Knowing the Indian eCommerce Markets

Electronic commerce or eCommerce refers to all kinds of buying and selling of products or services using the electronic systems like the Internet and other computer networks. People in India have now turned to buying almost everything ranging from books, lifestyle accessories, electronic equipment, beauty products and even household items from the online shopping websites. The introduction of Smartphones and tablets in the Indian market as well as easy available of internet increased the online shopping throughout the years. We consider the Indian eCommerce as one of the keenest business areas and start our eCommerce categories in blogging by this article. The availability of more quick and easy payment options like credit and debit cards and most welcomed Cash on delivery and the faster adoption of Smartphones and tablets was a boosting factor in the growth of online stores.

Why to consider the nature of Indian Society 

One of the factors that determines the online purchasing process is the adoption of this new technology in the Indian society. The introduction of online shopping in the Indian society must consider the willingness of Indian customer purchases. Online purchases are seen to be welcomed by the age groups under 35 and it is estimated that India has about 828 million at that age group. Cash on Delivery is the preferred payment method in India which are seen to be welcomed and performed by 80% of online payments. Indian consumers have practices seeing and buying, so a quick transform by homely buying will take time. It was found out that 75% of online payment are done in the travel related purchases like buying airline tickets, railway tickets and hotel bookings. The other important shopping sections include mobile recharges, books, fashion and jewelry, home and kitchen, beauty products, watches, perfumes etc.

The Indian Internet Usage Growth and Penetrations

We now look how the internet usage has grown in India recently. The penetration rate of India is low compared to USA or UK, but it accounts to be large in number. The internet user base calculated in the last year (2012) June month accounts to be 137 million. This figure involves 99 million from the urban parts and 38 million from the rural part of India. The arrival of smartphones and 3G also increased the internet users. It was found out that India will posses 450 million smartphone users and 100 million 3G users by 2015. Currently the broadband internet usage is growing at the rate of 20% annually. View the growth of internet users in India.

The Indian eCommerce Market size and Growth

The Indian e-commerce market is seen to expand very greatly. In the year 2009 the market raised a stunning $2.5 billion and was increased to $6.3 billion in 2011. The figure is seen to rise to $14 billion in the last year (2012) and expecting to rise to $125 to $250 billion by 2024-25. With over 10 million online shoppers, we see a growth rate of 30% increase.

While the India’s retail market figure was $470 billion in 2011  and is expected to rise as far as $675 Billion by 2016 and $850 Billion by 2020. Similarly the India’s e-tailing market made sales of $600 Million in 2011 and is expecting $9 Billion by 2016 and $70 Billion by 2020. The same market in China accounted $20 billion in 2008, $120 billion in 2011 and expecting $200 billion by 2020. These figures really concludes that the coming years will witness more investments and sales

The Important Marketing Approaches Needed

There are various methods by which you can market your Ecommerce firm; of which the major ones include writing and giving ads as blogs, forums, at search engines and some online advertising site like Google Adwords. The emergence of social networking also have proven that it is a successful way for aggressive marketing. Seeing the increased growth rate Google themselves have made partners with many shopping websites in India like MakeMyTrip.com, SnapDeal.com, FlipKart.com etc. We will soon post a blog post on How to Market an Indian  eCommerce Web Store.

The Major Players in the ecommerce website

Amazon.com which is considered as the world’s largest online retailer also recently entered the Indian market with the name ‘Junglee.com’. The growth of these companies and organizations will remain high and there will not be a reduction in the investments. Websites like Flipkart and Jabong made e-commerce a household phenomenon in the metro cities. EBay is one of the world’s most popular ecommerce firm; that also has their services in India. The firm is seen to grow at a rate of 60% to 2.5 million users from the nation. Many Indians as big as 12,8000 sellers get advantage of the eBay with direct and indirect jobs forming primary or secondary source of their income. The revenue of Flipkart in the year 2010-11 were $150 million US dollars and they aim to achieve $1 billion or 1000 million in the coming 3 years.

The Major Funding and Acquisitions Deals

The investment needed to start a whole nation selling online shopping store is very huge. The break even point is expected to be very high for those ecommerce stores selling products nation wide. Companies like BookMyShow.com Flipkart.com and Yebhi.com was able to raise a good amount of money recently. Last year in the August month, Flipkart.com raised about 8.22 billion US dollars. BookMyShow.com which is an entertainment ticketing website raised 1 billion US dollars. This was invested by Accel Partners from four investors. Also Yebhi.com could raise Rs 100 crores funding from Qualcomm Ventures and Fidelity Growth Partners India.

Acquisitions Among major deals,

  • Flipkart acquired letsbuy.com,
  • Snapdeal acquired Esportsbuy.com,
  • Myntra.com acquired SherSingh.com
  • Healthkart acquired Madeinhealth
  • Fashionandyou acquired UrbanTouch
  • Yatra.com acquired Travelguru

What Determines the Cost of Building an eCommerce Store

Setting up an online shopping website in India is not that easy until you know how the cost are needed in various areas. There are many factors that determine the building up of an ecommerce store in India. You need to get a good and reliable service of E commerce Site Development and ecommerce hosting. Even if there are many hosting companies, now in India, most of them are not efficient and good for e-commerce hosting purpose. This is because of the less secure and threat protected shared hosting and such stores demands highly secure, stable and protected hosting. Let us look how the cost of an ecommerce store are distributed with the following costs:

  • Hosting and data security costWebsite development + maintenance costWarehousing costsMarketing and Promotions costsPayment gateways (like PayPal) chargesProduct delivery costTrust-building costsCustomer acquisition

The Future of Indian eCommerce

The growth of ecommerce in India was a much discussed topic recently, and expert analysis on how to make users buy online easily will be given more importance than ever. Many experts consider the mobile commerce as a potential space in future. More and more people are going to access the Internet through tablets and Smartphones. Companies will definitely invest on the mobile optimizations for a better user experience soon; in the coming years. The ability for a customer to personalize and customize shopping experience will be welcomed with open hands. Companies will be competing on prices, with a bulk buying and able to sell at a cheaper rate.

How to get started? 

If you have an idea to develop an ecommerce store; contact SeaMedia now as we are specialized in ecommerce development service. We have a group of highly skilled developers who loves to involve in depth analysis of your online shopping business requirements. We can build up a perfect ecommerce store with the best designs, SEO optimizations and required promotional procedures. Follow our next blog on the eCommerce store soon.

We end this article with Google video on Online Shopping in India.