The Indian retail market is greatly divided up between the unorganised sector, which includes about 13.8 million conventional family run neighbourhood stores and the organised retail sector with a share less than 10%. The organised sector includes all organized brick & mortar stores and online shopping sites. Despite the boom in B2C e-commerce sector in India, majority of Indians continue to have more faith in the neighbourhood brick & mortar stores for shopping as they prefer touching and feeling the products and negotiating discounts over-the-counter, before buying. In India, a great majority of B2C ecommerce retailers, draw customers to shop online by offering bargains such as free delivery, discounts, buy-one-get-one-free and exchange offers. However, many Indian shoppers known to be cost-conscious and conservative as a part of their value system, are generally not attracted into making quick decisions based on promotions and advertisements. Moreover, online shoppers, many-a-times, come across problems concerning product delivery timelines and customer support services. Customers’ perception of risk toward online web sites is aggravated due to the inferior IT set-up used by several e-tailers, resulting in hacking of personal information.
Enter the novel coronavirus which causes a highly infectious disease Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) that has infected more than 4 lakh people worldwide. Since it spreads primarily through contact with an infected person (when they cough or sneeze) or when a person touches a surface that has the virus on it, the best way to guard against it is to stay at home. This has increased online shopping usage, globally. In India, it has led to a rise in the number of FTUs or first-time-ecommerce-users in India, who had been so far inhibited to shop online. The SARS outbreak that infected over 2700 people in 2002, too is known to have dramatically changed people’s shopping habits as they were afraid of shopping outdoors.
This spike in B2C ecommerce in India is of course due to existing online shoppers stocking up on essentials given the coronavirus outbreak and the lockdown imposed by the Government (to check its spread). However it also consists of perhaps two more segments –apart from the one that buys online, regularly. A segment that did not shop online, given the inhibiting factors detailed in the beginning of this article and another segment that up till now, was either ignorant about online shopping or did not have a device or data plan. It would be interesting to check – how many shoppers from these two segments switch to online shopping, even after the coronavirus crises is over.
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETRetail.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETRetail.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.
