Ecommerce is changing the rule of shopping in India: Sidharth Pisharoti, Akamai Technologies

1. According to Assocham the Indian e-commerce industry is likely to clock a CAGR of 35% and will cross the $100-billion mark in value over the next five years. What according to you are the driving factors for such growth?

A combination of factors is driving growth in the Indian e-commerce Industry. E-commerce as a business model, provides undisputable control and access to consumers. People in tier II and tier III cities can now purchase goods that might not be available in brick and mortar stores close to them. In addition, there are frequent online sales and promotions, with goods available an extremely competitive price that are often shipped for free.

This is an advantage that consumers find strong enough to help compensate for the lack of “touch and try” aspect of shopping. The growth wave in the Industry will continue as smartphone adoption continues in the current upward trend. Unlike consumers in many developed nations smartphone is their first computing or Internet device, and is now also becoming affordable. It is also important to note that online commerce business models are evolving at a tremendous pace, bringing new offerings for consumers to indulge in.

For example, if we rewind to a decade ago, booking tickets online (for travel/vacations etc.) started to take off and helped the Indian consumer feel comfortable with transacting online for the first time. From there on, today, consumers buy all sorts of consumer goods, from fashion, to movie tickets, groceries, and ordering taxi services online. There is also continued trust from the venture capital community with investments pouring in the industry.

A challenge that exists in India is that a majority of consumers don’t have access to a credit or debit card, or even a bank account in many cases. Online commerce players solved this puzzle to an extent by providing cash on delivery as an option and now there is also a growth in alternative payment solutions like Paytm.

The e-commerce industry in India is positioned for a strong growth, but there will be challenges on the way for individual e-commerce players, that they will have to overcome, such as hyper competitiveness, conversion and take rates, reliability, security, broadband infrastructure and of course, brand loyalty.

2. Please describe your key offerings in the e-commerce space? And out of these solutions which one is going faster than other vendor companies.

Online presence for e-commerce is immensely important as it is the primary source of revenue. Akamai helps e-commerce players bring speed and reliability, must haves for great, engaging online experiences, through its web performance and security solution lines. By using Akamai’s web performance solutions, e-commerce players enhance user experiences across devices and networks, helping improve conversion on transaction rates. User experience also contributes to building a better brand and secure a competitive edge. Akamai's security offerings help protect e-commerce players from online attacks. E-commerce organizations chose to work with Akamai because of industry leading performance and availability SLAs that our solutions are backed with, immense experience and enterprise class support and services.

3. As Indian e-commerce industry is witnessing boom, how do you see the opportunity for your organization in this space in a country like India?

In the Indian e-ecommerce space, Akamai is a trusted partner for a majority of players. There is immense opportunity for e-commerce players to deliver secure, engaging experiences that help drive both, the bottom line and the brand. Akamai has an extremely comprehensive solution line up that can help organizations across industries achieve online success. We continue to focus on solutions and a road map that will help our customers define the next level of online success.

4. How you are dealing with changing expectations of e-commerce players with respect to your offerings?

The rise of mobile as a primary device for online transactions is a key change in online user engagement. Akamai web performance solutions can provide e-commerce players the capability to enhance user experiences across devices and network conditions. For example, given that mobile internet connectivity can be inconsistent, e-commerce organizations using Akamai can manipulate image quality and size on the go, and therefore provide the best possible experience to users logging in from a mobile network.

5. What kind of technologies will shape the future of this industry?

We believe that mobile is the most emerging trends. At the user side, mobile devices continue to evolve into new form factors. Therefore, it is likely that the way users interact with online services will evolve as well. At the back end, for organizations overall shopping experience will help create uniqueness and loyal customer base. Also, there will be a continued focus on moving from a capital expenditure to operational expenditure model.

6. Can you name some clients that are using your solution?

FashionandYou.com is one of Akamai’s ecommerce clients in India. Since its founding in 2010, it has grown in its reach to over 5.5 million members across 1,200 locations in the country. To provide its customers with a richer experience the team needed two specific solutions that would further optimize page loading time as well as secure online transactions. For these requirements, Akamai provided FashionandYou.com with Akamai Web Experience Solutions and Akamai Cloud Security Solutions.