eBay, the global online shopping portal, has lot to cheer about the Indian market as it provides a perfect platform for the company to pin hope on fast growth, both in mobile devices and computer devices. Speaking to S Saroj Kumar of FE, Lorrie Norrington, president, future e-commerce, eBay, says that the company considers India as one of its top-10 important markets. Excerpts:
Why do you think mobile is the preferred medium to drive e-commerce growth in India?
India is the world’s largest mobile device market, after China. Other than voice and data, the market is at the tipping point to enjoy 3G-enabled services, like live video streaming and high-speed broadband. Many other value-added services are possible on a mobile, with e-commerce not to be left behind.
There is also churn in the market to discard basic handsets and grab high-end sets that seamlessly enable the functions of personal computer on the modern mobile devices. We have a platform (mobile phones) and product (shopping portal) and the only issue should be enlightening of potential purchasers in the chain of business. We are bracing up for big play as the market is poised to cross the 600-million mark.
What is the volume of business you target through the m-commerce platform?
Globally, 8 million users, of the 90 million on the mobile platform access our shopping portal. We target a global business of around $1.5 billion from the mobile vertical. To achieve business scale, we look forward to leverage the 580 million-odd mobile phone users in the country. There are about 13,000 traders and sellers making a living by associating with eBay in India, catering to 3 million users.
How do social networking sites like facebook and twitter help boost business?
It really had a telling impact on website traffic during the IPL season. Social networking members did ?word-of-mouth? campaign about the range of products available on eBay.
The power of social-networking was unleashed, especially by a category of users looking for memorable curios of Bollywood, cricket and music.
What are the differences between western and Indian buyers on social networking sites?
In advance economies, user networking goes beyond ?word-of-mouth? exchanges. We found that social networking is quite a convenient platform for tip-off sharing. When we introduced a limited-period free fee insertion this January, there were around 1.5 lakh users tweeting about the announcement in US and around 15,000 re-tweets made on the same announcement. In the west it is emerging as an opinion building medium.
We also see some interesting disruption on the technology front in the western market. The multi-screen touch-based iPad users of eBay could be raring to enjoy a similar experience on app-based high-end phones. That is the rate of technological advancement and demand happening in the west, compared with the rest.
Could you name some lead categories that pip others in the Indian market ?
The buzz is always around mobile phones, jewellery and consumer electronics. Fashion, laptop and home-decor are also in a buyers?s list in the domestic market.
Outside India, shoppers found time to surf for exotic and ethnic items like antique jewelry, leather finery and surprisingly even the horse saddles are bid upon from India.
Indian consumers are becoming tech-savvy; transactions on the Indian payment gateway paisapay have jumped from mere 15% in 2005 to 70%.