By Saumya Tewari

Times Internet has quietly brought down the curtain on its NRI focused ecommerce portal, Hutk.com. While accessing the URL of the website, it flashes the message ‘Hutk.com is under maintenance. You may shop on our site shopping.indiatimes.com for similar products. We will be back.’

Confirming the development to India Digital Review, Subhanker Sarker,COO,Indiatimes Shopping said Hutk.com was one of the few experimental businesses we had got into, to understand the market and measure the consumer traction at a minimal cost. The NRI opportunity is huge but our focus currently is on the Indian Ecommerce market that is showing double digit growth MOM and we want to focus all our energies there.’

It seems that Times Internet’s ‘experiment’ did not bear fruit but the company noted that Hutk.com and its supporting sourcing relationships are very much ‘alive’ indicating that the portal may be merged with its online shopping unit IndiaTimes Shopping in future.

Launched in 2011, the portal offered a variety of products in categories such as ethnic Indian apparel for men and women, jewellery, handicrafts and spiritual products. Buyers could buy the products in US dollars, pound sterling euros and Indian Rupee.