Study on supply side dynamics in e-commerce space between sellers, suppliers and online aggregators

Abstract

The Indian retail industry is estimated to be around US $500 billion [1] in 2015 and this number is expected to increase in the coming years. Also SMEs/MSMEs in India consists of 36 million units [2] operating as of today and contributing 17% towards country’s GDP [3] . From a study it was found that 85% of the SMEs who have implemented e-commerce consider that it is a cost effective way to increase sales [4]. However, in spite the vast population being served by a variety of players in ecommerce space in almost all categories, however, there is a huge potential for micro and small scale enterprises and the retail stores which are yet to enter ecommerce. There is not much notable improvement in ecommerce sector in the past few years, the number of registered active sellers on ecommerce platform are not even one third of total SME units in India. Ecommerce penetration is comparatively low in India and there is huge potential for players to explore untapped markets and get absorbed.