Bangalore: Bangalore-based e-commerce site Taggle.com has closed all its operations and is now officially shut. Taggle has informed its customer via its website about the decision to cease all e-commerce operations. The notice cites that in the present scenario, many ecommerce companies are selling their products below cost price in a bid to attract more users. The only way to counter this competition is to compete on prices and burn investors’ money which the company feels is against its philosophy of building a sustainable business. Thus, the decision to shut down the shop and would not be taking any more orders from its users. The notice also states that the Taggle Cash balance would be refunded to the customers but the Taggle Points are not redeemable in cash.

Founded in June 2010 by John Kuruvilla, Taggle had raised $1 million from Greylock Partners and Battery Ventures to scale up its services and enhance its technology and marketing sections to bring in quality deals. Kuruvilla resigned from Taggle in August 2011 and the company was struggling with competition from other group buying sites. It changed its business model from group buying to generic e-commerce to provide better experience to their customers.

Group buying sites in India have tried to copy the success of similar sites in U.S., but have forgotten that the mindsets of American and Indian customers are entirely different. The sites have to customize their offering to suit the Indian setting, which might be the reason why Taggle had to face a closure. Many other group buying sites like Deals and You, mydala, Snapdeal have felt the pulse of Indian customers, garnered popularity. This also led to the entry of global market leader Groupon in the Indian markets. Taggle’s decision is fair as it has decided to stop when it still has options left and is not forced out of the market, rather than playing the Last Man Standing game.