Online shopping scene hotting up in India

[mekin]

More merchants & retailers going online:
FutureBazaar joined the ranks of Fabmall (now called indiaplaza)- retail chains that also offer an online shopping experience.

I have always maintained that for success in Indian markets the online offering needs to be supported with a good offline presence.
Shaadi & naukri are good examples of the above

Comments

Re: Bechna Price Comparison Shopping

[anonymous]

Hello Mekin,
Very good points in your analysis on Online Shopping in India and how India is different. I am optimistic that the postal network, consumer payment concerns and consumer trust will change in a couple of years.

DoP recently announced an investment of Rs6000 crore to revamp the postal network and private carriers will push along infrastructure improvements. I am confident the delivery systems will step up to meet the increasing consumer demands.

Consumer trust with online shopping is bound to come about with time. Only recently have people started trusting Online shopping even in the US. A survey conducted late last year by JuxtConsult found that there are about 2.2 million active shoppers online. This is only 5% of India's Internet Users but a 40% increase from the year before. And I expect this rapid growth to continue over the next 5 years.

The salaried middle class of India represents the biggest section of online shoppers. But the shift from paying cash to more accountable forms of payment is definitely a valid point that will prevent Indian shoppers from buying online.

Regarding the number of online vendors. Out of the 200 or so online vendors in India I mentioned more than half cater to consumers from outside India and price their products only in dollars. That leaves only 80 to 100 stores selling products with Rupee price tags. Bechna.com is working with this subset of vendors and by the end of the first quarter of 2007 we will be carrying products from 75% of these stores. We haven't yet looked into including products from brick-and-mortar vendors... but that might change during the course of the year.

Regards,
Deepak
deepak@bechna.com