Indians acquire ecommerce habit

[mandy]

Ecommerce growing rapidly in India:

...online shopping is now prevalent in nearly 2,000 towns and cities (including tier-II cities like Surat, Ankleshwar, Sholapur, Kottayam, Faridabad and Bhopal). Maharashtra tops the list with Kerala yet to pick up.

Recent Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) figures clearly show that e-commerce has come of age in the country. IAMAI estimates the size of the Indian e–commerce market will touch Rs 2,300 crore (around 10 per cent of the organised Indian retail market) by 2006-2007 — a 95 per cent rise over last year’s figures of Rs 1,180 crore and an over-300 per cent rise over the figures of 2004-05.

...netizens do a lot of online research and cyber window-shopping even if they buy offline, notes Desai. The Indian middle-class of 288 million is equivalent to the entire American consumer base. This makes India a real attractive market for e-commerce.

...IDC has pegged the e-commerce population to be around 16-18 per cent of the total Internet population in the country, which translates into roughly 6.5 million transacting users.”

full article: http://www.business-standard.com/common/...p?hpFlag=Y&chklogin=N&autono=209060&leftnm=lmnu4&leftindx=4&lselect=0

[Kristijntje]

The other side of the Indian ecommerce story: All's not well with e-commerce

E-commerce is booming in India. With the market expected to touch the Rs 2,300-crore (Rs 23 billion) mark next year...

However, there are many issues to contend with -- broadband connections, security and legal infrastructure, delivery of goods, credit and debit card payments, taxation laws and finally, mindsets.

..."There are several factors that will influence the growth trajectory of e-commerce. Such as, the growth of the overall Internet user base, quality of Internet access through the use of the Net arising from offices and homes versus colleges and cybercafes, quality of access enabled by broadband penetration and the extent of credit card (stands at 5 million) and debit card use on the Internet."

The country manager of eBay India says:

"At eBay, we educate users on safety tips like reading item descriptions fully, looking at sellers' feedback score (their online reputation) and asking additional questions to get complete clarity. In addition, we protect users through online tutorials on detecting spoof mails, phishing sites and new identity theft crimes," he adds.

full article: http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/dec/21ecom.htm