Europe, US, and Australia top markets for Indian exporters on eBay

The US, the UK, mainland Europe and Australia are the top markets for Indian sellers that are exporting products through cross-border e-commerce on eBay's platform, a top official said.

Indian sellers have been witnessing strong demand across categories like apparel, fine jewellery, toys, auto parts and accessories and home decor, especially during the holiday season (Thanksgiving to New Year's), eBay India Country Manager Vidmay Naini told PTI.

"Evolving consumer demand and increase in the trust in purchases outside domestic e-commerce reflect a huge market potential that developing countries like India should tap into for e-commerce exports. The US, the UK, mainland Europe and Australia are the top markets Indian sellers are exporting products through cross-border e-commerce," he said.

eBay's CBT (cross border trade) business in India has been in operation for over a decade with an aim to help Indian sellers list and sell merchandise to over 183 million buyers who shop on various global platforms of eBay across the globe, Naini said.

He noted that the overall global e-commerce business ranges around USD 4 trillion (based on data from emarketer.com).

"According to various estimates, the pure B2C cross border e-commerce potential for Indian sellers is approximately USD 1 billion now...The top-shopped categories that Indian sellers have observed during the holiday season sales are clothing, shoes and accessories; toys and games; auto parts and accessories; fine jewellery and watches; and home decor," Naini said.

During the five days window of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Indian sellers experience a spike in the volume of orders and sales, and the holiday shopping continues till Christmas, he said.

Black Friday is celebrated a day after Thanksgiving with retailers wooing potential shoppers with special deals and discounts.

Naini cited data from a survey conducted among its users to state that shoppers have started relying more on digital marketplaces.

He said 31 per cent respondents said they had started holiday shopping before September 30 this year, and 41 per cent said they spent USD 1,000 on holiday gifts and celebrations in 2019. About 62 per cent said they planned to spend the same or more this year.

"Taking into consideration the dynamic change in shoppers behaviour in reference to holiday shopping this year, Indian sellers consider this as a huge opportunity to expand business in foreign markets," he added.

Naini pointed out that among the most popular exports from India via eBay is gold and diamond jewellery, followed by naturopathy and natural remedy products.

"During the lockdown period, the category that saw a significantly high never-seen-before uptick was the WFH Essentials category. In addition to this, it was also observed that a rise in demand during lockdown included new emerging categories such as Origami, home and gardening as well as cooking and baking essentials," he said.

Increase in the demand for other product categories that include virtual reality video games, books, play board games, Lego, etc were observed starting from March, he added.