Strategy for success in Indian e-commerce industry

Abstract

The Indian e-commerce industry has been one of the most unpredictable and dynamic industries. On the one hand there are many new ventures starting up and getting funded and the other hand some are exiting the business unable to face the challenges it poses. The objective of this contemporary concern study is to critically analyse the Indian e-commerce industry and identify the key challenges, strengths, weaknesses and come up with recommendations in the form of best practices for new entrants into this field. The growth of this industry was fuelled by the quick internet penetration and technological developments are redefining trade. The dynamics of this industry has been assessed by doing a critical analysis using the Porter’s forces. Apart from providing us with the attractiveness of this industry it helps us to identify the best practices, capabilities and trouble spots that companies need to know to be successful in this industry. A thorough analysis reveals the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and the trends. With the help of case studies on a few successful, failed and niche players we study the industry which helps develop a more balanced perspective of the industry. We identified the key challenges to be the cost of customer acquisition, access to distribution channel, government regulations, service level, lack of loyalty and consumer mind set related issues. We also saw how the successful companies have addressed some of these issues and what were the mistakes made by those that failed. With these input we came up with an ecommerce mapping framework which identifies the key elements that will drive the next wave of e-commerce in Indian industry