With an aim of promoting interests of 5.77 crore small businesses, an online portal 'e-lala' was today launched to promote business-to-business and trader-to-customer transactions and reduce costs.
Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu inaugurated 'e-lala', an e-commerce portal of Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).
Naidu complimented CAIT for e-lala initiative which is aimed at promoting the interests of 5.77 crore small businesses in the context of rapid expansion of e-commerce in the country.
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He said online shoppers in the country are expected to increase from 34 million in 2014 to 100 million in 2016 and e-commerce has grown manifold from Rs 3,600 cr in 2011 to Rs 53,000 cr in 2015.
By leveraging digital technology under e-lala initiative, he said the emerging global threat from e-commerce to small traders could be addressed with proper outreach and marketing strategies.
E-lala, a city and location based portal, seeks to promote business-to-business and trader-to-customer transactions in a city and thereby eliminating middlemen and resulting in reduced cost of goods and services.
E-lala's distinctive features include a speciality corner promoting unique products associated with each city, an inquiry corner enabling consumers post their enquiries for a particular product which will be responded to in 24 hours and an artisans corner enabling artisans and entrepreneurs display their products.
According to CAIT, e-lala enables physical stores to have their own online stores enabling them to retain their customer base besides additional source of growth in business. Since it is a city-based portal with involvement of only local traders, choosing an object becomes easy for consumers.
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"We are eyeing presence in 100 cities and 50,000 sellers by March. E-lala will not have any warehouse. The delivery will be managed by the sellers," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said.
"e-lala will help bring down transport and transaction cost. There will be no middlemen in between, so goods can be sourced and sold locally eliminating corruption," Naidu said.
MasterCard and HDFC Bank are supporting the venture for providing seamless digital payment solutions through the portal.
"This is a marketplace and a portal, which will enable all of the 6 crore base members to have the opportunity, to have their produce and services online for every consumer to be able to purchase somewhere," Co-President for Asia/Pacific at MasterCard Ari Sarker told
