Craftmygift.com

Craftmygift is the latest addition to the personalized gift creation site in the indian e-gifting space. The whole concept revolves around you specifying your gifting requirements and the team on the other hand thinking of creative gifting ideas and come back to you with different options for you to pick one. You make 50% payment and your gift will go into production. You will get a chance to review the design work during different stages. The available library of products include a personalized magazine, short story of a person(autobiography), artistic portrait, gift cards etc. I was surprised to see the pricing which ranges from INR 900 to INR 3500, which in the current market is highly overpriced. Why would someone pay that kind of amount when you have alternative cheaper and equally innovate gifting solutions available both online as well as in-store. There are sites like pringoo.com or myantra.com which provide tons of gifting ideas at a cheaper price and in a more simpler manner. Though this concept is worth appreciating but will be difficult to scale up specially if it is relying the traffic to come through internet only. I think the team of craftmygift should definitely study the existing sites to get a sense of what is realistic in today's market scenario. Click here to check out who else is competing in this market

snapfish - HP's Online photo printing portal in India

HP promoted snapfish.com is a known name in the online photo printing Global market. Its entry in Indian space definitely validated the business potential that Indian market holds in this space. As expected the site is one amongst the best in terms of ease of use, usability and overall functionality. The focus is clearly on promoting only prints and photo products. while most of the features are quite similar to other indian sites like picsquare or itasveer, it essentially has an edge in the photo products categories. The photo upload can be done through web or even through email or mobile phones which is quite useful. It just widens the reach and encourages mobile users to send photos on the fly without getting into the hassel of downloading photos first on the computer. Also, the site offers a number of tools to edit your uploaded photos to make them more presentable and printable. Slide show is another cool feature for you to quickly see your photos. However, some of the basic things are missing here like integration with Flickr or Picassa, flexibility in payment options (only allows payment through credit cards) etc. which I was expecting to be present due to its rich experience in this field and presence in India.

Overall the site is pretty cool but from the marketing perspective I still feel that there is a lot of room for it to promote itself which surprisingly I am finding missing given the big name behind it. I find its Indian counterparts to be much more aggressive and innovative in that respect. One reason could be that this may just cannibalize its growing printer business in Indian Consumer market :) Despite that I would definitely recommend trying this web site at least once !

photohugs.com - a simple online photo printing site

photohugs.com is a very simple, intuitive and straightforward online photo printing web site. It is currently focussed exclusively on photo print business and has so far not launched the photo product services. The web site indicates that it will be launched soon. The best thing that i liked about this web site was the simplicity with which the basic photo print process is described. The home page tells me everything about what is existing and what is expected in few words and pictures. Some of the unique features related to products that I found in this web site include:
- Ability to order a custom CD with your photos
- Access to high-resolution photos for download (the photos are edited and improved i guess)
- Send a VCD (Not yet launched but definitely a new feature, not sure if they are asking customers to upload or send unedited VCDs to them)
If you are only looking at uploading photos and sending the prints, I would strongly recommend this web site based on its ease of use though I have no idea about its delivery capabilities. Overall, I find it a good, simple-to-use web site.

snapgalaxy - online photo printing web site

snapgalaxy is an online photo printing service catering to the customers from India and USA. Similar to other web sites that I had looked at in past, this web site provides you with the facility to upload photos and order prints and photo based products for delivering in India and USA. While from the features perspective it does not differ too much from its competitors but the marketing strategy is little different. It gives the users to earn revenue by making its photographs available on sale, in addition to making its personalized photo page Google ad sense enabled. This will probably give consumers some more incentive to stay on with snapgalaxy. It also organizes photo contests which is a novel way to engage customer in addition to giving him photo printing features. The site announces a theme for a contest and keeps it time limited. The winners are decided by user voting. Overall I find the web site average from usability perspective. The look and feel is not too great but serves the purpose. There is definitely some good thinking gone beyond just the print business model which is worth appreciating. You need to think about different marketing strategies to increase your revenue streams which I believe snapgalaxy is able to do. However, I still do not find its name in the top 10 search items on google search - something that the company should make a note to keep its presence felt on the national and international forum.

zoomin - Online photo products printing site

This is a pretty good web site from usability perspective providing online photo printing services in India and USA. First of all the registration offer is very attractive - 25 free prints just on registration! The moment you register, it automatically prompts you to create your first album with a default album name. This is the most common thing that I would like to do first. Once you upload a photo it asks you to add additional information like photo name, description, tag, place etc. You can then select the photos that you wish to print and order them through a very usable interface all through a single page. It allows you to crop you photos before you send it for printing. The overall process is very simple and intuitive. However, from the marketing perspective I think it can still do a lot of things to make it little sticky for its visitors. Running photo competitions, publishing best photos, building up a user community are some of the additional things which such web sites can adopt to grow and engage its customers. Overall, I think it is still a cool site.

printcamp.com - another online photo printing service

printcamp.com is another online photo printing Indian web site in the "Me Too" category. The service provides standard features for allowing its users to upload photos and place orders for prints and photo based products like calendars, T-Shirts and Mugs. The process is similar to picsquare and itasveer but it falls too short in terms of usability, functionality and ease of use. The site has some basic issues like session management in addition to the overall usability problem. I found myself kicked out of the site by clicking on certain links. Even after logging it again, I was unable to get back inside the site. Clicking on printcamp.com suddenly restored my session :) !! The site does not give you too many options in terms of photo products. Even the print options are restricted to certain fixed sizes unlike its competitors which allow collages, posters etc. It is so far the most expensive site I have come across (Rs5 per print unlike others which charge 2.99 with tons of features!!). Further, the payment can be done only through credit card unlike other sites where you get multiple options. Overall, I was quite disappointed with this site. In a fiercely competitive market, it is important for printcamp.com to innovate itself else it would be difficult for it to survive in long run. The search engine optimization may help you bring you web site up on the Google ranking but if you have a weak product, it would not help you retain your customers !!

India Online Photo Service - iTasveer.com

iTasveer.com is another popular Indian online photo service portal. Founded in the year 2006 by four IITians, this portal offers its users the facility of placing orders for printing their photos or photo based products like mugs, calendars, mouse pads etc. You will be required to register with iTasveer before uploading photos and placing orders for prints. Upon registration you get 10 prints free of cost. While most of the features are quite similar to picsquare, it does offer some photo editing features like cropping. The overall navigation and usability of the web site is questionable though it is fast and easy for an average person to use. However, the overall flow from uploading photos to placing an order does not appear to be very well laid out. The site definitely requires a usability lift. On the whole, I did not find anything exclusive or different which caught my attention to highlight here. In a nut shell, it is an average online photo service web site in the growing online personalized photo products market. The company should try to build a USP for itself by innovating itself. Also, I feel that it can bring in some elements of web2.0 collaborative platform to make it more lively and interactive.

Online Photo Printing in India - Picsquare

Picsquare, a brain child of two young IITians, Manish and Kartik is one of the leading online photo printing web sites in India. Founded in December 2005, the web site offers online photo management and photo based gift creation services to Indian consumers. Though the online photo printing concept is not new but is definitely a fresh concept for rapidly growing internet savvy Indian consumer market. Though the real target market is the millions of NRI's staying abroad but I think there is a big potential for catering to domestic market needs. PicSquare works on a very simple philosophy - Allow the users to upload and manage photos free of cost, manage them using online albums or tags, and help them deliver prints or photo based products like Mugs, T-shirts, calendars etc to their door steps or to friends and family as gifts. The web site is very intuitive and easy to use. The web site allows you to import photos from your flickr or picassa accounts and store it with Picquare and order prints or other photo products. You can make payment online using credit cards or through internet banking. It also offers interesting promotional schemes like you get 10 free prints for every registered user that you refer plus free 10 prints on self registration. I have so far not tried its service but would definitely give it a try and will update this post with my experiences

Dilsebol.com - Online indian personalized gift shop

Dlisebol.com is the third Indian web site which I have come across which provides capability to design your personalized gift online. Going through the web site I did not find anything exclusive or different from myantra.com or pringoo.com. In fact, I find this web site as a toned down version of the earlier two that I reviewed in past. It allows you to created customized T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse pads, Coasters, Poster and tiles. You can create your own designs and upload it to the online design gallery and earn a commission when someone buys it. However, I must admit that the web site is lacks in terms of usability and needs a major revamp to encourage users to stick to it. For example it is hard to look for a personalized product on the basis of category. It appears to display products in random from a database without any logic..! Overall I think it has to do a lot of work to come up to the standards of sites like myantra or pringoo.

Make money online - myntra.com

Alright, I never thought that i would end up getting a replica of pringoo so soon... it may be a wild coincidence but the fact is myntra is just another pringoo!! I do not think I have much to write here but would rather say that i can almost do everything what I could do at pringoo.com. I think it has a richer product portfolio which the users can customize and design. At myntra you have option to be a designer and create your own designs which can be put up for sale. You get a cool 10% on every product sold that uses your design.
Interestingly, myntra has a tie-up with ibibo which allows its users to import photos from his ibibo account and use it for building custom products. I must say this is a smart move from myntra on customer acquisition. I am sure in coming days we are going to witness real marketing innovations in building up business models around this space.

Make Money Online - Pringoo.com

Recently, I came across this very interesting web site called Pringoo which allows you to create your own design and get it printed on products like T-Shirt, Mugs, Soft Toys, coasters etc. The process is very simple - You select a product, upload your favorite photo, add some text and that's about it, you have created your first self-designed product!! Sitting at the comfort of your house you can get your first masterpiece delivered at your home by paying a nominal amount (Rs 199 - Rs 500)... I am sure you wouldn't mind paying that kind of amount for your first masterpiece :) Also, you can use this web site to create customized gifts for your loved ones and get it delivered on their doorsteps!

I find pringoo a very interesting concept especially from the perspective of someone who wants to build an online business sitting at home. If you are little bit creative, you can actually set up a free online store in no time. Everytime your design is being used by a customer in designing and buying a product you will earn a decent commission. The beauty of this model is that you do not need to invest a penny except for spending some time online which I am sure you anyways do :)
In addition there are a number of other features like Prngoo Club, forums and various other events which are being organized from time-to-time to give push to your creativity.