India's e-commerce market that had a valuation of USD 13.6 billion in 2014; is all set to hit USD 76 Billion by the year 2021.
This forecast by e-Tailing India offers a good gist of how fast is the country's pace in the e-commerce segment. Apart from burgeoning internet users, emerging startups in this sector are the driving factor behind this exponential growth. The evolving eco-system of startups in the country is proffering a massive dynamics in the e-commerce industry. New business models, innovation in marketing and new tactics of distribution are mushrooming across the industry. E-commerce startups are achieving success in capturing a share of the market through new models of business, which are primarily directed towards solving challenges faced by customers as well as service providers. By offering amicable ways to customers, new startup businesses have introduced themselves as fundamental variables in the demand-supply equation of the e-commerce industry.
"New technologies have brought a paradigm shift in e-commerce. Analytics, social commerce, autonomous vehicles and other new technology platforms have become the riding engines for startup businesses," said Divyan Gupta of artanddecors.com.
Using these methodologies, new companies are able to personalise their features in accordance with customer requirements. Technology has been the most leveraged aspect in the emergent e-commerce market of India. New business models aided by technology features have introduced a set of fundamental changes in the way business occurs in the industry.
The technology eco-system of the country has also enabled the profusion of new ideas in the e-commerce industry. It is evident that, mass scale adoption of smartphones and internet connectivity is the basic reason of growing E-commerce industry of the country. The rate of penetration of internet in the country is among the fastest in the globe and smart phones contribute 35 percent of the total mobile market of the nation. Technology and e-commerce are in fact connected phenomenon and startups have leveraged this aspect the most.
New enterprises are introducing a fundamental change in the e-commerce landscape through intensive technologies.
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"Use of Cloud services, transition of businesses to mobile application and digital advertisements in web domains comprise the primary traits of a changing e-commerce industry," said Gupta.
Leveraging these technologies, startup e-commerce companies are introducing innovative features in their business models.
Community building on social media, personalisation of business on the level of mobile platforms and sharing economy are some of the pertinent aspects of the new face of e-commerce.
New enterprises moving into e-commerce segment has revolutionised the approach towards running a business. Startups are driven towards customer satisfaction and specialised services. With innovative and clutter breaking ideas, new business verticals are being created, which in return, facilitated a rise of new shopping experiences for customers. An array of new business models are being created in the Industry to gain customers' attention. Inventory models, social network, aggregator model, transaction brokers, click and collect services are heating up the market offering new competitive edges.
"The burgeoning number of market entities has made the segment both crowded and complicated. Along with new business models, new revenue models are also coming up in the business podium. On other hand, keeping at par with the growing competition, startups are pestering on to multiple revenue models. This has made the E-commerce market a cluttered one with a little organization and an almost zero structure," he underlined.
Many new revenue models such as, advertising, subscription model, transaction fee model, sales revenue model, affiliate models and other intuitive business models are coming up in the e-commerce market. Whatever be their thrust on the market dynamics, they are all directed towards a single point of conversion, which is, gaining a competitive edge over other players, ultimately offering larger customer satisfaction and amenities to end users.
"The role of startups is imperative in incurring another fundamental change in the industry, the transition from e-commerce to m-commerce. By the end of this year, mobile share of global e-commerce transactions will grow to 40 percent," predicted Gupta.
With new enterprises along with older players, focusing towards mobile engagement, more applications are coming into the market. Along with this, cross device marketing is emerging as the potential driver of the business.
Observing the traits of growth and profusion of E-commerce in the country, it is observable that the industry is still on a nascent stage in a backdrop of a growing economy. E-commerce has not proliferated across vast expanse of the country.
The industry is still far from reaching its optimal potential across Tier I, Tier II and Tier III cities and the vast gap between demand and supply is pertinent. Therefore, there are still large rooms for startups to grow and contribute to the market.
Leveraging technology, innovative business models and the rapidly growing customer base, existent startups can transform into established businesses with multiplied turnovers and more ventures can come up with more intensive business ideas.
Hence, emerging entities in the market will intensified the mosaic of the E-commerce Industry turning it to be more complicated with the unified and underlying idea of empowering customers.
(The views expressed in the above article are that of Mr. Diwakar Sharma, a journalist based in Mumbai. He can be reached @diwakar_news)
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