E-commerce market expected to be US$ 200 billion by 2026 in India

By the time you are done reading this blog, a few people would have completed several eCommerce transactions. A few clicks here and there, and they’ll be set to receive their parcel in a day or two. It even spares people from going out, leaving the comfort of their room and scouting for the product. Indians have shifted towards the convenience of online payments for day-to-day transactions. Over the years, the growth of eCommerce has been fostered and it is transformed into a billion-dollar industry.

Right from small scale companies to market giants, everyone is capitalizing on the eCommerce industry, and there’s no going back from here.

E-commerce has transformed the way business is done in India. The Indian E-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5 billion as of 2017. The growth of the industry has been triggered by an increase in internet and smartphone penetration among the common people.

The ongoing digital transformation in the country is expected to increase India’s total internet user base to 829 million by 2021 from 636.73 million in FY19. India’s internet economy is expected to double from US$ 125 billion as of April 2017 to US$ 250 billion by 2020, backed primarily by E-commerce. India’s E-commerce revenue is expected to jump from US$ 39 billion in 2017 to US$ 120 billion in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 51%, the highest in the world.

Future trends of E-commerce

• Mobile optimized: What we can envisage is that there will be an improvement in mobile shopping experiences. It was first seen that sites were created that would run decently on mobiles. Now, it is anticipated that online store owners will be trying to build sites that positively run on smartphones and tablets (Mobile responsive designs).
• Wearable devices: Many products such as Google Glasses, smartwatches, and other wearable devices though have not taken off in full swing are sure to enter the market in the future with greater momentum.
• Personalized ads: Prospective customers have been served personalized ads by online stores for years. It will also be seen that storekeepers put forth more attempts to offer a progressively significant personalization to clients when clients become increasingly comfortable with imparting some personal information to brands and confide in online stores.
• Local marketing and branding: As bigger E-commerce sites offer more up to date offices and highlight and evaluate better approaches for drawing in clients, smaller stores will go to a neighborhood base to survive. Smaller online stores will use SEO to target clients in a constrained geographic territory and consolidate it with an online networking commitment to customize relations with nearby clients. Their marketing and promoting technique will spin around focuses that separate them from larger sellers.
• Marketing automation: Most often online customers browse around for quite a while and leave the store without purchasing. Such customers can be converted into paying customers with the help of customized and targeted marketing. The pattern of using a solution like marketing automation will keep on rising by the day. Automated lead nurturing, remarketing, email personalization and analytics will help small online store owners convert more clients.

Investments so far in the Indian E-commerce sector

• Amazon procured a 49 percent stake in a unit of Future Group in August 2019.
• To grow its broadband and E-commerce presence and to offer 5G services, Reliance is to invest Rs 20,0000 crores (US$ 2.86 billion) in its telecom business.
• In September 2019, a super-app platform ‘Switch’ was launched by PhonePe to give a one-stop solution for clients integrating a few different dealer applications.
• In tier II and tier III cities, Nykaa opened its 55th offline store in November 2019.
• Amazon India has been trying to overtake Indian E-commerce giant, Flipkart, for a few years. Last year it invested $2.7 billion into it’s Amazon India Seller Services branch. Amazon also doubled its authorized capital to $4.7 billion last year in its war on Flipkart. But Flipkart got some serious ammunition in the battle from another major U.S. retailer Walmart. Walmart is currently in a deal with Flipkart which would increase the Indian E-commerce company’s valuation to as high as $20 billion.
• 2017 was the year when the E-commerce industry in India had witnessed 21 private equity and venture capital deals worth US$ 2.1 billion and in the first half of 2018, 40 deals worth US$ 1,129 million.
• To provide better internet access to rural women in India, Google and Tata Trust have collaborated on the project ‘Internet Saathi’.