E-commerce: Going Beyond Travel (Finally)

The travel segment of e-commerce always enjoyed an upper-hand with easy to deliver products and instant gratification for buyers. Thanks to the travel segment, the comfort-level of people in making online payments increased significantly and they were made ready for the next level of shopping onlinenot just tickets but other products as well, says Mukesh Bansal, CEO, Myntra.com.

Today, the growth in the e-commerce market is driven by the need of urban India to save time. Many funding companies have started putting their money and trust in startups, opening ways for many zealous entrepreneurs to start their Internet businesses. With matured credit card penetration, increase in Internet penetration, and increase in peoples trust on Internet, with more options available online and with lives becoming busier, the recent years have seen a resurgence of e-commerce in India, says Kunal Bahl, CEO and founder, Jasper (SnapDeal.com)

The online non-travel industry can be categorized into e-tailingcomprising online retailers and online auctions; online classifieds comprising online jobs, matrimony, property, automobile and general classifieds; paid content subscription and digital downloads comprising research, articles, exclusive videos and more. Top categories according to investors are travel, classifieds, group buying, auto sales and luxury brands.

According to Gupta of IAMAI, online travel which includes booking rail and air tickets, hotel accommodations and tour packages was 70% of the whole pie. E-tailing, which includes durable products such as electronic items, home and kitchen appliances as well as personal items such as apparels and jewelry, was 13%.

Transactions for financial services such as insurance payments and renewals and trading accounts amounted to 9%. And downloading mobile and digital content was 2% of the overall share. Other online services such as classifieds (jobs, matrimonial, cars, real estate, and others), online food delivery and buying movie tickets and DVD rentals made 6% of the overall market.

Some unique ideas from smart entrepreneurs have changed traditional online shopping to more of a personal experience. They have learnt the very important rule of brandingdifferentiation. In this sense some interesting online stores and unique concepts have come about.

A beautiful fragrance attracts all; and what if you are given a choice of 125 designer perfumes spanning over 3,500 fragrances, all a click away? Well, portals like Perfumes2order.com sell products that are originalcelebrity perfumes like JLO, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and David Beckham for men and women, and for the little ones they sell special perfumes like Superman and Barbieand the discounts are sweet!

Ask for some more private attention and you get portals like mMyself.com, dedicated to women, that allows them to shop for private items, manage their health and wellness activities, express their heart out, and get expert advice online. Then there are portals like littlehood.com, dedicated to babies, moms and dads, helping parents find what they need for their little ones. And redbell.com, thats all about toys for your kids.

Whoever thought you could buy devotional items online? Portals like indiayogi.com and west2india.com even made that come true. A portal like playgroundonline.com is dedicated to sports and allows you to buy sports equipment, accessories, apparel, footwear, books, media titles, games and anything that can touch a sportsmans heartand the discount phenomenon continues!