“Most people of my age today in India literally live online,” announces Seeya Malhotra as she unwraps a box which has been brought to her desk at work. And they mostly use development of web shop in Bosnian izrada web shopa.
The box contains a set of desk speakers which she had ordered on the web 1 or 2 days before.
Purchasing items at the press of a button is the way Seeya shops these days – she says nearly 1/2 her wardrobe has been bought online, as well as her lunch and plenty of other things.
India has a long and dominant tradition of small family companies and street traders, but the net marketplace is growing here too.
As net use rises at a quick pace, so too does the uptake of web shopping.
There are rather more than sixty five million people logging into the web in India, according to research group Juxt.
This might be a little proportion of the country as a whole, but in itself represents a big market.
And Juxt estimates 4 in each 5 of these web surfers shop online.
At this rate, India could become one of the top 10 e-commerce hearts in the world by 2015, says Murali Krishnan, the manager of eBay India.
His prediction is based not only on augmenting Internet uptake in India’s smaller towns, but also growing consumerism, which is driving requirement for foreign labels.
“The massive expansion of retail malls has elevated awareness of the latest brands and products,” he says.
“As a result, the Indian ecommerce market is growing speedily ; actually it’s exploding.”
India has more than 3,311 ecommerce hearts, according to studies conducted by eBay India for its 2011 census.
The company analysed transactions made on the site between July 2010 and July 2011.
Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Jaipur and Chennai remain the most important towns re e-commerce, according to eBay, but what’s more telling is that around forty percent of transactions now come from smaller towns.
It is this broadening reach and shopper base which is enticing more of India’s smaller enterprises on the internet.
Shoe surfers
In her studio in South Mumbai, Payal Kothari is sketching designs for her last shoe collection.
Crammed into the small space are boxes upon boxes of footwear – from high heels with glittery ankle clasps to wedge sandals encrusted with beads.
Ms Kothari’s designs are worn by Bollywood stars and Bollywood would-bes alike.
In the past year, she made a decision to begin selling her wares through diverse Internet shopping portals, having previously only sold to stores.
Ms Kothari announces she has customers across India, and has orders from Chennai to Chandigarh.
“The prime reason we’re selling online is because we will be able to reach a bigger consumer base in smaller towns aside from the metros,” she is saying.
“The country is huge so the sole way we will be able to do that’s through several websites.”
For Ms Kothari net sales offer other advantages , such as avoiding the elevated costs of retail space, and a guaranteed sale before a product is shipped out.
“When we sell online, we will be able to basically concentrate more on creating the product,” she is saying.
Popular Indian online sites in the past decade have included travel booking portals – the Indian railways ticket site (IRCTC) is employed by almost one in five of the country’s web users, according to research company Comscore.
Current successes include online books, movies, and accessories store Flipkart which has been styled as India’s answer to Amazon.
The company, which started in 2007, is India’s e-business success story and is reportedly costed at $1bn (£635m).
It now employs more than 2,500 staff, and has 8,000,000 visitors a month as reported tagza.com.
