"Metros have a dominant share of purchases, with Tier 2 and 3 cities catching up fast. Metros contributed 51 per cent of all e-commerce transactions, while Tier 2 and 3 cities contributed about 40 per cent and rural India 9 per cent. "
India has 100 million internet users today. According to eBay Census 2011, a study on the Indian e-commerce landscape released last year, as many as 3,311 Indian cities shopped online between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011. Of this, over 1,267 were non-metro cities. For catering to this segment, understanding Customer behaviour, mindset and comfort are of prime concern before we plan the second coming of ecommerce in India. Consider this when you shop on BestBuy or ebay for a laptop, you don't pay that much attention to taxes as much as you pay to SHIPPING!!! While a little research is required to understand the conditioned response from buyers better , putting business strategy to this approach is a natural business solution that will evolve.
Retailer Hat: Boss! I am a small time apparel retailer in one remote part of Delhi. Recently I have heard a lot of my shopkeeper friends discuss about the internet where one can register free of cost and suddenly you become visible to the entire Delhi internet savvy population. ....This has got me excited as I see a whole lot of new customers who I can serve and who know about my existence. I would like to be a part of this I say to myself. I expect to achieve the following:
Inform Delhi about my existence and the products I deal in apart from my regular customers I cater to.
Hopefully attract new profitable customers whom I can sell to and get incremental business.
I have heard about a lot of websites these days offering to increase my business by bringing new customers only if I give their customers huge discounts plus pay a commission on every sale to these websites. I wish if the website would just connect me with these new customers and let me do the selling. Please don’t dictate to me how much discount I need to give to your customer.
I have currently registered my business on yellow pages and also subscribed to just dial services. Though I have paid upfront to these companies for listing me in their retailer database I hardly get any customers from them. I also spend some money every quarter on distributing some pamphlets in my locality to let people know about any special offers I am currently running. I wish to market myself aggressively however I don’t want to spend a fortune doing it.
"We recently heard about Letsbuy buyout by Flipkart. This is an example of what is likely to be additional consolidation in the e-commerce space. In addition to cross-sector mergers, category consolidation is also likely to be on the upswing. But if you see what consumer demands in a market like India is -i-commerce (intelligent commerce= best discounts) and s-commerce (peer recommended assisted shopping experience). Here, I see a marriage of Content, ecommerce, services and social media support."
Take another case!
Customer Hat: Geees! I am a housewife who dabbles with the internet searching for the best price for a product I need. I generally visit the retailers in my locality and also search the websites to see if I can come across some new designs.
I don’t mind paying for a product which has some exclusivity attached around it. I will definitely get motivated if I can see that it is looking good on me. Maybe I would like to put on a dress virtually, post that on Facebook and see if I get compliments!!
I use Google to surf the internet and a couple of other deal sites to do my product search. However not every time do I get the relevant information I am looking for. I wish there was one such search engine which was custom made to give all answers to my shopping requirements. I wish I could see the product pictures and read their description. Also get the address and contact information of the retailer.
Apart from this basic information I wish I could also get a personal shopping assistant who could recommend some designs from their collection based on my specific body type and give me some style tips to complete the look. I need all this and more at a price competitive to the store I normally shop from. If only the retailer could deliver it to my doorstep and I could make the payment once I receive the delivery. This would make me happy. I also need to earn some loyalty points for using this shopping search engine redeemable across all the retailers showcasing their products/services and listed with this shopping platform.
In short it tells me that If I am coming up with an e-commerce venture in India, I need to know that here is this quintessential shopper who seeks the thrill of shopping /winning and getting rewarded all at the same time across my spectrum of shopping needs with a tangible value proposition.
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