www.irctc.co.in –
The official website of the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation
has revolutionized the scope and dimension of the Indian e-commerce market
which otherwise would not have taken its first baby step towards the future.
Basking in the glory of the above enterprise from the
Indian Government, few travel e-commerce companies like RedBus (www.redbus.in) for bus tickets and Makemytrip
(www.makemytrip.com) for flights have
tasted fair amount of success.
However, e-commerce in India is still in a nascent stage.
Conclusions from a report released by Internet and Mobile Association of India
(IAMAI), suggest that the total Indian e-commerce market is around Rs 50,000
crore, of which 80 per cent or Rs 40,000 crore is captured by travel e-commerce
(online train, bus and airline tickets) while retail e-com or non-travel is
only 15 per cent or Rs 8,000 crore.
With the availability of feature phones or the “smart
phones,” Mobile Commerce or m-commerce is also on the rise along with
e-commerce where the mobile handset is used as a means to enter into an online
transaction.
With more than 65% of people in India using feature phones, there is an untapped opportunity here too to offer services
to subscribers to go beyond the ticketing purposes.
The future of mobile commerce bears great potential. Approximately 70%
of the Indian population is below the age of 40. Of this, a sizable chunk is
the youth in the age group of 14-18 who are devoid of a self Bank account and
are spendthrifts. M-commerce, especially in India will thrive on this naïve age
group and their lifestyle.
However, is the Indian financial
eco-system and mobile infrastructure really prepared to cash-in such a boom
which is being driven by high-end marketing and advertising fervor?
As of now, the answer is NO. Achieving this requires a concerted effort from the
bankers and the service providers to ensure and enrich consumer experience with
security by expanding the system to accommodate more volumes to benefit all
stakeholders and devise law-abiding guidelines to control flow of money and
prevent fraud.
Marginally though, with investors gaining confidence in
the growth of the e-com and m-com markets and pumping funds into ventures like
flipkart.com, naaptol.com and junglee.com with additional features like “Cash
On Delivery,” experts hope that by the year 2025, the total e-com market will
reach at least Rs 4,00,000 crore and the share of retail will be half at Rs
2,00,000 crore.
E-commerce in India is here to stay and grow
exponentially over the years