By Navin Joshua, Founder of Fashos.com

India has a long way to go with respect to internet penetration, although numbers have increased any gain in penetration from here will have a positive cascading effect on ecommerce/e-tailing in India.

E-tailing is closely linked to broadband penetration and other economies have clearly demonstrated that etailing scales significantly once internet penetration increases. Internet penetration is closely linked to PC penetration and PC broadband access.

Any government policies that encourage broadband connectivity in India and further brings down prices of PCs and other internet access devices will be good for the e-commerce industry in India.

Prices of broad band connections and avialibility of conections have been bigger constraints to the growth of broadband in India. Broadband prices in India remain one of the heighest in the world. 

Beyond the Metros: Tapping true Potential!

Broadband penetration and availability needs tobe a key focus in Budget 2012. Braodband access needs to increase in Tier1/2/3 towns for ecommerce to grow and benefit the end user. True value unlocking of Ecommerce’s can happen once it taps the potential of upcountry India and Tier2/3 towns, once it goes beyond the metros. Tier1/2/3 towns often lack modern trade facilities yet have the spending power, have the aspirations and the craving to be lifestyle oriented as well. This gap and the ‘availabilty issue’ in tier 2/3 can be fulfilled by ecommerce brands.

According to Navin Joshua, founder of FASHOS.com, “ The real potential of eCommerce in India will unlock, once Tier 2/3 towns can enjoy the impending benefits of ecommerce platforms like FASHOS.com. There are a slew of challenges that raise the barriers such as broadband connectivity, lack of infrastructural hubs and spokes for forward logistics and reliable warehousing facilities to make delivery easy, fast and hassle free across the country. In line with this we hope that Budget 2012 unveils special concessions that leads to growth of PC Broadband access, affordability and mass adoption, so that we see a cascading effect on eCommerce”.

Increased connectivity will see the contribution made by Tier2/3 towns to total sales of ecommerce companies significantly increase from present levels of 20-30% to 40-50% and higher. What this will do is broaden the market and allow more players to co-exist and meet the excess demand. After all India’s true potential is in its internal demand and India’s voracious appetite for services and products.

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