price of the car at a x,y9,000 instead of x,(y+1)0,000. I did this to ensure the ad appears in search results of “less than x(y+1)0000” but also wanted to try what happens with such ‘charm pricing’. I believe the details, photos, the negatives and the pricing that I had given provided enough authenticity to the post. But in the end, all that mattered seemed to be the phone number only. People who called up always asked for all details again.

Post posting & pre selling Used Car

As mentioned before, I put the post a full week in advance. And boy, I was overwhelmed with the number of calls I got. Within a few hours of posting, I started getting calls. Over the week, I got as many as 28 interested buyers who called. There were a lot more who had ‘expressed interest’ on the sites, sent SMS etc. I had to tell everyone to wait till the next Sunday for me to reach Pondicherry. All thanks to the internet and the number of sites that exist now. Could we have imagined such a thing 5 years back?

Most people that called said they saw the ad in OLX. At one stage, I wondered if OLX had become a generic like ‘Xerox’, ‘Dalda’ etc. that if people found it online (any site), they considered it OLX. I also suspect that there is a sort of cross-listing done by the horizontal versus vertical sites (for example: OLX picking up from Cartradeor vice versa).

I realized the power of brand OLX while I was in Pondicherry as well. It could simply be the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon but I overheard references to OLX in at least 5 conversations over the week – in the RTO office, photo-copy shop and so on. I saw a person at an Internet cafe specifically searching for a second hand house in Pondicherry in, where else, but OLX website. Hats off to the brand equity OLX has achieved!! I wonder what has made them more popular than Quikr though both of them seem to have done similar amount of TV ads. May be it is the result of their performance or network effect.May be it simply is a geographical thing. Other parts of India may have Quikr remembered more.

Coming to the part of what the portals did after I posted,

• OLX is the winner again. It was the one that kept on reminding me about my ad – Asked me how the ad was doing, gave me hints on what I could do to get better responses & so on. There was an email once in 2 days giving me a sense of confidence
• Quikr was simply silent (in spite of taking my money!!). There was only 1 lead from Quikr in all. There was one more from a person who said he provides loans to buy cars. Wonder why it was sent to a seller – May be to lure me to get a loan to buy a new car
• CarTrade started slow but then it gave me a lot of numbers with ‘Expressed Interest’. I did not bother to call any of them since I already had about 25 people waiting in the line. It would be better if CarTrade nudges the buyer to make the call, since it seems to be a seller’s market now.
• CarWale too did a decent job of giving me updates – But just 4 people had expressed interest through that.
• I got 2 leads from CarDekho after I sold my car – While I removed the ad from other sites, I forgot to remove from CarDekho since it made no efforts to talk to me after the posting.
• Gaadi sent one email asking me to add more photos but that was about it. The message the next day after I posted was – If your car is sold, do x-y-z to remove it. Come on, would you please first check if I managed to get buyers? Funnily, when I checked out how the post looked, Gaadi sent me a message that I was interested in buying my own car.

Though I have been singing praises of OLX, it was not that it was great all through. One of the links from an OLX email was broken. It had the “colon” missing after the http. The URL read http// and the browser threw an error – No non-tech savvy user is going to find out and add a colon. There was another ‘Action Required’ email which said I need to click a link or copy-paste the link etc. but then there was no link at all in it.

Image: OLX email without a link

While OLX did not send me any lead at all, a lot of callers mentioned they saw it in OLX (hence my suspicion about it becoming a generic). There was just one email whichwas a ‘message’ from an interested buyer as ‘Tell me final price’. May be that is the way the site has been designed – to put the onus of calling on the ‘buyer’. If I had had a not-so-popular car in this market (or worse some other product that is a buyers-market), OLX may have not worked at all for me.

After reaching Pondicherry:

The first thing I did was to go to a car wash guy and had the car cleaned up inside out. Just for 250 bucks, all the dust that had gathered went away – right from inside the bonnet to under the wheels. After all, I did not want to succumb to the‘broken windows’ theory and potential buyers pricing it lower than what it should or worse, attracting the wrong kind of buyers.

3 of the suitors of our princess came visiting the same evening. 2 of them offered 70% of my list price& the other person waiting for my final price. I gave a standard “I need to discuss with my father” reply to all of them. I did not want to take any decision when I was tired and worn out after a long drive.  The next day morning, 1 more person visited with a mechanic and quoted 80% of my list price. I was thoroughly confused by what I should now ask as final price. I gave the standard “Got to discuss with my father” reply to him as well – there was one crucial input still missing.

Before the next set of suitors came in, I wanted to check the offer from the organizational buyers. I went to the dealer where the car had been bought 10 years back – He checked and offered 45% of my list price. Then I went to Mahindra First Choice. They checked the car and said they needed to check with their supervisor who was away. They would call me back later in the day. They did not even call back. No wonder open C2C market is thriving, even for high value purchases.

The options I had were very clear now. 2 more suitors came in that afternoon – I said I had an offer of the 80% of list price already so they better not offer anything lesser. One was a dealer and said he cannot offer any more than the 80% price. The other fellow tried some psychological tricks – He had a bad comment about every part of the car: The steering wheel was devil’s tool, tyres were in their worst condition, bonnet’s colour had changed, A/C was not good and so on. He did not realize that he was talking to someone who refers to Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow often. Bragging apart, I should consider myself lucky that this one did not visit the previous day. In spite of the learnings from Kahneman, I may have gotten a bit depressed with his comments. I simply gave a smile to every one of his comments and asked him to consider buying some other car.

I could have tried a few more people, bargained a bit more and made a few more thousands. But I had had enough and wanted a peaceful vacation for the rest of the week. So I called up the 80% person and confirmed it to him. It also helped that he was a retired pharmacist from a Government hospital in Pondicherry – It gave a sense of relief to my father that the transfer would be done properly. On that note, of the 10 people that I spoke with before selling, 4 were retired Government employees and were buying it from their savings. There exists a huge market of retired people in Tier-2 towns, I believe for such goods.

The sale

After confirming to the final buyer, I went to the RTO and collected the forms needed (I knew it all, thanks to Team BHP article). I did not find such detailed documentation in any of the sites – It would be good to provide such info to the buyers/sellers right there. After all, how many people will Google and locate Team BHP.

The next day morning, the person came in, paid the money, finished the documentation, took the car and went away! Done!

Post-Sale experience

I removed the ad from all the sites I had put the ad in (at least the ones I remembered). OLX &CarWale asked for feedback and details. OLX had in fact for feedback even before I removed. Quikrjust asked if I sold through Quikr or elsewhere and then simply said the ad will be removed in a few hours. No update if it was removed. My 200 bucks seemed a complete waste – I will just think of it as their commission for my TV sale 2 years back!

Image: The faithful remove button of Car Dekho

Cardekho asked me to give a missed call to remove. I did that. But then there was an email too later with a new lead. From my mobile, I clicked on ‘Remove my ad’ screen button in the mail. It opened a page, asked me to fill up a form with details of what price I sold etc. That was it. When I accessed email next from PC, I tried the ‘Remove ad’ button again – It faithfully went to the site, asked me to fill up a form! Wonder when the ad will be removed at all. (For kicks, I tried now again on the link and it faithfully asked the same set of questions again)

Before I forget, if you wondered about it – The final buyer had seen it in CarWale! While there were only 4 leads, the final buyer was from there.

A subjective table of ratings: 

This has been my subjective rating about 2 weeks after posting the ad and 5 days after removing the ad. Remember this is only for CAR sale in PONDICHERRY (Tier-2 city). It could be different for another product in another city!

I am kind of feeling bad for Quikr’s ratings here – I am sure they would score better in another geography. (Confirmation bias may be, since I paid them).

These sites have competition from specific Facebook groups like Second-To-None that have become popular. Though as a seller, for a high value item like a car, I think I would first list in C2C sites and then provide link in the FB group.

Epilogue:

Insights for a seller:

• The table above notwithstanding, put ad in as many sites – It is worth the effort. You never know which product category for which geography works well in which site
• Do enough homework around the process of transfer etc. (if it involves such things)
• Ensure your product is well cleaned and does not look as kept unkempt
• Call / SMS / Email all leads you receive. Keep all potential buyers informed of your status & decision – You never know when it is a seller’s market and when it is buyer’s
• Do not take any decision when you are not in your best mood

 Insights for a buyer:

• Do not fall for it if the product simply looks clean(!). Check for other stuff as well
• Search in all sites – You never know where a good find is.
• Do not simply express interest and keep quiet – Pro-actively call the seller. If the seller receives as many leads I did, he may not bother to call you at all
• Do not take any decision when you are not in your best mood (A friend recently lost some money by paying some advance for a car without checking enough – The seller smartly retained some part of the advance as penalty)

Insights for someone running the service:

• Desktop sites are still important. Keep them working and do not focus on mobile alone. (By the way, it is just that I did not try the mobile sites/apps. I am sure they have the same if not more issues than the desktop sites)
• Carry details around the transfer process if they are involved for the product being sold. It would give enough authenticity to your site
• Do not have Google text / banner ads ever
• Brand recall is very important – OLX seems to have conquered it already
• Do not make the seller / buyer think – It should be a breeze to put the listings. You should have thought of all things the seller wants to put in
• At the end of the upload, gently nudge the user to pay – You never know when someone is interested in it (your past karma may have generated enough good will)
• Touchpoints after the posting is critical – Keep providing tips, updates and the like. They are very essential, definitely for a high-involvement sale
• Start questions around ‘Do you want to remove’ only after a few days. Do not ask it the immediate next day after it is posted.
• Do not concentrate only on sellers or only on buyers. Different products in different geographies would have different dynamics. Always try to connect buyer & seller, whoever comes to you. If possible, make phone calls on their behalf
• Do enough testing of your automated emails for broken links, no links etc.
• Empty nesters in Tier-2 cities form an important market – Do not ignore them
• Removal of an ad is as important as posting – It is not about you collecting information for your analytics alone (like: How much did you actually sell for).

PS:: Some factual errors could have crept in this article since it is all written from my memory & a quick search of my emails. I did not maintain specific notes. If you find any error, do let me know. I will re-check and correct it.

[About the author : When done with selling his car, Karthik Srinivasan is Senior Manager with a telecommunications company]

Image credit : shutterstock

The post Selling My Car in C2C Marketplaces : A Product Manager’s Perspective appeared first on NextBigWhat.

I was surprised by the number of responses I got from you for the Prem Ganapathy’s story; building an Rs.30 crore Dosa empire out of an initial investment of Rs.1000.

As I mentioned, while I was looking for something I stumbled upon Ganapathy’s story.

There was another real life story also I came to know about yesterday along with that of Ganpathy. It is that of Ramesh the richest barber in the country, who charges only Rs.75 for a haircut, who owns a fleet of 127 cars, which includes Rolls Royce, and a range of Mercs & BMWs.

Since you liked Ganapathy’s story, I thought of sharing Ramesh’s story as well.

Someone has mentioned in a tweet that Ganapathy’s story appears in Rashmi Bansal’s book as well. I’m going to read her books.

There are many such inspirational stories available all over the net and TED talks. I hope my sharing of these 2 stories would make you start looking for more.

“He could well be the richest barber in the country. But G Ramesh Babu charges only Rs.75 for a haircut. He has his salon at the famous Bowring Institute on St. Mark’s Road in Bangalore, one of the oldest clubs in the city.

The 42-year-old hairstylist attends to around eight customers a day, working in two shifts of 2-3 hours each, morning and evening. But what he does in between the two shifts is the stuff fairy tales are made of.

The man who wields the scissors at Bowring sits at a different office during rest of the day as CEO of a large car rental company that owns a fleet of luxury cars, including a dazzling Rs.3.3 crore Rolls Royce, and a range of Mercs, BMWs, Volkswagens, and Innovas.

His company, Ramesh Tours and Travels Private Limited, owns a total of 127 cars and has on its rolls around 120 employees. Most of them are drivers who draw a monthly pay of not less than Rs.14000, with additional overtime incentives.

“We are one of the top companies in the country in this field,” says Ramesh, who lost his father when he was just 7 years old, and later braved poverty and hunger to reach this position.

His rise to success is marked by hard work, a burning desire to succeed, and the favour shown by a few good-hearted men and women.

He says, “We had a hair salon at Brigadier Road. The shop was called ‘Modern Hair Dressers’ and it was started in 1928 by my grandfather. My father was running the shop till his death. I was 7 then and I had two other younger siblings.

“The responsibility of bringing us up fell on my mother, who started working as a housemaid to support the family. For many years, we survived on one meal a day. I became so used to it that even today I don’t have my breakfast.”

In spite of the situation at home, Ramesh studied well and was among the top three rankers in class. He was a sportsman too. He played football in school and represented Karnataka in the junior nationals in 1500 metres athletic event.

At 13, he took up a part-time job as a newspaper delivery boy and earned Rs.60 per month. His mother took up small tailoring jobs and made some extra money. But that hardly changed the situation for the family.

He recalls an incident that happened when he was in class five. At that time, the family’s hair salon was being run by his uncle – father’s brother – who used to pay them about Rs.5 daily as their share of the income.

“I was in class 5 and we were instructed to use fountain pens for the first time at school. Until then we were using pencils for writing. I went to our shop and told the person working there – an employee who had been appointed by my father – that I needed a pen.

He gave Rs.3.50 and I bought a Pilot pen with the money. In the evening, when I went to the shop my uncle was furious. He snatched the pen from me and said I don’t need such expensive pens and gave me a cheaper pen instead. That incident fuelled my ambition to succeed in life,” says Ramesh, who has the fortune of putting his own children in top schools.

He has two daughters and a son. The eldest daughter is studying in class ten at a well-known residential school in Kothagiri and he spends around Rs.1.5 lakh on her education per annum.

An important decision he took early in life was to learn the barbering skills of his father. He took charge of the family’s hair salon in 1990 and renamed it ‘Inner Space’. He became a hit with youngsters who started making a beeline to his shop and there were days when he had worked up to 3 am to cater to waiting customers.

Though he was not able to complete his PUC (Pre University Course), he managed to obtain a diploma in electronics later.

For couple of years, he worked as a marketing executive for a private company. But the turning point in his life came after he purchased a Maruti Omni in 1995 on a  loan. Based on the advice of a well-wisher, he decided to rent out his car.

His first client was Intel, which had a small office in Bangalore then. His business grew as Intel expanded its operations.

“Intel had just four employees when we started working with them. But they grew fast. We looked after their transport needs till 2000 by which time they had around 250 employees and 25 of our cars were on duty for them,” he recalls.

Meanwhile, Ramesh’s client list continued to grow. He entered the luxury car segment in 2004 when he bought his first Mercedes Benz. He now owns a fleet of 68 luxury cars. Bollywood actors, celebrities, and top industrialists travel in his cars when they are in Bangalore.

In 1997, he had opened a hair salon at Bowring Institute. Though he has closed the other shop due to lack of parking space and other issues that cropped up with Bangalore’s exponential growth in the last couple of decades, Ramesh has no such plans for the one at Bowring.

Ask him why he needs to continue cutting hair, and he shoots back, “Why not? How can I forget the job that has made me what I am?”

Nor has he forgotten those who helped him in his hard days. He makes special mention of two people: Ms. Nandini Ashok and Mr. Philip Louise.

Take a bow, Nandini and Philip. You have helped a worthy man!” ”

(Source: http://www.theweekendleader.com/Success/1540/cutting-thru-penury.html)

The first shale oil related bankruptcy came through on Sunday:

Austin-based WBH Energy Partners told a Texas federal bankruptcy court this week that its partner in North Texas oil and gas leases had warned it may foreclose on the private firm’s stake in the leases this month after it failed to pay its $12 million share of operational expenses.

The financial troubles began in September, when Minnesota debt investor Castlelake declined to provide WBH Energy more funds under a credit facility, Joseph Warnock, vice president and co-founder of WBH Energy, said in court papers. The firm and its affiliates were unable to pay their share of expenses under a joint operating agreement or various vendors, according to Warnock.

This was a tiny bankruptcy, as the total money it owes is $30 million (which is Rs. 200 cr.)

US shale oil companies have issued high yield bonds which have collapsed in the wake of the falling crude prices.… (Read On...)

I was on ET Now today, and I spoke of a few things that might be of interest.

1. Defence stocks are a longer term bet:

It may not come in the short term but there are two big bets here. One is that defence expenditure might come equal or more in the budget. Another thing is that they are opening up a little bit. So short-term news is there but longer term, the fact that the sector is opening up and it has not opened up like forever is probably a good sign. A lot of good things might happen.

I probably weaselled out a little here. But the sector is very interesting, with BEML, Bharat Forge, BEL and the like making for higher market cap plays. Smallcaps will

2. Crude makes Auto look good, Agri-Chems are doing well, not touching Housing Fin

Two points here:

Before 2007, we saw 30% correction once every two years.

Ankit Nayar (Changed name), an entrepreneur wants to open his marketplace of luxurious craft items, but the main problem comes to Ankit is how he will list vendors on its marketplace who do not have their VAT/Service tax Registration. And if he list vendors who have their VAT registrations in their names then there is one more problem comes that on whose name the VAT is collected whether on Market Place Name or on the name of Vendor.

Let us, Understand this situation by the help of a diagram:

There is always an ambiguity about this dual tax structure i.e. VAT (State level Taxation) and Service Tax (Central Level Taxation).

Resolution of this Question

On 20^th December, 2014, the govt. of India takes another step ahead in position to make its campaign “Make in India” a grand success by introducing GST in Lok Sabha. The FM Mr. Jaitley, introduces this transparent tax system by saying that it is a win win situation for both central & state but in actual it means that it is good for all includes government, sellers and consumers.

It is said that, the hardest thing to understand is tax but now coming of this tax system the quote has to be changed by replacing the word hardest by simplest.

With the coming of GST, (a single tax system), the vicious circle of taxes has been moved out.

How GST will help?

GST means Goods and service tax, a single tax system for all the level of taxes whether central or state.

GST substitutes VAT at state level and Service Tax and Excise at Central level by applying SGST and CGST.

In this scenario, there is no requirement of taking different taxation registrations as now we have to required only requirement is to list and clarify that what are we going to provide i.e. whether we are service providers or manufacturers or traders, according to which the rate slab provided to us.

Prices got down:

It may be explained by an illustration:

In Conclusion, the proposed GST lowered down the price by 7-8% which is increased due to dual taxation effect and give a relief to the startups in the hectic compliance of different taxation system which are now available in the country.

(Agam Gupta, is a practicing Chartered Accountant, entrepreneur expert and also a founder of www.Quickcompany.in, a leading website for registering companies in India.)

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http://nblo.gs/ZhbWj 

here is an article by Balakrishnan….about PSU banks ..must read.

The Regulator has such amazing protection schemes for the banks..that you will not even believe it.

Hospitals are treated as REAL ESTATE business and hence charged 14.5% interest rate per annum. Now the same thing is applied to somebody trying to run an Geriatric Center – meant for people over 85 plus years of age.

Now if an old person has say Rs. 10L which he needs to keep in a fixed deposit, he has 2 choices – he can give a loan to the bank (at 9% interest) or give a loan to the O A Home (at say 11% p,a).

So the logic is that the old people cannot keep a FD with the company – violation of sec 58A of the …

So…..and what else could  be done?

so the arbitrage that a bank in India gets is huge. So this has to translate to large profits for the banks, right?

Right and wrong. Indian banks have one of the finest NIM in the world, but not enough profits. Does this sound contradictory? Well it is not. Our psu banks lend money in a careless manner – or in a corrupt manner. Both these actions result in a high amount of NPA (non performing assets) – that erodes profits.

One more dangerous lending that they do is to builders. Builders use this money to buy land and play a waiting game..the margins in the construction business allows them to sit on projects for years on end. So we end up buying MORE expensive houses, with bigger loans from the same banks!

What about the private sector Indian banks? This is another myth. Hdfc bank, Icici bank, ..etc. are foreign banks under the garb of Indian banking. All of them have 70% of more shareholding from FIIs. Look at the margins of these banks – RBI ensures a very high profitability indeed!

So what can you do about all this? Well nothing take a position in the bank nifty, that is all.

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It takes a long time and sustained effort to learn a subject, to understand the basics, to appreciate its complexity. At some time in this often arduous journey one usually arrives at the point where one begins to understand the immensity of the subject and how ignorant one is about it. Expertise is accompanied with an acceptance that one is now in full view of one’s ignorance. No one is as acutely aware of his own ignorance as the expert.

We are limited beings and comprehensive knowledge is denied to us. At best, given the right circumstances and the right capabilities, we get a glimpse of what lies out there. At best, we can learn a bit about some severely circumscribed aspect of reality. The most important lesson we learn is that we are really don’t know it all. We don’t really know much about anything compared to what is potentially knowable.

So we learn to appreciate our ignorance of the subject when we attain some degree of proficiency in the subject. This is denied to those who have not attained a certain degree of expertise in any specific topic. To those who have put in the effort of mastering (to a certain degree) a subject, it becomes possible for them to appreciate that they themselves are totally ignorant of the innumerable other subjects. Learning any subject well teaches humility.

This I think is one of the more important lessons one learns as one learns any subject deeply: that comprehensive understanding is not possible and therefore we are stripped of the fatal conceit that we know what is good, true and moral. Only the ignorant can maintain and entertain the illusion of knowledge; those who know know that they don’t know.

The knowledge of their ignorance is not available to the ignorant. First order ignorance is not knowing something; second order ignorance is not knowing that one one is ignorant, that one does not know.

Therefore I think that anyone in any position of power should learn some subject deeply. People in positions of power must study some aspect of reality in some detail so that they develop the appreciation of ignorance. If they don’t, they mistakenly believe that they know whatever there is to be known. Their conceit and their hubris is a side-effect, a natural consequence, of their inability to appreciate that they really don’t know.

It really does not matter what the subject is as long as it is some aspect of reality ( and not some pseudo subject like astrology or palmistry.) One can study history, or psychology, or high energy physics, or anthropology — or even economics. At some stage of their intellectual development, the person will realize that their limited understanding is all that they are capable of. And thus come to understand that they are totally and irremediably ignorant of all the other subjects. This realization will prevent their falling into the trap, the fatal conceit, that they can rely on their own understanding. Then they will become capable of seeking the advice of those who know.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I know enough about economics to appreciate how little I know of economics. I have waded far enough from the shore into the waters to appreciate that the ocean must be very deep–a realization denied to those who have not dipped their toes into the ocean. Most of the people I meet are non-economists and I am often surprised (although I should not be) that they really don’t know the first thing about economics. However I do marvel at how convinced they are about how the economy works and how it should be managed.

These kinds of encounters have a salutary effect on me. I realize that just as they don’t know about economics, my ignorance of all the thousands of other areas of study must also be very profound. I know something and that helps me understand that I don’t know much about many other important things.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In India — and in many other countries in a similar state of development — politicians are chosen by some democratic process. These political leaders are generally not educated in any subject area. They gain their position merely because they are good at getting elected, based on positions they take on matters that concern the electorate.

Given that they have not had any meaningful training in any area of human knowledge and inquiry, they are almost completely incapable of appreciating how ignorant they are. They believe they know it all. And that’s where all trouble begins. They could take the advice of those who know but they are incapable of even entertaining the idea that they need advice and counsel.

I know this is a crazy idea but I think that aside from the usual conditions such as being of sound mind and being above a certain age to be a candidate for high office, one of the conditions should be that one has attained a degree (PhD, perhaps) in some subject from some reputable institution.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I think of Shri Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. The man was a consummate politician. Lawyer by training, he did not have deep knowledge of any subject. Not knowing enough, he could easily slip into the delusion that he knew it all and therefore could command obedience from all on all matters — economic, social, moral, ethical, scientific, etc., etc. There was no subject on which he did not have an opinion and no area in which he hesitated to demand compliance with what he dictated.

His protégé, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru, was naturally enough created from the same mold: not being master of any subject, he fancied himself to be the master of all subjects. Most unfortunately for India, he thought he understood history, economics, education, technology and science. He dictated without the least hesitation. He was never burdened with self-doubt or aware of his all-encompassing ignorance.

The problem with India is that all of its political leaders have been fundamentally incapable of understanding the limits of their own knowledge and understanding. This is neither good nor sustainable.

I recently was reading about Jan Dhan Yogjna and came across some really nice posters created by their team which is used to educate public in their financial literacy camps. On looking those posters, I was really touched by its simplicity and how powerful they are to install basic foundation lessons. There were many posters in the PDF file I saw on their website, but I picked 6 posters which I was to...

The post 6 money lessons every investor can learn from Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana Posters appeared first on Jagoinvestor - Personal Finance Blog.

In finance (as in life I guess) I do not know why people ask AFTER the event is over.

You need to ask BEFORE you invest in say a ULIP (it is not so bad in a mutual fund, an exit is possible after one year, without load).

A ulip pension plan / a regular pension plan is a terrible thing to buy. Why? because the pension is taxable when it comes back to you.

Why does a bank sell ONLY a pension plan of a life insurance company? and not say a Templeton India Pension Plan?

Obvious right? 12% commission up front is too damn attractive…and sometimes the commissions can go up, up and into the stratosphere.

As a thumb rule when a bank offers a product, the best answer is NO. This is because they have TIED relationships and what they offer you is usually sub optimal. The relationship managers are under stress / duress.

Takes us long time back.

Ravana was waking up Kumbhakarna …and told him “Rama has come for battle, should we fight him?”.

Kumhakarna told R ‘Please tell me the whole story’. So Ravana told him…”there was this beautiful woman…I brought her here..and now her husband has come to fight’.

K laughed out loudly and said : ” You should have asked me BEFORE you brought her here, that you did not. Now you are telling me that you will not take the sensible option of handing her back to Rama and surrendering to him…so what are you really asking me?”

It is my duty to tell you that what you did was all wrong – you brought another man’s wife, you threw out your brother for giving you the right advice and now you are asking me ‘should I fight’ . Actually Ravana, if you remember your curse…you will die at the hands of a human..so here OUR DEATH has come, I will go there, fight, and die. Then you will follow me.

Exactly what I feel like telling my friends /clients / readers.

“Investing is a lot like sex. You need to know about the investing product before investing. Just like contraception”.

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For those of you who may not be aware, SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) is commonly known as ‘Dollar Cost Averaging’ in United States.

Benjamin Graham who is considered as father of value investing and security analysis and is also the mentor of Warren Buffet once mentioned:

“A suggestion I can make is that if you were sure that you could follow a dollar-averaging program, you could start [investing] right away. Dollar averaging is a method of investment under which you set aside regularly a fixed amount of money and invest it in common stocks generally, either in a single common stock or preferably in a group investment through investment-company shares (mutual funds). By investing the same amount of money at regular intervals – say, every three months, you get two advantages.

One is that over the years your investment reflects the average market price rather than the high market levels – which is where you are likely to buy if you follow the crowd. Secondly, the arithmetic of dollar averaging gives you more shares at the lower prices than at the higher prices, so that your average cost is lower than the arithmetic average. If you are putting $1,000 in one kind of stock and the price is $10, you’d get 100 shares. If later it’s $20, you’d get 50 shares. You bought more stock at the $10 basis than at $20. Consequently your average price would be less than $15.”

What Benjamin Graham has said about investing regularly for a long term works well for a portfolio of stocks like mutual funds or index than an individual stock. By doing this, we are able to avoid one of most fundamental and costly errors in investing; investing money only when the markets are high and redeeming or not investing further when the markets are low.

Not only that we get average prices instead of higher prices over the long term, the average price is lesser than arithmetical average because we buy lot more when markets are low and lot less when the markets are high.

Warren Buffett has also mentioned for an ordinary investor (like you and me) the best way to build wealth is to invest regularly over a long period of time. To quote Buffett:

“If you buy equities across the board [through index funds] and you do it over time so you don’t put all your money in at the wrong time … that’s probably the best investment most people can make.”

Charlie Munger, the right hand man of Buffett, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, was once asked by a young man how to get rich. Munger responded by saying “If you consistently spend less than you earn and invest it in index funds, dollar-cost average,” because you’re putting in money every pay check, he said, “that in, what, 20, 30, or 40 years, you can’t help but be rich. It’s just bound to happen.”

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, about whom we’ve discussed earlier, who has made billions from stock markets, has the following advice for investors:

“You should invest every month. Do take SIPs. India is a long-term bull market and predicting the market time to time is difficult. You should invest periodically regardless of the index situation. Then I hope people will earn 15%-24% return on a compounded basis.”

SIP is such a simple and effective tool. It is so effective and so simple that many great investors across the world have endorsed it as the best way for building wealth.

Assuming an 18% annualised return, every 10K invested a month, for a period of 20 years, would fetch you Rs.2.34 crores at the end of 20 years.

Based on your contribution, you can calculate the wealth potential in front of you.

As per a report given by CRISIL, published in October 2014, equity funds in the past 17.5 years have given annualised return of 22.6%. They have generated 10% additional returns when compared to the 13% given by the CNX Nifty.

I’m confident that for next 2 decades, the future would be equal if not better than past. Rakesh Jhujhunwala has mentioned that Nifty which has grown 10 times in last 15 years; from 850 to 8500 is now capable of growing 15 times in next 15 years (around 20% annualised returns).

As he has mentioned above, in the long run, we can expect around 15% to 24% from Indian markets. I’m confident that we can earn around 18%.

All we’ve to do is to stay the course with our SIPs and keep increasing the contribution periodically.

All the best.

1. If you wish to accumulate wealth through investing, please realize that the investing pot comes from giving up consumption – in the initial stages at least. If that hurts, wealth accumulation is very difficult.

2. If you or your somebody else in the family spends money to show off you are not likely to accumulate wealth

3. If you end up buying many things that you do not need, one day you will be having things, not money. No point in feeling bad later on.

4. Wealth is Relative. Tatas have more wealth than Premji, Sachin has more wealth than Kohli….well as of now

5. If you have to create wealth you need to be obsessed about the whole process. It is dull and boring, but works.

6. It is not necessary to create wealth at all. As long as you have enough money to last till your retirement, that is fine.

7. If you use wealth as a scorecard of success, it is difficult to measure success. This is simply because people who are really rich do not NEED show off assets. Those who keep acquiring show off assets do not accumulate real wealth.

8. Wealth is a function of returns over a long period of time. So to enjoy the wealth you need to live long.

9. One of the worst destroyers of wealth – especially at the start of the process is poor health. One or two hospitalisations can erode your small capital. Take good care of your health – it is a brilliant wealth creation tool.

10. If you are creating wealth for your OWN consumption, there has to be a judicious balance between earning, investing and spending.

11. If you have accumulated money in the region of even Rs. 4-5 crores go to a decent lawyer and see whether you need sensible inter-generational transfer tools. Not very difficult, but a good lawyer can be useful.

12. Charitable giving is difficult if you want to do it sensibly.

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