Is India Ready For Ecommerce?

align="right">For e-biz to become prevalent in India,

we need to address the infrastructural and cultural constraints.

The internet has existed since the 1970s.

But 99% of the internet-cognizant population has become familiar with it only as recently

as the past six years—driven entirely by the advent of the world wide web (www). The

web is probably one of the most exciting phenomena in recent times and has the potential

to change how we lead our day-to-day lives, through the much-hyped business to consumer

(B2C) ecommerce wave. The deployment of ecommerce applications can provide an organization

with significant benefits in reaching new markets, reducing costs, improving cycle times

and enhancing service levels. In fact, in many parts of the western world this is already

happening. However, in India, though the promise and capabilities of the technology are

already in evidence it is still a long way to go before these become common-place for a

number of reasons.

There are probably already a dozen or so

B2C ecommerce sites in India at present. Ranging from general purpose sites

(www.rediff.com) to specific sites that will let you order your groceries

(www.home-land.com, www.bababazaar.com ), buy cinema tickets (www.clicktickets.com), real

estate property listing services (www.indiaproperties.com), to a site that will even

(supposedly) enable you to buy an automobile via the internet! However a number of things

have to happen before it can be heralded as the dawn of a new era in India. There are a

few pre-requisites related to the social environment that have to be in place which we are

still far from achieving.

SANCTITY OF CREDIT CARD

TRANSACTIONS: Most of us would be skeptical in giving our credit card numbers

across the web. In India, concern for and attention to security is still in its infancy

and any transactions on-line involving credit card numbers is not likely to be entirely

secure.

NOT YET LEGAL: The

validity of a card transaction without a physical signature is still in doubt. There is no

regulatory ruling that has come out in this regard. The default at this point is that an

on-line credit card transaction could still be considered invalid without a signed

credit-card slip.

NO CLIENT-SERVICE FOCUS: B2C

ecommerce needs customer service par excellence to really ‘hook’ consumers and

get them to come back repeatedly. For example, anyone who has purchased a Dell computer

on-line would probably never acquire a computer any other way! This mind-set is only now

emerging in India and the pace at which it becomes ingrained in our culture will directly

determine consumer confidence in ecommerce.

GENERAL LACK OF TRUST: When

there is a general lack of trust in even a local merchant’s credibility and quality

consciousness, this concern will be exponentially greater while dealing with a faceless

remote entity.

NO RELIABLE DELIVERY

INFRASTRUCTURE: In cases where physical delivery of products is concerned online

transactions need to be anchored by highly predictable and reliable delivery mechanisms.

The track record in this area has been inconsistent at best and is nowhere close to the

levels that will garner customer confidence.

CULTURAL FACTOR: The

existing culture does not facilitate the purchase of ‘unseen’ things.

POOR PC PENETRATION: With

PC penetration at about 0.1 computers per 1000 people and internet penetration that is

even lower where are the shoppers going to come from? If an Amazon.com with its access to

consumers using the best infrastructure in the world is still to show a profit, will

Indian merchants be patient enough and wait it out for the long haul?

While the inexorable march of technology

will no doubt continue, innate human resistance to change is what will determine the pace

of its acceptance in India. Will we embrace technology-driven change as fervently as

‘netizens’ in other parts of the world have?