Is The Growth Significant?
India’s internet user base is expected to cross 500 million in 2016. Despite being the second-largest user base in the world, only behind China (650 million, 48 percent of the population), the penetration of e-commerce is low in comparison to markets such as the United States (266 million, 84 percent), or France (54 million, 81 per cent). But the Indian e-commerce is growing at an unprecedented rate, adding around six million new
entrants every month. The industry consensus is that the growth is at an inflection point with just 40 million transacting users. But this anticipated growth is not without challenges.
Go Cashless
UPI (Unified payment interface), is the future of payments in India and hopefully the world. UPI simplifies a transaction and makes it as simple as sending an email. No need to remember cumbersome account numbers and IFSC. Payments are a breeze, major Indian banks will be adopting UPI and it’s only a matter of time before it takes over and starts dominating the electronic transactions. For every transaction made using UPI, NPCI (National payment corporation of India) will earn 50 paise, plus charges imposed by the banks, which is typically about Rs 5 for a peer-to-peer transaction.
New Fashion Stylist
The next big thing in fashion is not what the big celebrities are flaunting. But, it’s you with a little black headgear going through endless virtual aisles for ensuring a perfect fit with an unmatched experience without spending a dime on travel and shop hopping. While VR puts viewers in a situation separate from their current environment, augmented reality blends digital elements with existing reality. The information gathered through such experiences provide the retailers with rich data to target you perfectly with apt recommendations for your next buy.
AI
The consumer will interact with AI chatbots and are surely going to love it. According to Gartner, by 2020, 85 percent of customer interactions will be managed without a human. Meanwhile, by 2018, customer digital assistants will recognize customers by face and voice across channels. The way we shop at any e-commerce site today is quite archaic, mostly navigating a database structure with multiple filters, prices, colors, discounts presented in a format more easier for a machine to understand than humans.
On the flipside, a physical store experience is more fluid where you can converse with a salesman. For a similar experience online, the bots would need to be extremely good at natural language processing and respond in real time to unstructured data from the users.
The New Mantra - GST
GST gives life to one nation, one market. With GST likely coming into force starting next financial year, it solves a daunting challenge faced by the e-commerce industry ensuring a seamless movement of goods and delivery of services across the nation. E-commerce has grown from being a nascent industry couple of years ago to an industry galloping its way to significant growth. It’s here to stay and the government has to ensure a transparent and conducive tax environment.
