70% e-commerce in India is e-travel

Do you ever contemplate buying your daily provisions online? Or your medicines, maybe? If you don't, you better get ready to do so, for the 'phenomenon' of online shopping is here to stay.

In a discussion during the two-day Digital Summit 2006, organised by the Internet & Mobile Association of India at Mumbai's Grand Maratha Hotel, a panel of speakers talked about the state of the Indian online market.

Deep Kalra, founder and CEO, makemytrip.com, moderated the session. In his speech, Kalra pointed out that e-travel, quite surprisingly, "constitutes 70 per cent of the e-commerce market. With the buying population increasingly preferring to dial up than to queue up, online shopping has become the order of the day."

Talking about his experiences, Kalra said, "When we launched the site, we expected queries about cheap travel services. But we were taken aback as no one visiting our site actually asked for good deals. All they wanted to know is how conveniently they could arrange a trip. The crux of the matter was convenience, not inexpensive travel."

Taking the cue from Kalra, Murugavel Janakiraman, founder CEO, Bharatmatrimony.com Pvt Ltd, said the primary target audience of the online traders stood at 300 million. The onus rests on the traders to cater to this huge population of probable buyers. A note of concern, he said, was that the figure of credit card bankable population stood at a meagre 0.03 per cent.

In a rivetting speech full of humour, K Vaitheeswaran, COO, Fabmall.com, said like any innovation, the idea of online shopping faced many challenges at the outset. People were negative and pooh-poohed the thought away by saying, "Indians never buy anything online."

Deliberating on the probable threat of credit card misuse, the COO said, "The risk of using plastic money online is as risky as using it offline. Online trade, he said, "was the most effective mode of business as it provides the widest choice within the shortest of time. Where else will you get a store bigger than Amazon.com which has on display over 10 million books?"

"The more people stay indoors, the better it is for online trade," Vaitheeswaran added. "I love potholed roads of Bangalore. For, they indirectly goad people to opt for online trade."

The last speaker of the session Anupama Salvi, COO, Avenues.com, took up from where her predecessor had left off and talked about the importance of increasing the number of online merchants. "It is important to have more traders, the buyers are sure to follow." Salvi also focussed on the importance of brand familiarity.

Online trade, she said, should promote common household brands like Shoppers' Stop, Tresorie, Titan, etc to get more and more people into the loop.

Like Vaitheeswaran, Salvi too stressed the need for direct consumer interactivity and stated that evangelising the 'direct to consumer' philosophy would lead to better business.

The session, apart from unfolding some unknown facets of online shopping, suggested ways to usher in a state of existence where convenience will just be a click away.