Five Indian e-commerce innovations I hope to see in 2015
In 2014 we have seen glimpses of how big the Indian e-commerce can get. Multiple companies have raised billions of dollars in investments to propel the e-commerce growth in the country. The e-commerce companies have even attracted some top talent across the board to fuel that growth.
However, there have not been any significant Indian innovations in the space in the last one year. In fact not one innovation since Cash-on-Delivery a few years ago that impact the consumers. Indian companies are banking on the fact that expansion to tier II cities and new growth in internet users (primarily first time internet users on mobile phones) will fuel the growth 10x to 20x in the next 5 to 10 years. This looks like a perfect plan, but just banking on new internet users and markets to bring the growth that the investors are hoping for would be insufficient. To bring this growth Indian e-commerce companies have to look into the roots of the Indian consumer behaviour, observe how we buy things, derive deep insights about the user, not just online, but in real non-virtual life.
Here are five innovations that could drive some of that growth:
Haggle before you buy
Apart from being just thrifty, there is a unique satisfaction when one could buy what they want at a price that is lower than what’s quoted. Even if there is a discount, we try to see if we can get a lower price. Amazon US has recently introduced haggling on this platform, where the buyer and seller can agree on price deal before the sale is done. I always thought this would be the next big unique Indian innovation after cash on delivery. Now that Amazon has provided a template on how haggling could work online, it is only a matter of time before the Indian companies followed.
Buy in groups to get better pricing
If you have been to any of the markets in the late 80s and 90s, to some extent even now, you will see neighbours, friends or extended families going shopping together. They select what they want individually, but when a price has to be agreed, it was always on all the items together.
The negotiation logic used is “we are buying all of this, so give us a better price”.
Imagine a group of friends shopping together on an e-commerce site, they create collections of all the things that would like to buy. There could be a collection for next wedding they are all going or the next big festival that is coming up. Once all the friends have selected their items and added them to a common collection, the platform could provide a better discount based on the total value of the items being bought, this discount is then distributed individually and payments processed.
Buy in bulk to get better pricing
If you have been to the wholesale markets, you will see people buying multiples of the same item in bulk. Even the departmental stores like More and Big Bazaar run full page ads in newspapers announcing discounts on bulk purchases. They are buying these in bulk to store them and self consume for a long time. Incase of perishable goods or items that don’t have long self life, they are buying in bulk for the extended family or for freinds in the neighbourhood. Incase of items like clothes, they are buying for themselves, siblings, cousins or friends. The negotiation logic is similar as the above with a slight change.
“I am buying all of this, go give me a better price”
The recent 1 billion day sale saw some hefty discounts on bulk purchases, but this idea could be made more prominent.
Pool-in to buy from a friend’s wish list
At my previous workplace, where we had about 20 of working, we shared our birthdays on an internal wiki page along with the link to our Flipkart/Amazon wish-list. This made choosing the right birthday gifts for our colleagues very straight forward and ensured we were gifting something that would be useful for the person. However, it was a hassle, someone had to take the responsibility to collect the cash or transfer money to one of the employee’s bank accounts and that person would go ahead and do the purchase.
Flipkart and Amazon have had a wish list for long, but there have been no features that persuaded the users to cat on their wish lists. I wish we could just take a look at a friend’s wish list, invite other friends to a gifting pool. Everyone who is invited can commit to a certain amount or just pick an item in the wish list that they like to buy. Only the total money contributions that are associated with a particular item will be shown to all. Once the contributions have come in, they can choose as a group what item/s to buy. If there are some items that the owner of the wish list has already purchased, this is shown real time, so more buying things that your friend already has. Finally all the pooling members can pay off their contributions.
Exchange unused stuff for more stuff
Most of the current generation of 25+ year olds have grown up seeing their mothers keep a pile of old clothes that are used to exchange for steel vessels, old news papers are stacked to be sold in exchange, milk packet covers are also sold, in fact every item that was used and has come to its end of usefulness is exchanged for either money or new items that the family needs.
In contrast we now throw away stuff or discard them, not because we don’t want to exchange or give them off to someone who might still find a use for them. We just don’t have time or know how or where one can exchange or donate these items. E-commerce companies have a large distribution network, at least in the cities they reach to every corner. Could they use this network to collect old items from the households, using their smart phones/PDAs provide an estimated value of the items they are collecting. This value is then converted into points/cash in the wallets that can be used for further purchases on the marketplace. The e-commerce companies can tie up with responsible recycling organisations or NGOs that can distribute these old items to people in need. The e-commerce companies can become more socially aware organisations that give back to the society while also creating positive publicity. The consumers also feel good about shopping more on the platforms.
Note: I am not associated with any of the e-commerce companies.
Do leave comments on what are some of the other innovations that you wish to see or just build on some of these ideas.
