Propelled by recent technological advancements and the effects of globalization have evolved the human lifestyle greatly. With the advanced lifestyle and increasing complexities, time management has become vital in today’s life. Quick and Effective seems to be the goal to go in today’s fast life. Does anybody have the time to go shopping nowadays?
9 reasons for the increasing popularity of the eCommerce sector in India
Well, obviously, except for the most special causes when you actually want to go. Online shopping has become so vividly important that it has become one of the main reasons for economic growth.
Although conventional shopping in malls and roadside stalls is still preferable by many as it is a good way to spend quality time with friends and family along with shopping, with a busy lifestyle and by including the environmental factors in hand, the new concept of eCommerce is also gaining popularity in the Indian market day by day. Be it fashion retails, consumer durable products, or food items, online marketing has taken shopping to another level with the benefits associated with them. Even the sweep from desktop to mobile users has increased by leaps and bounds. The big giants are now paying attention to increasing user experience via mobile. Everything is now and is going to be optimized for mobile.
In India, eCommerce has been on steady growth and may be expected to become the second-highest global contributor by 2034. And the reasons behind it are pretty simple.
- Best for those who want to avoid the crowd
- 24X7 customer service
- Varied option at your fingertip
- Saves your time
- Easy UI experience
- Secure payment mode including cash on delivery
- Delivery at doorstep
- Easy exchange solution
- Personalized intimation for out of stock product
Shopping at home
As mentioned earlier, traditional shopping has its own charm, but for people who want to avoid heavy crowds and long queues, online marketing is the best option. The concept of “your store at your home” has not only made shopping easy but also fun. There are other parameters, like saving on fuel, time, and the most important things: discounts, memberships, or subscriptions. Yes, offers that only can be availed from online stores. Now, who doesn’t like offers? We all do. The big businesses are making a huge amount of turnover by indulging their customers in these offers and membership tactics.
24*7 customer support
To provide each customer special attention, most eCommerce sites have introduced the 24*7 customer service system, which has taken customer satisfaction to a different level. Now they are using AI and chatbot systems for such services. Gone are the days when these were done manually by actual people! The reason is quite simple. With online exposure, it has been found that people have done shopping or have placed orders even at 3 am!. This quite makes sense because either they are free from their work at that time or they are doing shifts in their job. Either way, chatbots are literally at service 24×7.
A large variety of option with an easy reach
Now finding options will not be a problem with online shopping. Be it your favorite branded jeans or unique color jacket, you don’t need to travel to your local shopping malls. Your products will be at your fingertips always. Also, the recommendation game! Using Artificial Intelligence and Real-Time Analysis, predictions are a huge game right now. It’s like they are trying to read our minds, what we like, what we order, what we abandon. Everything & anything becomes their data or insights. These are very crucial. It has shown a direct link to the sales behavior of a customer. If they bought this, then they are most likely to buy these.
With different options for similar products, price comparison has also become easy for consumers.
Easy payment and delivery
Another important reason for an online supermarket to gain popularity is its easy payment and delivery option. Be it e-wallet or cash on delivery; a convenient payment mode has made the shopping experience delightful. This could also be the most important thing why people are increasingly getting inclined towards online shopping. Products get delivered to your doorstep. There is no need to go out, stand in a line, get your products to send to you, and wait for them to arrive. Amazon has done to introduce prime membership, and you can get then shipping in one or two business days maximum.
Customer satisfaction
Last but not least, customer satisfaction has always been the prime importance for internet shopping. So next time, if your favorite brand is out of stock. Worry not!! You can ask for customized intimation once the right product is in stock. Some mini gift cards or freebies are all included to increase the customer experience. If we go deeper into this, the app itself talks to us. have you noticed those notifications that pop up on our screen in the notification panel. Those app notifications are the best way to engage with your new customers and the existing ones. They provide information about the sales and offers that will happen before any season-ending or festive sales.
According to the recent International Monetary Fund and Central Statistic Office report, the steady growth of the Indian economy may lead to online supermarket sales to cross 120 billion US dollars by this year. Check the report here. The more and more inclusion of online grocery marketplaces, multi-city multi-vendor market places have actually contributed to this factor.
With this steady growth rate, food and grocery items are also included in major eCommerce sites nowadays. Looking 10 years back, people have not even thought of buying food items online. But now, with evolving habits and perceptions, people are more prone to buy grocery items online. Easy availability of products and convenient order placement facilities has made online grocery more familiar to the common mass. Moreover, products that are not available elsewhere can be found there. If you have a taste for exotic fruits and vegetables, you can get them online. The same goes for the websites from where you can buy electronic appliances, gadgets, beauty products, and whatnot. Online grocery stores like BigBasket, Nature’s basket even include food recipes, informative and eCommerce websites.
There was a time when only a few names like BigBasket or Amazon grocery dominated the market of online grocery. But now, with high consumer demand, many localized online stores have also emerged to make life easy. They are quite successful at it too. The local grocery stores may contain products that are found only specific to that region, and thus it becomes very simple to get these products online.
eCommerce companies in India are increasing day by day. Now it has a figure of 19000+ companies. Suppose we try to find the reason at the most generic level. Due to the rise of smartphones, initiatives like Go Digital, which includes Digital Payments, Hyper-local logistics, Digital Advertisements. With that being in the growth curve, the employment opportunities are on the next verge to increase. Many new platforms are coming and will be added to this list. One such example is video shopping, like the influencers or the bloggers, will review one product, and you can buy the product while watching the video. Products with tons and tons of reviews from various websites or platforms are supposed to be more reliable and worthy of buying. We go for reviews first, don’t we?
Emphasis
Where can you get a better platform for meeting your consumers other than going online? According to a Wikipedia report, 1,06,086 websites are registered daily. That’s huge! Firstly these websites base their products on their niche. Niche websites have become popular and get acquired by Big Gamers. As Flipkart acquired Myntra, recently Uber Eats was acquired by Zomato ( online food delivery apps). Amazon initially was only selling electronics goods, and now it has clawed into the grocery sector, Kirana in Bengaluru, India. The companies start as a niche category from what has been observed, but after that, they turn into a more generalized category selling everything literally from A to Zee.
To conclude with every system has its pros and cons. And e-commerce is not an exception to this. As a customer, you are the best person to assess which websites are best suited for your demands, be it fashion e-retails or online grocery stores. With mind-boggling discount offers and other lucrative schemes, internet marketing is expected to reach its high in years to come. We as consumers can only wait and see what comes next. Let’s see!
I am Arunava Chatterjee, CEO, and Owner of a Software Company, Shibani Web Solutions, in India. I am a blogger; tech enthusiast who loves new
technologies.
My company website:
www.shibaniwebsolutions.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShibaniWeb
