Treading the e-Waters

This month,

India saw its largest infotech show so far. Bangalore IT.Com had a

.com in more than just the name. URLs were everywhere, from balloons

and T-shirts to canteens and stalls. Company sites, apparel, music

and books online, school and friendship sites, all the

portals…

Indian
infotech's gone online with a vengeance.

But our commerce
hasn't kept pace. It's been slowed not as much due to technology as

due to the fact that Indians aren't great catalog shoppers. You'd

expect the infotech community to be more progressive. But even PC

catalog ventures, having found that people don't want to order

online, have been depending on field executives and showrooms. And

this is compounded by credit card restrictions. The real progress

here will happen as mail-order sources proliferate, with television

the most likely medium.

The credit card
is the primary ecom instrument, and card companies in India carry

some of the blame. They haven't done their bit to evangelize

eshopping, or to educate users on the issues. People are wary about

using cards online. But SET, SSL, et al. do secure the transaction

itself: no one will intercept it en route. Users worry about misuse

at the vendor's end. That's as possible as a card number being

misused by a restaurant waiter or gas station attendant. Sure,

they'd need your physical card to buy something in person-but

online, the number and date could be enough. A birthday (which

restaurant feedback forms ask for) would be a real

bonus.

In an online
world, such security issues are very real-your card number could be

misused online whether or not you shop online. Your doing so does

not really push up the chances of such misuse, as long as you don't

enter your card number at just any old site "for age verification

only"…

This year, a
million PCs will be sold in India, a fifth of them with internet

account bundles. Several million users will be browsing and mailing,

with all the multiple use of accounts. Ecommerce is inevitable.

What's important is a new regime of consumer education about issues

brought up by an inevitably online world. Adventurer or ostrich,

you're going to be part of the problem, and part of any solution.