It's late afternoon on a Sunday . and you are in the middle of IPL's final match between Rajasthan Royals and King's Punjab XI, and the wife reminds you that you have to go shopping. However bored you are, you know that it's month end and you are left with no choice but to go shopping. You switch on your laptop, visit at least three retail outlets' online shopping portals, shop for the best prices, and all this without missing even a single Shane Warne delivery to Yuvraj Singh.
Online retailing or e-tailing has been a distant concept in India , except in the travel and ticketing sector. The Future Group has been an early mover while others such as Reliance Retail, RPG Cellcom, and Tata Woolworths are gearing up to launch their own online shopping portals.
Importantly , smaller players such as Vishal Retail, Subhiksha and Spinach too are seriously looking at e-tailing as a future revenue generator. Says R Subramanian, MD, Subhiksha, "We are investing Rs 12 crore into this venture and expect 3-4 % of total business coming from online. We'll deliver across 400 towns we are present in."
Other than shopping the website will be designed to provide buyers with information such as new store opening, offers and promotions and so on. Vishal Retail is also looking at internet shopping, confirms its MD Ramesh Chandra Agarwal, "We plan to launch our online shopping portal in the next 4-5 months, and have already appointed a person to head the new venture."
He says prices on the portal will be 5-15 % lower than what a consumer pays in their stores. Figures released by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) state that the ecommerce market is expected to reach the Rs 9,210 crore mark by the end of 2007-08 , a growth of 30% over the current year.
Online is the largest contributor to the B2C e-commerce industry at Rs 5,500 crore for the year 2006-07 and is expected to rise to Rs 7,000 crore by the end of 2007-08 . Etailing stands at Rs 850 crore in the year 2006-07 and contributes maximum to the on-line nontravel industry. It is expected to be Rs 1,105 crore by end 2007-08 .
Reliance Retail is on the verge of rolling out its integrated e-tailing website that will include Reliance Fresh, Digital, Trendz and other verticals. The company will set up its own call centre and a separate team for it, says Ajay Baijal, president, Reliance Digital: "Cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Pune are going Wi-Fi and we see a massive opportunity here for online shopping."
Speciality mobile retail store chain RPG Cellcom too is making its on-line foray soon. Its marketing head Bishwajeet Pandey says, "The prices on-line will be no different from our store price, and we plan to charge a little extra for home delivery."
The challenges in replicating the success of physical stores online are very different, and retailers are eyeing a different set of value adds and experience to hook customers. Some are planning to introduce virtual shopping , where the customer can get a feel of moving around in a mall, and can click on the items he/she wants to buy.
Mumbai-based Spinach is among those looking at virtual shopping. Says its CEO Pushpamitra Das, "There's big business in on-line retailing and it's still untapped in India. We're planning a virtual shopping experience which will be launched very soon."
Retailers have begun viewing IT as one of the areas, which could strengthen their market position, and market share thereby. Most of the spending would be in supply chain management , point of sale systems, strategic merchandising and facilitating customer relationships.
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