A

research paper
on

E-COMMERCE IN RURAL SECTOR

Presented to the Faculty of the
School of Management & Entrepreneurship
AURO University
Surat

In Partial Fulfilment
Of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Business Administration

Submitted by:
Vishal Patel

Submitted to:
Dr. ROHIT SINGH
Rural Marketing

SUMMARY
E-commerce has become an integral part of the modern life style. As a symbol of globalization
and advancement of information technology, it represents the cutting edge of success in this

digital world. More than 70 per cent of the Indian lives in rural area, thus the involvement of
rural people may affect the faith and progress of ecommerce related industries. Their low income
level, educational level and poor infrastructure could be challenging part for E-commerce in rural
India. The percentage of Indian e-commerce space is getting higher as more and more online
retailers enter the market. Major Indian portal sites have also shifted towards e-commerce instead
of depending on advertising revenue. The research attempts to highlight the future of ecommerce by consideration the condition of its mass rural areas.
Trends in the Industry:
- Feminization of the Industry
- Mounting Social Media
- M-commerce A new wave!
- Online Group Buying Explosive growth!
- After VCs, Now Celebrities
- Change in the Business Model
- Hiring the best
The Industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40%, from US $ 5.9 billion in 2010 to US $ 34.2
billion in 2015E. As Indian e-commerce market is in nascent stage but it will surely amplify in
years to come. Though there are some weak links, with improvements in technology, they will be
ironed out, making the e-commerce easy, convenient and secure. This report includes the
challenges and future scope in E-commerce in India. It also states the current scenario the
demand for E-commerce.

INTRODUCTION:
India has experience remarkable growth in information technology and e-commerce. The online
market is offering different goods and service ranging from tour and travels, movies, hotel

reservation, matrimonial service, electronic gadget, fashion accessories and groceries. According
to the e-bay census guide 2011, India is home to 3311 e-commerce hubs, 1267 rural hubs, 391
export hubs and 2217 import hubs. Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) is a means of do-ing
business through networks of computer. Advances in tel-ecommunication and computer
technologies in recent years have made computer networks an integral part of the eco-nomic
infrastructure.

FACILITATORS OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA:

Information directories are provided in the e-commerce web-site, with the list of product and
services with sub headings to make it easy for serious information seeker to find the need of the
customer. Allied services are also provided with mes-sage boards, review of products by the
consumer, chat room etc. Shopping in online follows payment system of cash on delivery, but in
the rural and remote areas payment is made through either internet banking or mobile banking or
debit card. Facilities for credit cards are still not available in many rural areas. From a buzzword
to a current-day reality, e-commerce in India has been experiencing remarkable growth,
successfully changing the way people transact.
People today can shop literally everywhere within minutes, be it their workstations or homes,
and most importantly, at any time of the day at their leisure. The online market space in the
country is burgeoning in terms of offerings ranging from travel, movies, hotel reservations and
books to the likes of matrimonial services, electronic gadgets, fashion accessories and even
groceries. India is home to 3,311 e-commerce hubs, 1,267 rural hubs, 391 export hubs and 2,217
import hubs1. To capitalise on the anticipated growth potential, a host of investors, including
venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms, are closely eyeing opportunities in ecommerce start-ups. At the same time, the sector is witnessing a swathe of consolidation owing
to various mergers and acquisitions. However, industry experts believe this is just the start of the
e-commerce wave in India. The growing penetration of technology facilitators such as Internet
connections, broadband and third generation (3G) services, laptops, smartphones, tablets and
dongles, coupled with increasing acceptance of the idea of virtual shopping, is set to drive the ecommerce eco-system. The e-commerce story in India would surely witness a new world of
digitalisation in the coming decade, with a host of start-ups emerging to compete with existing
players in order to draw benefits from the new and existing markets.

STATUS OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA

India has an internet user base of about 250.2 million as of June 2014. The penetration of ecommerce is low compared to markets like the United States and the United Kingdom but is
growing at a much faster rate with a large number of new entrants.
India's e-commerce market was worth about $3.8 billion in 2009, it went up to $12.6 billion in
2013. In 2013, the e-retail market was worth US$ 2.3 billion. About 70% of India's e-commerce
market is travel related. India has close to 10 million online shoppers and is growing at an
estimated 30% .Electronics and Apparel are the biggest categories in terms of sales.
Key drivers in Indian e-commerce are:

Increasing broadband Internet (growing at 20% MoM) and 3G penetration.

Rising standards of living and a burgeoning, upwardly mobile middle class with high
disposable incomes

Availability of much wider product range (including long tail and Direct Imports)
compared to what is available at brick and mortar retailers

Busy lifestyles, urban traffic congestion and lack of time for offline shopping

Lower prices compared to brick and mortar retail driven by disintermediation and
reduced inventory and real estate costs

Increased usage of online classified sites, with more consumer buying and selling secondhand goods

Evolution of the online marketplace model with sites like Jabong.com, Flipkart,
Snapdeal, and Infibeam.

Major Indian portal sites have also shifted towards e-commerce instead of depending on
advertising revenue. Many sites are now selling a diverse range of products and services from
flowers, greeting cards, and movie tickets to groceries, electronic gadgets, and computers. With
stock exchanges coming online the time for true e-commerce in India has finally arrived. On the
negative side there are many challenges faced by e-commerce sites in India. The relatively small
credit card population and lack of uniform credit agencies create a variety of payment challenges
unknown in India. Delivery of goods to consumer by couriers and postal services is not very
reliable in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. However, many Indian Banks have put the

Internet banking facilities. The speed post and courier system has also improved tremendously in
recent years.

Scenerio of E-ccommerce till 2013.

ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE
E-commerce provides multiple benefits to the consumers in form of availability of goods at
lower cost, wider choice and saves time. People can buy goods with a click of mouse button
without moving out of their house or office. Similarly online services such as banking, ticketing
(including airlines, bus, railways), bill payments, hotel booking etc. have been of tremendous
benefit for the customers. The Indian e-commerce portals also provide goods and services in a
variety of categories like apparel and accessories for men and women, health and beauty
products, books and magazines, computer

and peripherals, vehicles, software, consumer

electronics, household appliances, jewelry, audio and videos, entertainment, goods, gift articles,
real estate and services.

CHALLENGES IN E-COMMERCE
There are some barriers from which companies have to be aware of ecommerce business.
Hamilton (2002) indicate some barriers in using e-commerce, including no perceived benefit,
lack of trust, security problems, lack of skills, cost etc. These factors combine to mean that there
is a significant group in each national population of around a third of the adult population in UK
does not envisaged ever using the internet. The lack of demand for internet service from this
group needs to be taken into account when forecasting future demand.
E-commerce system have to be reliable to protect the interest of the customer, secured payment
should be implemented to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information. There may be
situation while imposing import duties and tax to foreign products, which may hamper the inflow
of economic activities. The expectation of a customer by seeing the product through virtual
screen may be different from the actual. Nowadays ecommerce retailer like Myntra has given
option for trial facility.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF SNAPDEAL

Snapdeal.com is an online marketplace, headquartered in New Delhi, India. The company was
started by Kunal Bahl, a Wharton graduate as part of the dual degree M&T Engineering and
Business program at Penn, and Rohit Bansal, an alumnus of IIT Delhi in February 2010.
Snapdeal.com was started in February 2010 as a daily deals platform inspired by Groupon.com
but expanded in September 2011 to become an online marketplace. Snapdeal has grown to
become the largest online marketplace in India offering an assortment of 4 million+ products
across diverse categories from over 20,000 sellers, shipping to 4,000 towns and cities in India.
Snapdeal.com is an online marketplace, featuring a wide assortment of products across
categories like Mobiles, Electronics, Fashion accessories, Apparel, Sports, Books; and services
like Restaurants, Spas & Entertainment amongst others.

With over 18 million members, Snapdeal.com is the shopping destination for millions of internet
users across the country.
Snapdeal features the Best Deals on products and services at unbeatable prices. We are a onestop-shop website for the best stuff to do, see, eat, feel and buy in your city. Our company
philosophy is very simple; we treat our customers the way we like to be treated. Snapdeal lets
you buy products and services online from across the country. What more than shopping and
gifting to your friends from Snapdeal.com? There it is, go bonkers!

Funding
Snapdeal has received 6 rounds of funding:
Round 1: In January 2011, Snapdeal received a funding of $12 million from Nexus Venture
Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners.
Round 2: In July 2011, the company raised a further $45 million from Bessemer Venture
Partners, along with existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Indo-US Venture Partners.
Round 3: Snapdeal then raised a 3rd round of funding worth $50 million from eBay and received
participation from existing investors i.e. Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture and
IndoUS Venture Partners.
Round 4: Snapdeal received its 4th round of funding of $133 million on Feb-2014. The 4th round
of funding was led by eBay with all the current institutional investors, including Kalaari Capital,
Nexus Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, Intel Capital and Saama Capital all
participating.
Round 5: Snapdeal received its 5th round of funding of $105 million in May-2014. The 5th
round included investments by Blackrock, Temasek Holdings, PremjiInvest and others.[9] The
round valued SnapDeal at $1,000,000,000.
Round 6: Snapdeal received its 6th round of funding in Oct-2014 from Softbank with
investments worth $627 million in fresh capital.This makes SoftBank the largest investor in
Snapdeal.
Acquisitions

In June 2010, Snapdeal acquired Bangalore-based group buying site, Grabbon.com.

In April 2012, Snapdeal acquired esportsbuy.com, an online sports goods retailer based
out of Delhi.

In May 2013, Snapdeal acquired Shopo.in, an online marketplace for Indian handicraft
products.

Business Results
In the year 2012-13 Snapdeal had said that it expected revenues of about INR600 crore (US$97
million). Betting big on the growth of mobile commerce, Kunal Bahl, the CEO of Snapdeal, said
at the time that 15-20 per cent of the sales on Snapdeal came through m-commerce.
Snapdeal.com expected the total sale of products traded on its platform to cross INR2000 crore
(US$320 million) in the fiscal year 2013-14 helped by its robust growth in the past two years and
the growing popularity of e-commerce in India. In June 2014, Snapdeal announced that it had
achieved the milestone of 1000 sellers on its plarform getting sales of over Rs 1 crore.
CSR
In June 2011, Shiv Nagar, a village located in Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh State,
India, named after the Hindu god Shiva, became SnapDeal.com Nagar (nagar means town), after
Snapdeal had installed 15 hand pumps, so villagers no longer have to walk for miles to fetch
drinking water. There was no source of potable water in the village before. The villagers voted to
name their hamlet after Snapdeal to express their gratitude.
SNAPDEAL, RECENT ACTIVITIES AND RURAL MARKET
In its ongoing race with Flipkart and Amazon India for e-commerce supremacy, Snapdeal is set
to tap into the rural areas in India. In partnership with FINO PayTech, Snapdeal will reach out to
people living in slums like Dharavi in Mumbai, and villages in Rajasthan and Haryana.
The e-commerce company plans to set up as many as 5,000 e-commerce kiosks across 70,000
rural areas in India. These kiosks will include PCs and tablets for people to go online and shop,
and will also act as collection points for packages. A FINO agent at the kiosk will login and help
people shop for products across a wide range of categories including speakers, juicers, solar
lanterns, diner sets, cameras and mobile phones among others. They belived that by tapping rural
market they will able to create new 5-7 crore customers.
Snapdeal has been on a roll recently, having raised $627 million (approximately Rs 3,845 crore)
from Japan-based Softbank. The company said that it would be using this investment to ramp up
its supply chain and technology efforts. It will also increase its fulfillment centers to 30 cities.

Snapdeal isnt the only company looking to tap into the Indian rural market. Amazon India is
reported to be in talks with the government to improve the Indian Postal service, and also use to
ramp up its delivery mechanism to within 24 hours anywhere within the country.

E-COMMERCE FOR RURAL MARKET

Its an exciting time for us rural players as the e-Commerce market has started gaining
momentum in Rural India. Rural India has climbed on to the e-commerce bandwagon and are
competing with its urban counterpart to shop or sell smart gadgets. Be it GPS holders, smart
phones, laptops or tablets, netizens in smaller villagers are trading in electronics on eBay.in just
like any suave urban consumer.
Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, Choryasi in Gujarat, Kartikapall in Kerala, Villupuram in Tamil
Nadu and Dindori in Madhya Pradesh have emerged as top five rural hubs for ecommerce,
according to eBay Census 2012. Consumers from across 3,281 urban pockets shopped online
between July and December 2012 while almost half the numbers from rural India got online to
shop or sell. Rural consumers have been exporting natural diamonds, ethnic wear, temporary
tattoos, crystals and importing smart phones, wrist watches, GPS holders, solar energy panels
and laptops.
A lot of rural artisans are taking up to online avenues to promote and sell their merchandise. A
good example would be block printers from distant villages of Kachchh in Gujarat are often seen
tying up with NGOs for selling their creations online. Progressive thinkers in villages even think
that this mode has opened up opportunities for women to trade the produce online. Now lets
imagine a scenario on these lines. Internet can deliver the latest trends in global textile
production to the womens fingertips; it can show her who is buying her woven products, which
can inform her of design choices; it can introduce her to new systems of efficiency, production
and sales. By mastering internet skills, they may even attempt her own textile business outside of
the partnering NGOs umbrella. By connecting her directly to her customers, the internet can put
all the strings of production and sales, for the first time, into her hands. The flip side, unless she
is targeted as an internet user and trained appropriately, she will most likely remain in the cloud
of gobetweens.

Lets look at the consumers angle now. Indias projected 330 to 370 million internet users by
2015 will make it the second largest internet population in the world. There are over 16 million
internet users in the small towns of India with a population of less than 2 lakhs. Most
interestingly, rural India has seen an over 600 per cent rise in the number of active internet users
in the span of the last 3 years. The boom in internet users has been further fuelled by the
introduction of internet on mobile. In FY 12 13, 16 per cent of internet traffic in India was
from mobile phones. What then stops a rural consumer from ordering online from the
convenience of his home? One hurdle could be the lack of online payment tools like net-banking
or credit / debit cards at the disposal of rural consumers. But the scenario is changing fast there
too, with companies like Sahaj pursuing Financial Inclusion aggressively.
As per a report by Economist Intelligence Unit, even in India, where merely 1.6 per cent of the
GDP is attributed to the rise of internet, the e-Commerce industry is expected to get as large as
the Healthcare Industry today. Power in the hands of consumers through mobile internet is
considered to be the key driver. India is believed to have 23.8 million individuals who access
internet on their mobile phones. About 1 million from this number, accesses the internet
exclusively using data connection on their mobile phones. It is not very surprising then that 77
per cent of this fraction of exclusive mobile internet users lives in rural India.
Trends of sales by E-Commerce:

Source: Forrester

PROSPECTS IN E-COMMERCE:
A retailer can save his existence by linking his business with the on-line distribution. By doing
so, they can make available much additional information about various things to the consumers,
meet electronic orders and be in touch with the consumers all the time. Therefore, E-Commerce
is a good opportunity.
In the world of Ecommerce the existence of the wholesalers is at the greatest risk because the
producer can easily ignore them and sell their goods to the retailers and the consumers. In such a
situation those wholesalers can take advantage of E-Commerce who are capable of establishing
contractors with reputed producers and linking their business with the on- line.
Producers can take advantages of e-commerce by linking themselves with on-line, by giving
better information about their products to the other links in the business chain and by a having a
brand identity. As more people are getting linked with E-commerce, the demand for centre
providing internet facility or cyber cafe is also increasing. Hence, the people who wish to take
advantage of it can establish cyber and have their benefits.
There are also some essential factors which will significantly contribute to the boom of the eCommerce industry in India i.e. replacement guarantee, M-Commerce services, location based
services, multiple payment option, right content, shipment option, legal requirement of
generating invoices for online transactions, quick Service, T & C should be clear & realistic, the
product quality should be same as shown on the portal, dedicated 24/7 customer care centre
should be there.

THREATS INVOLVED IN E-COMMERCE

E-commerce has forever revolutionized the way business is done. Retail has now a long way
from the days of physical transactions that were time consuming and prone to errors. E
commerce services are about transactions, and transactions are very largely driven by money.
This attracts hackers, crackers and everyone with the knowledge of exploiting loopholes in a
system. Once a kink in the armor is discovered, they feed the system (and users) with numerous
bits of dubious information to extract confidential data (phishing). This is particularly dangerous

as the data extracted may be that of credit card numbers, security passwords, transaction details
etc. Also, Payment gateways are vulnerable to interception by unethical users. Cleverly crafted
strategies can sift a part or the entire amount being transferred from the user to the online vendor.
Hackers often gain access to sensitive information like user accounts, user details, addresses,
confidential personal information etc. It is a significant threat in view of the privileges one can
avail with a false identity. Viruses, worms, Trojans are very deceptive methods of stealing
information. Unless a sound virus protection strategy is used by the e-commerce Solutions firm,
these malicious agents can compromise the credibility of all e-commerce web solution services.
Often planted by individuals for reasons known best to them alone, viruses breed within the
systems and multiply at astonishing speeds. Unchecked, they can potentially cripple the entire
system.

COD-A FANTASY IN RURAL AREAS

Talking of product delivery, eCommerce companies struggle to reach the unreachables in many
remote areas including many states in Northeast India due to poor transportation facility.
Moreover with more than half of the online sales being dependent on COD and unavailability of
third party logistics services in rural areas, online retailers in order to satisfy complete their PanIndia network, use private courier services which then doesnt allow companies to accept COD the only successor of Indian eCommerce industry.
Payments is the biggest challenge while selling in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. A majority of
population living outside urban areas do not have any bank cards to pay with, and those who do
have, are not very comfortable using them. So card payments in those areas arent going to
generate much traction unless and until you innovate payments in such a way where you the
money beforehand.
India Post however, is one such delivery service that promises to deliver Pan-India and that too
on COD. But how efficient their services are, is the real question here. Despite having a huge
coverage the service is not the preferred service by the eCommerce players.

So there are several logistics, operational and technological challenges when it comes to reaching
the consumers living in rural areas.

EXAMAPLE FOR RURAL MARKET INITIATIVE

1. Madanapalle Retail Pvt. Ltd, a business enterprise in Andhra Pradesh is introducing a
new retail model, FabMart.com, which intends to focus on the demand-supply need of
retail of the rural part of India.
The model FabMart.com, named RU-BAN desires to promote the social fabric of small
town by integrating it with their retail business, so as to empower the rural customers.
The products which are mostly offered in big cities will be presented in rural market with
diverse choice in products.
The retailers book the orders from their customers using the tablet device. The customer
returns in a few days to collect the product, thereby eliminating concerns around security
of online transactions or the use of credit cards, creating a win-win situation for
FabMart.com, the retailer, the brand owner and the consumer.
FabMart.com currently exists in more than 20 towns in Andhra Pradesh and is setting up
high to welcome more than 500 franchisees across the state this year. This number is
expected to go up to 2,500 by 2013 and further, to 12,000 franchisees by end of 2014.
Besides the expansion in Andhra Pradesh, FabMart.com is also setting eyes on
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and ultimately across India.
2. Drishtee is an India based business that provides information technology goods and
services to rural India through village kiosks that are run and managed by local
entrepreneurs. These kiosks are developed using a franchise and partnership model.
Some of the services provided by Drishtee include computer education, English courses,
rural BPO, government services, health, insurance, e-commerce, microfinance etc.
Through its low cost, direct delivery network of over 2,400 kiosks, Drishtee has impacted
the lives of over 1.5 Million people in rural India.[citation needed] One of Drishtee's
primary objectives is to empower rural communities by supporting local entrepreneurship

and thus helping to stem the distress migration of people from rural to urban parts of the
country. In its effort to bring critical services to rural India, which is home for more than
60% of the country's population,
From the above information and two example we can say that there definitely is a need for an eCommerce portal for rural consumers and the need is rising by the day. What matters is bringing
the right mix of availability and convenience for this huge market comprising of 76 per cent of
the countrys population.

RURAL REGION OFFERS EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES TO THE E-COMMERCE

LANDSCAPE:
Companies from rural India have started understanding the growth potential from this sector, and
are accordingly incorporating e-commerce activities in their business models. The unavailability
of attractive offline channels in under-developed cities has encouraged the brand-aware
population to shop online. According to the, around 3,311 Indian cities were engaged in online
shopping between July 2010 and June 2011, of which over 1,267 were non-metro cities. This
reflects how e-commerce has helped in overcoming the discrimination factor across cities,
facilitating access for consumers from smaller towns to the same branded and quality products
which earlier were a distant dream. Companies are working towards providing more online
content in regional languages to tap the niche consumer base. While majority of the Internet
population use the English language-based platform while surfing, offering content in local
languages such Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil might widen the target audience. Going
forward, the rural population is well positioned to reap the benefits from the available low-cost
technology platforms, efficient logistics management, increasing vernacular content and secured
payment modes.

COMPANIES IN THE SECTOR HAVE BEEN CONSTANTLY INNOVATING:

The e-commerce sector in India is estimated to have hundreds of players. To capture a larger pie
of the growing Indian e-commerce market, most of these e-tailers are constantly innovating,
increasing their offerings and providing better deals. The trend in the e-commerce segment is
that most of the e-tailers start with a single product and later diversify their product portfolio
with multiple offerings. Notably, the market leader Flipkart.com broadened its offerings with
various products such as mobile phones, computers, movies, music, baby products and stationery
from its initial set-up of selling books online.

Furthermore, Snapdeal.com, the second largest e-commerce company that began operations as an
online group discounting site in 2010, got converted into a marketplace with thousands of
products. In order to survive, e-commerce players need to make a quick turnaround and minimise
fixed costs as much as possible. Accordingly, different companies are resorting to different
business models. Nevertheless, operating in a highly competitive environment with very low
margins is not an easy job.

COMPANIES ARE RESORTING TO DIFFERENT STRATEGIC MODELS:

Overall, the e-commerce sector is still considered to be in its nascent stage with newer business
models yet to be tested. While some companies such as Flipkart and Snapdeal have a horizontal
business model with varied offerings, other portals such as Zivame, BigBasket and FirstCry are
having vertical business models with specialised product offering. Companies are even
differentiated on the basis of their distribution network. Some of the large players such as
Flipkart, Naaptol and Myntra are building their own warehouse and supply chain logistics with
huge investments, while others such as Indiaplaza use a third-party supply network. In addition,
the business model adopted by companies such as eBay is of providing a platform for third-party
transactions, wherein a seller sells various products to registered users. This way, the company
saves on building an inventory.

THE SECTOR WOULD

BOTTLENECKS:

BENEFIT

FROM

RESOLVING

THE

VARIOUS

E-commerce giants are making huge investments in developing their own distribution networks
as delivering charges form a major component of the product cost ranging between USD1.0
4.0 per item. The huge investments will yield benefits in the medium-to-long term as ecommerce companies would be able to leverage upon a larger customer base. Improved
distribution system is expected to reduce the average turnaround time for delivering a product to
12 days from 45 days previously. Furthermore, quicker delivery time coupled with the rising
emphasis ascribed to customers would improve the customer retention rate. Retaining an existing
customer is more profitable for a company since acquiring a new customer; on average costs
USD15.020.0. Moreover, going forward as the sector undergoes consolidation, this cost is
ought to decline further as fundamentally weaker companies would lose out to established
players. Also, bottleneck arising out of regulatory and taxation issues with respect to movement
of products between states is being addressed supporting the e-commerce growth story.

GOVERNMENT DECISION TO DISALLOW FDI IN E-COMMERCE TO HELP

INDIAN E-COMMERCE FIRMS:
The Indian government has restricted foreign companies from selling their products in India
through the online medium. This regulation safeguards Indian companies against competition
from global leaders such as Amazon. The restriction is also extended to foreign retail companies
that have entered India. However, in the longer term, Indian companies have to evolve and shield
themselves not only from their Indian counterparts but also from the global e-commerce giants as
the government might allow FDI in the segment. Eyeing on the vast opportunity, Amazon has
already entered the Indian market through Junglee.com. In addition, it has even got approval
from the government to build large warehouses to stock third-party goods. Strategic moves such
as these would support its expansion plans once FDI is allowed. Moreover, the governments
plan to interlink every panchayat (village council) of the country through high-speed broadband
service by 2014 would aid the sectors growth. Also, government organisations increasing
reliance on the e-commerce methodology for their money-related transactions would help the
upward trend.

THE PROMISING E-COMMERCE SEGMENT:

Size of the total e-commerce market in India is estimated to expand at a CAGR of about 40.0 per
cent during 201020 to USD200.0 billion5. Likewise, India is expected to record the highest
growth in the Asia Pacific region during 2012166. The trend would shift with the online retail
segment contributing equally to the total market size, considering it is expected to grow
significantly in the coming years. The B2C segment would continue to lead the e-commerce
market, thanks to the budding Indian Internet population, supporting demographics, ease of
payment modes and customer-centric innovative policies. In the coming decade, we expect the
sector to offer much more revolutionary practices such as transacting with the help of Mobile
money, and having access to virtual trial rooms. Continue shopping online as the sector is set to
mature.
MY OPINION:
Rural market is an untapped market and E-commerce is an emerging trend for rural market scope
for the companies is wide and huge for entering in by E-commerce.
Today e-commerce has become an integral part of everyday life. Accessibility to e-commerce
platforms is not a privilege but rather a necessity for most people, particularly in the urban areas.
There are alternative e-commerce platforms available (instead of the traditional physical
platforms) for almost every aspect of our lives, starting from purchasing of everyday household
items to online brokerage. Mail order or catalogue shopping has been in existence in the United
States since 1980. This was the predecessor of online commerce, which started in India post

2000. Today the number of internet users in the world is more than 2 billion. Out of this, India
has a total of 13.30 million broadband connections.
This penetration of internet coupled with the increasing confidence of the internet users to
purchase online, has led to nearly 40% of such users (which is close of 7.4 million users)
purchasing products.
It is not surprising; therefore, that India is in a prime position for the growth and development of
the e-commerce sector. In particular, e-commerce presents one of the greatest opportunities in
the retail sector since it provides a dramatic change from brick and mortar establishments to
virtual shops which could operate for a fraction of the cost.

CONCLUSION:
Due to the development of information technology and internet, the world market has converted
toward e-marketing and business. But the low literacy rate in the country is the basic hurdle for
the rapid growth of e-commerce; even the educated people are not able to handle i-phone, laptop
and desktop with cyber technology. Many players of e-commerce still failed to reach many
remote areas including the states of North East India. The benefit of e-commerce is available
only to the capital district of the state except Assam. This may be due to the transportation
facility and courier services are rarely available except speed post which is also facing many
problems to reach the unreachable. Unavailability of 3G service and broadband is still a question
in many rural areas of the country for the development of e-commerce.