Online shopping on a high

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: Whether it was the fear of crowded zones or the general tone of gloom stemming from the bearish market trends, banker Payal Saxena just did make it to her favourite Diwali shopping haunts this season. To do her mandatory shopping, she instead opted for the online route. She was not alone. Initial indications suggest that sites like eBay.in, indiatimes.com, futurebazaar.com, promoted by Pantaloon Retail India, indiaplaza.in, saleraja.com, naaptol. com and compareindia.com (a network 18 venture) have improved on their last year’s performance.

If there was one sector that looked up this festive season, it was e-commerce. “The whole idea was to make it simple for the customers. We have 2 million registered users and we got a double-digit growth in traffic, both for unique visitors as well as buyers. There is a growth of 10% from last year,” Deepa Thomas, Senior Manager, corporate communications & pop culture, eBay India said. Thousands of sellers sell on eBay India daily across 2,000 categories of products.

According to a survey conducted by industry players last year, the e-commerce industry in India was worth Rs 9,210 crores at the end of 2007-08, a big jump of 30% over the current industry size. It has been growing at about 5% since 2001. And experts expect it to only grow further.

Explaining the possible reasons of the growth, Thomas affirmed, “First, in the wake of a global meltdown, buyers have become very particular about what they are buying. There is a terror threat in the country making people shop online rather than visit crowded shopping areas. Also, parking problems make people reluctant to go out.”

Indiatimes too registered growth. Ashish Vijh, Head, e-commerce, confirms that in October, indiatimes.com managed to get a 60% growth than last year during the same time period. Till September, it got 100% growth as compared with 2007. Vijh clarifies that if one stream is down, the other won’t go up. In an overall retail scenario, “a physical store is the mainstream whereas internet is still small in comparison with the former. Thus, the threats around market places need not necessarily affect a customer’s mind to go for online shopping as a buyer has to be tech-savvy and must have a connection at home to opt for e-shopping,” he adds.