Online shopping on a high

Despite the slowdown in the economy, Indian e-commerce sites have witnessed growth in their business

November 9, 2008 00:12 IST

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.

So what is selling online? ?A customer shift is noticeable from high-ticket to lower ticket value,? says Vijh. ?In electronics, which is a highly sold item online, buyers are buying low price gadgets rather than high-end mobile handsets and cameras. It can be due to the recession as there is the sentiment of buyers involved teamed up with reality and no one is clear about the future,? he adds.

Also, a number of new players have come up in the category of social comparison shopping portal, eg, saleraja.com, an initiative of Sukip, India?s largest opinion sharing platform) and naaptol.com, compareindia.com, have witnessed satisfactory growth in sales. Sumit Gupta, co- founder, saleraja.com, which is a year and three months old, says the e-commerce site, which is just a year old and sells apparel, footwear, household and electronics, got tremendous response in October. ?The web traffic that we calculated last month was 1.5 times higher than that of August and September,? Gupta adds. He believes that as the Indian market is quite insulated from the US market, it?s not affected much due to the global recession.

?Growth has not been affected due to the slow down,? said Anannya Debnath, Head, corporate communications, naaptol.com, a leading comparison-based social shopping portal owned by naaptol and various third party providers, launched in January. We have got visitors who want to save money and get the best deal because of shrunk spending capacity,? says Debnath. ?In July, we had about 1, 25,000 hits per month, which has now grown to 4, 25,000 hits a month (as on October 31),? Debnath, adds. A trend other sectors can take some cheer from and hope for a revival of their own.

What?s selling online?

In Q3 2008, eBay Inc reported having: 85.7 million active users worldwide; more than 50,000 categories; a global presence in 39 international markets, including the US; 700 million new listings added to eBay worldwide in Q2-08; while eBay.com is well-known for its auction format, users can also buy and sell in fixed-price formats, which accounted 485 of total GMV during Q2-08.

On eBay India, at any given point of time:

•Over 15,000 live listings in the apparel and accessories

• Over 25,000 live listings in the Jewellery items

• Over 26,000 live listings in the computers, mobiles, camera and consumer electronics such as MP3 players, television sets, home appliances items-iPod, Nokia and laptop are the most searched items.

eBay India marketplaces: Fast facts

• A coin or note sells every 12 minutes

• A stamp sells every 14 minutes

• Loose gemstones or diamonds sells every 15 minutes

• A mobile handset sells every 16 minutes

• A piece of woman?s apparel sells every 19 minutes

• A book sells every 26 minutes

• A watch sells every 32 minutes

• A MP3 player sells every 38 minutes

• A ring/a piece of home d?cor sells every 44 minutes

• A digital camera sells every 46 minutes

• A piece of men?s apparel sells every 58 minutes