Buoyed by an increase in mobile usage in the country, online retailers like eBay, Flipkart and Yebhi are seeing greater traffic from mobile phones. Consider this: eBay India, which is seeing more than 25% of the visitors accessing the site from mobiles, gets two transactions every minute compared on this form factor and expects the traffic to rise to 40% next year. Similarly, Yebhi.com gets 4% of its revenues and 15% of the traffic from mobile and apps.
As per Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), there were 91 million users accessing the internet on mobile devices in June and compared with the 0.4% mobile internet users in 2012, the penetration has grown to 2.4%, indicating a substantial growth in the mobile internet user penetration levels.
?We see two kinds of m-commerce ? people who use mobiles only and the other, who use other form factors throughout the day and mobiles in their personal time only. Retail has not reached small towns and people shop from their mobiles in places where power is a problem,? said Santosh Rao, head, Marketplace Experience, eBay India. Globally, eBay expects to clock $20 billion from mobile commerce in 2013.
Same is the case with Flipkart.com where the typical mobile customer is more likely to come from tier 2 and 3 cities and the company expects bulk of mobile shoppers to come from non-metros in the coming years.
?Mobile accounts for double digits when it comes to visits to Flipkart.com. In the last two to three years, mobile has been growing at twice the rate of desktops. At Flipkart, app users tend to spend 40% more time than our mobile web users Android and iOS combined account for more than 80% of mobile visits and orders,? a Flipkart spokesperson said.
The mobile category mix is skewed towards quick purchase items like books and accessories besides categories that inspire casual browsing like lifestyle. Similarly, catalogue browsing, price and specification check are important use cases for mobile shoppers.
At Flipkart, the average order value from mobile is within range of the average order value from desktops.
?Our tie up with IRCTC has helped us acquire consumers from tier 5 and 6 cities and that is the last leg of e-commerce. Otherwise, lifestyle and the home segment have the largest share in m-commerce for us,? Yebhi.com co-founder and CEO Manmohan Agarwal said.
These m-tailers are excited about the space as the number of internet users reached 205 million in October, a 40% rise from the corresponding period last year and is estimated to reach 213 million by year end. Besides, by June 2014, India will have 243 million internet users, at which point of time, it is expected to overtake the US as the second largest Internet base in the world.
Next year, eBay India plans to offer newer and better deals for mobile customers who shop at night especially after eight.
?M-commerce peaks between 8 pm and midnight and this is unique to India. Hence, we plan to offer different deals fro people during this time,? Rao added.