The growing popularity of smartphones and the Internet in India has become the perfect background for the development of the e-commerce market. Bearing in mind that e-commerce sales amounted to $16 billion in 2015, and this figure is forecasted to be seven times bigger by 2020, companies strive to enter the market and win leading positions (“Online Retailing in India: The Great Race” par. 3). This paper will study the most influential companies in the e-commerce segment of the Indian market and speculate on the possibility of coming into it.
The Indian e-commerce market is an emerging one. The history of its development is short. Starting from 2012, the rates of sales are increasing fantastically from $2,3 billion to the current 16 billion (“Statistics and Facts About E-Commerce in India” par. 2). As for now, the leaders of the Indian e-commerce market are such companies as Flipkart, Myntra, Snapdeal, Amazon India, and Paytm. It should be mentioned that the top three online retailers (Flipkart, Snapdeal, and Amazon India) have surpassed the top ten offline retailers in their revenues in 2015 (Maheshwari par. 8).
The primary reason for such spectacular growth of this segment is the rapid introduction of the newest technologies to the everyday life of common citizens and the transition towards online shopping.
The leader of the market is Flipkart launched in 2014 including Myntra acquired in 2014. The company’s market share is 45% (Maheshwari par. 8). It is an online retailer offering more than 20 million products across 70 categories such as accessories, baby care, laptops, clothes, books, footwear, home, and kitchen, etc. (Khanna and Sampat 70). The key to the company’s success is its presence outside the biggest cities, i.e. nationwide coverage of deliveries, 30-day return policy, various payment methods, and offering the same-day guarantees for their products. The second biggest company is Snapdeal with 26% of the market (Maheshwari par. 8).
It is also an online marketplace. Its success is devoted to the website translated into seven languages, which attracts more customers, and has its own mobile payment company (“Statistics and Facts About E-Commerce in India” par 18, 22). Amazon India with 12% of the market share in the third leader (Maheshwari par. 8). It is the branch of the international company, Amazon. Except for being the online retailer, it is the platform for e-commerce relations offering various financial services to other companies (Khanna and Sampat 71). Finally, Paytm is a company specializing in e-wallet services. Its market share in the sector of online payments is nearly 70% (Shu par. 10).
The primary idea behind creating it was the desire to eliminate the cash element in the e-commerce market. So, the Indian e-commerce market is characterized by different business models adopted by the leading companies, which realize that being unique is the key to attracting new customers.
Another e-giant is Alibaba. Just like Amazon, it is an international company. However, it comes from China (“E-Commerce in Emerging Market: India Online” par. 2). The primary difference of Alibaba from the companies mentioned above is its focus on integrating the remote areas into a national e-commerce network by building regional service centers for making orders, picking up deliveries, and paying for them (“Online Retailing in India: The Great Race” par. 8). However, the company is only planning to enter the Indian market. As for now, it is an investor in big Indian companies such as Paytm (Kochar par. 4).
In conclusion, it should be said that Alibaba’s strategy is the best one for entering the Indian market. The service is already popular in India because it offers cheap products. So, if the company decides to develop the e-commerce infrastructure in the most distant areas, it will lead to success because other firms concentrate on bigger cities. Another way to enter the market is to acquire one of the leaders. So, there are only two strategies for coming into this segment – either merge a leader or become one by focusing on the customers.
Works Cited
E-Commerce in Emerging Market: India Online. 2016. Web.
Khanna, Preeti, and Brinda Sampat. “Factors Influencing Online Shopping During Diwali Festival 2014: Case Study of Flipkart and Amazon.In.” Journal of International Technology and Information Management, 24.2 (2015): 65-III. Print.
Kochar, Ritu. Another Big Player to Enter Indian E-Commerce Market? . 2016. Web.
Online Retailing in India: The Great Race. 2016. Web.
Shu, Catherine. Paytm’s Founder on Its Online-to-Offline Strategy in India. 2015. Web.