Despite the nationwide lockdown and the fact that some states are still under lockdown, India’s e-commerce market platforms such as Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal are recording transaction volumes that match the pre-Covid time and even higher volumes of these transactions are expected to happen in the coming months. The pandemic has given India’s e-commerce market a much need push.
Experts say that the market is expected to increase threefold to reach $85 billion by 2024 even though other sectors have been impacted negatively. E-commerce players such as Grofers, Lenskart, and BigBasket have been forecasted to see a rise as well since order volume has picked up by 80%.
“Right now people are buying a lot of low ticket items from platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart which you would usually buy from the local market because people don’t want to go out. That is why the order volumes have increased. But we are expecting the customers (in India) to start spending on big-ticket items (such as laptops, smartphones, and appliances) by next year,” said Satish Meena, a senior forecast analyst at Forrester Research during an interview with Business Standard. Indians are concentrating on saving cash due to the novel coronavirus, however, consumers in other countries have received stimulus from the government.
Industry insiders and analysts feel that the market opportunities for e-commerce in India are expected to touch $200 billion by 2028 from $30 billion in 2018. Right now, consumers are only leaning towards cheaper brands as they slip into survival mode while the world makes its way through this pandemic. They are buying affordable goods and moving away from more expensive brands. “Brands do help you to create a certain image when you are outside, but if you want apparel to wear at home, it doesn’t matter which brand it is,” said a senior official at an e-commerce company.
“Customers want to avoid stepping out unless it’s very critical. We are helping customers who are stuck in that situation, and we are able to play a small part in helping (cater) to their needs. We are also mitigating the risks that small businesses are facing because there is a reduced footfall in the local offline traffic,” said Gopal Pillai, vice president for seller services at Amazon India during an interview with Business Standard. Pillai is responsible for a key mission at Amazon which is to enable local shops all across the country to sell online, supporting them with the required technology and training.
Myntra has onboarded 15,000 Kirana partners and in their recent End of Reason Sale, got 7,00,000 new customers, of which more than half were from tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Other e-commerce biggies are also experimenting to increase the access to their services. Flipkart has recently enabled three new languages – Tamil, Telugu and Kannada on its platform to make its services more inclusive. This will enable users to experience online shopping in their native languages. “We truly believe that language, if solved well, can be an opportunity rather than a barrier, to reach millions of consumers who have been underserved,” said Kalyan Krishnamurthy, chief executive officer of Flipkart Group, in an interview with Business Standard.
“The increasing change in consumer behaviour to prefer online shopping has come as a great surprise and relief for online sellers and marketplaces,” said Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce, an online retail-focused technology platform. Companies will have to adopt technology to remain relevant and undergo digital transformation to enable sectors to gain again.
