E-Commerce Market in India
Rakhi Jhingran

E-Commerce as it is defined is conducting business online or in other words, harnessing the power of internet in direct sales operations. It includes business activities that are business to business (B2B), business to consumers (B2C), extended enterprise computing (integration of ERP, CRM and e-Commerce), d-commerce, and m-commerce. The main vehicle of e-Commerce remains the internet and World Wide Web, but use of email, fax and telephone orders are also prevalent.

Evolution of e-Commerce
E-Commerce has taken a centre stage in world trade today and in several cases outperformed the traditional business practices. It is one of the popular revenue models for various business enterprises in the developed nations but it is still in its nascent stage in India. There has been a fair amount of internet infrastructure build up in the past few years. This has shown a significant rise in the number of companies embracing e-Commerce technologies and internet in India.

In the beginning, most of these e-Commerce websites targeted NRI’s for gift delivery, books, flowers, audio and videocassettes. Today, these portal sites sell everything from event, movie tickets, grocery, apparels, computers etc not only to the NRI’s but also to a large chunk of affluent resident Indians.

Factors limiting the success of e-Commerce in India

However, there are several factors limiting the success of online selling in India which includes narrow home PC base, a high level of price sensitivity among the target audience, lack of touch and feel factor, lack of effective exploitation of the online services for delivering content, and low credit card usage.

Successful e-Commerce Ventures

This is not to say that the e-Commerce scenario has been bad in India as highly successful e-businesses like India Mart has proved. Indian Banks have also been very successful in adopting e-Commerce and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Technologies to provide customers with real time account status, transfer of funds, stop payment facilities, etc. Stock exchanges are also providing online stock portfolios and status updates within fifteen minutes delay in prices.

Future Growth of e-Commerce
Overall e-Commerce is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. According to eStatsindia, B2C e-Commerce market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 51.27% to touch Rs. 9259 Crore by the end of the year 2009. Though Personal Computers will remain the primary Internet access device, Mobile phones and other wireless devices will also have significant impact on the scenario. E-travel bookings segment which forms the largest chunk of the total B2C e-Commerce market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 46.88% to touch Rs. 3760 Crore by the end of the year 2009. In addition to this, B2B e-Commerce market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 52.63% to touch Rs. 13550 Crore by the end of the year 2009. Under this category, E-procurement segment is expected to grow fastest at a CAGR of 50.93% to touch Rs. 12100 Crore by the end of the year 2009.
With the urban working population increasing every year, there is very little time to go to physical stores. e-Commerce will then certainly help to fill this gap. Areas expected to grow would be financial services, travel, entertainment and groceries. Constant effort on building new technologies, online business models and charting standard agreements will make it easier to create a site, to protect it against payment fraud, and to share information with suppliers and business partners.

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