Technology for MSMEs: Even as awareness and adoption of digital tools are gradually increasing among SMEs to sell more online and grow faster, there are multiple aspects of digital sales where enterprises have been struggling. While more than 60 per cent of SMEs expect their online sales will further increase in the future, digital marketing was the major area of challenge for 78 per cent of them, said a BCG India MSME Survey 2022 of over 1,000 MSMEs by Boston Consulting Group on Wednesday.
Apart from digital marketing, online order management was another area of struggle for 50 per cent of respondents followed by digital payments (49 per cent), virtual catalogues (45 per cent), e-store design (43 per cent), online data backup (42 per cent) and customer service (33 per cent), the survey showed. However, to tide over these challenges, around 50 per cent of SME respondents said they are open to banks helping them navigate such issues for a fee. The survey was part of a BCG and FICCI report Riding India’s Digital Super-cycle.
The growth in the online sale of goods and services has come amid rising awareness of e-commerce as an effective channel of sales. According to a report by Flipkart and Bain & Company, the number of businesses or sellers selling goods online is increasing by 35 per cent annually. However, the introduction of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) by the government is expected to further push the online sale of goods and services by MSMEs as ONDC looks at providing offline retailers with a level playing field online to compete with large players being an open platform unlike Amazon, Flipkart and other marketplaces.
Importantly, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council in June this year had announcing waiving the mandatory registration for businesses with turnover up to Rs 40 lakh selling goods online and supplying intrastate. Sellers selling goods or services online were earlier required to be GST-registered despite their turnovers below Rs 40 lakh or Rs 20 lakh threshold respectively in contrast to offline sellers who are exempted from the registration. The waiver is likely to come into effect from January 1, 2023.