{This article has been written by my friend Abhishek and I; Well the concept was Abhishek's the elaboration and core text was a combined effort. Here's a masterpiece of Two Great Minds at work}
E-Commerce in India
{Ecommerce is the global marketting and business strategy. There is need to stimulate India also on its tune. In India Ecommerce transactions can be seen in Metro Cities but there is no trace of Ecommerce in Tier II cities or rural India.}
Though Ecommerce in India started in the latter half of the century, India is currently in the midst of an e-commerce revolution. The arrival of the Internet followed by the escalating growth of Web-based businesses is leading to e-commerce both on the Business to Business (B2B) and the Business to Customers (B2C) sides. The e-commerce trends in India are in perfect accordance with the sweeping changes taking place in the global markets. Even the IT friendly Government has taken significant strides in the past few months to ensure that the economic climate is ripe for e-business. Indian metros are seen as a potential market by E-Business companies. They consider Indian E-Market to be more competent than Chinese Market. But however Indian E-Commerce industries are struggling with the following impediments in their growth:
Technological Aspects:
The penetration level of personal computers for the household or business purposes is still very low which act as a major encumbrance for Ecommerce business units. The technology competence of Indian Population to the extent of Electronic Media and its application hinders its development.
E-Security aspects:
In India there have been many cases of data theft, information theft, and money theft by means of transactions based on Ecommerce. Hence E-Security aspects have been a major concern. Hence the security aspects act as hindrance viz. various personal information like Credit Card number, etc
The Psychological aspects of Indian population:
In India people are trained psychologically to deal in traditional trade, i.e. to buy things that are tangible to them at the time of transaction. They prefer to check the quality and quantity before making any deal, whereby in the modern day trade, by means of Ecommerce people are provided with easy trade sitting at their place within fraction of seconds. Hence, the psychological mindset of Indian people regarding traditional trade and Modern Trade act as hindrance for Ecommerce to flourish.
E-Banking aspects:
E-Banking transactions like net banking, ATMs, helps Over the Counter Transactions takes place easily and in subtle way and suffice the modern day requirement to deal with heavy amount of transactions. But however rural area banks fail to provide ATMs services or net banking services to the customers. Very seldom we find any networked branch of a bank in rural areas.
Ecommerce transactions are rampant in Metro Cities but however Ecommerce have yet not been adapted fully by rural and tier II cities of India. Hence there are many such impediments due to which the trade with means of ecommerce gets hampered in rural and tier II cities of India. But have we thought upon the solution for the same? We need to work out a plan to eliminate such basic problems hindering the growth of Ecommerce.
A Model to Promote Ecommerce Especially in Tier II Cities & Rural India.
The concept of E-commerce is quite old if we see from its inception but its potential has yet not been harnessed in Indian perspective. The reason could be its lower penetration or lesser reach to the common people or the multitude that don’t live in metros.
For success of ecommerce it should be popular in Tier II – III cities & rural areas. This could be done with mutual agreement of public and private sector enterprise. More emphasis on the concept of social business should be given.
Both the public sector and the private sector should work united to give benefits to the people in rural areas. They should provide good quality modern age good and services. Moreover information should be provided to the people living in these areas, as information has the latent power which can transform perception and mindset of a generation.
The best ideal and feasible concept to achieve all this can be ecommerce. This is the era which is witnessing rapid growth in the mobile technology. This can be extended to internet connectivity. We can have a model where mobile companies can extend internet services in rural areas and small cities.
Financial institutions like regional rural bank can offer services viz. debit card and net banking to their customers which would enable them to carry transactions on Internet also this will increase the statistics of e-money use in the nation (which is a major characteristics of developed countries). Institution like NABARD and IRDP can run program to make people aware of the benefits and mechanism of ecommerce. They can assure people about the authenticity of the technology. A government recognized rating institution should be formed to rate the sites undertaking ecommerce business as any fraud or mismanagement can hamper the growth in early stage.
The main hurdle in implementation of Ecommerce will be illiteracy and the reluctance of people towards accepting changes. Contemplated effort is required to make people understand, agree and work with this concept.
The implementation of this concept can bring people to common standard platform whereby development of all section of society can be achieved. If we see from the farmer’s perspective this can enable them to be abreast of new developments. They can get better quality seeds at fair and competitive prices also the harvest can be sold in larger open market, where he can get fair and better rate.
Also small scale industries or cottage industries can have access to the requirement and response of the consumer and can manufacture and sell those products accordingly with the help of E-Business to a larger market.
The main aspect of this can be extending new technology to larger mass for more benefit and spreading cost.
In our country we are gifted with large resources that are still unutilized in the sense of productivity. The extension of the modern technology to multitude at lower cost and the fair pricing of their production can motivate people towards better productivity. The contribution of this technology towards agro-based economy can be stupendous. This will boost the GDP of our country and hence this will help our Country to become successful not only in economic aspect but also as a democracy.
