Indian e-commerce portal Flipkart recently announced it has clocked U.S. $1 billion in sales. Others such as Snapdeal and Myntra are expected to follow. These figures maybe little when compared to Amazon or eBay, or Facebook’s valuation of WhatsApp, yet they are significant milestones for a country such as India.
For one, they underline genuine Internet users in India, not just fake profiles, trolls, memes, hackers, spammers, Modi followers, and those that regularly spoof Arvind Kejriwal or Rahul Gandhi in the run up to general elections, scheduled to be held in a few weeks time.
There is some serious money to be made in the online space. It is projected that in the next decade India’s e-commerce retail market would amount to U.S. $60 billion. There is growing number of active Internet users in India, and that number is expected to cross 250 million this year.
These users operate their bank accounts, pay bills, purchase insurance, invest and plan travel, all on the Internet. They buy online clothes that usually fit nicely, buy books much cheaper than at stores, music and movie CDs that work fine. Even fresh groceries well within expiry date are more conveniently available on the Internet.
This surge in online shopping is evidenced by shutdown of most music, movie and bookstores in Gurgaon. The only physical DVD stores that continue to do brisk business are those selling pirated copies. Good value for money, decent quality, only illegal. A popular music outlet that existed over many years, closed down recently to offer laundry services.
The owner of the store says, “In a progressive fast growing city like Gurgaon, everybody downloads music from iTunes. And we can’t match the prices.’’ However, he was not worried. He is sure his new business would do well, given disposable incomes floating around in a city such as Gurgaon replete with high earning professionals.
Change does open doors for newer opportunities. It would be wise to debunk any theory that a person’s online usage makes them an anti-social person in any way. It saves them a whole lot of time, that allows face-to-face interactions with friends and family, instead of just liking Facebook posts.
Visiting the bank to book a fixed deposit, for example, would otherwise be a nightmare, negotiating traffic, parking, and sweet-talking insurance agents masquerading as customer relationship managers. Is there any bank manager who has not tried selling an insurance policy when all one wants is a new checkbook or a change of address?
In today’s world, it would also be wise to debunk any theory the Internet makes one lazy, akin to a TV couch potato. Rather, it enables the person to do more with greater efficiency.
Some of the returns and exchange mechanisms of Indian online retailers are still not world class, like Amazon.com. There are some areas where a brick and mortar store seems like a more viable option for some in India, like buying electronics, or high value items. There are harrowing tales of damaged TVs, mobile phones, cameras and laptops that are usually not available for Cash-on-Delivery options. A friend recently narrated that it took almost a month to get a refund on a printer she ordered online that arrived broken.
She was repeatedly told by customer care to send multiple pictures of the item, the courier company assigned to pick up the dysfunctional printer never arrived and finally the refund process itself got lost in a bureaucratic maze.
“It was so difficult to get through on the phone to customer care that I had to call many times. I was always in queue,’’ she said. We castigate government departments for red tape. Private entities can sometimes be worse.
There are many who don’t share the same notion, nonetheless, and prefer online shopping for big-ticket purchases as well.
E-commerce retailers need to trust their customers more, not focus on making money alone. It is about putting in place an effective process that appeases an unhappy customer quickly. Maybe, it is a good idea to allow foreign players more leeway in the market to improve standards and customer deliveries.
There is plenty more that can or should be possible via the virtual world.
The government, for one, can definitely make more efficient use of the Internet. Politicians such as Narendra Modi do. The Aam Aadmi Party does. Lok Sabha candidate Gul Panag kept herself relevant via thousands tweets, even as her movie career nosedived.
So far most online state-backed services are mostly limited to downloading forms, which is not saying much. Any government document, whether passport or driving license involves layers of approvals and interactions that can easily be streamlined online, provided antecedents of an applicant are verified.
Even voting should be possible via a virtual click, thus saving the exchequer huge expenditures and avoiding deployment of security forces on such a large scale to protect voters and voting centers. E-democracy could re-define democracy.
There could be ways to minimize foul play, like it is with online payment gateways that encrypt credit card details. This can only be wishful thinking for now. But who knows. Did anybody imagine the power and reach of the Internet even a decade back?
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Siddharth Srivastava is India correspondent Siliconeer. He is author of "An Offbeat Story," a reality fiction novel. He lives in New Delhi.
