Retail eCommerce
eCommerce website development has seen a boom in the last two months when the government announced the delivery of essentials during lockdown. Many of the local supermarkets and startups took initiative to immediately run the operations locally as everyone found the opportunity in the absence of players like Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket due to their lackness of resources locally. Many of the players have used basic templates like Open Cart to launch their business, and supermarkets found this time to revamp their website, which they have never bothered to update in the past, in order to reach their existing customers. It was interesting to see the flyers in newspapers where each day you could see a new launch in the city. The feature of mobile number sharing with the new application could save upto Rs. 100 every day in grocery purchase.
It was interesting to know from various social media posts and newspaper articles that many regular eCommerce users have turned out to be kirana shops users, the reason they quote was the importance of helping nearby shops in epidemic scenarios as their survival is very important for the communities nearby. Facebook’s investment in Jio suddenly brought Reliance into the eCommerce sector (Jio Mart) when they introduced Whatsapp based grocery delivery across the nation; within no time, thanks to their strong supply chain. Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) launched BharatMarket, and also hyperlocal delivery applications like Swiggy and Zomato, real estate applications like NoBroker.in and other funded startups invested in grocery and related eCommerce services for their existing customers as complementary offerings. This could engage few of their customers even though it cannot be seen as a long term business for these entities, further investment and expansion will obviously be a challenge as they move further.
Having said all this, We could not see any kind of innovations in the e-commerce sector even during this stage of the e-commerce boom. I feel that the e-commerce sector is not evolving from its age old ways, similar to the negligible changes in the traditional businesses. Most of the players in the field discuss copying one or the other eCommerce app but nobody seems to come up with a groundbreaking idea that may change the face of the eCommerce sector as a whole. The discussion always spiralled around development and the UI design, we have never seen anyone talk further on the improvement of supply chain, delivery, procurement or how sellers work or on any process to make the supply chain simple. It is always just about developing or integrating one template for the business to reach users in a short time. This attitude might have killed the local platforms when they try to compete against top players. Business operations, last mile delivery or supply chain management is always pushed to the last priority as the concentration is always towards launching their sites. The requirement more or less is always like this; “I need a simple site like Amazon with this and that features, you should help me develop the features and train me how to run this.“. The quote ‘ Rome was not built in a day’ suits those who want to build platforms similar to those that took years to perfect. This is where I can proudly say one project we have signed up on eCommerce recently will change the social commerce sector with high customer engagement. We, as a product management company, got this project as a reward for our past efforts to work on unique concepts or new products. It’s rare when one gets to work with clients who understand the cycle of product development and improvements, it makes you work better, comes out with innovations in the eCommerce sector and creates your space in the competition.
Hyperlocal Services
Hyperlocal deliveries have seen a huge growth in the last 3 months due to the demand in getting things at the doorstep. And, it was listed among essential services during the lockdown period and the users’ hesitation to leave their houses also fueled the business. Many small and big companies have started hyperlocal services in the area bringing in a mix of eCommerce and delivery services. Local merchants and Kirana Stores quickly adopted hyperlocal channels like Swiggy and Zomato, to fulfil the demands of consumers for essential goods such as groceries and medicines. Food business went down by 80-90% during this time and hyperlocal delivery became the option to survive and the top brands expanded to tier II and Tier III cities.
Even as the market grows, players in the local market try to tap into this opportunity and attempt to copy the same business model of top players to compete in the same market. Initial orders have created a trust in prospects of expanding business, these players entered into this business space as most of the top players failed to run their operations initially; but this condition will change as soon as the lockdown period expires. The bigger players will return with exciting offers to regain the customers back into their platform. Local platforms with the same business model overlook to leverage the technology, operational capabilities and cash reserves of top players while getting into the same markets. But, the pandemic has created tremendous opportunity for local delivery services not limited to store delivery but by adding C2C (Customer to Customer)pickup and delivery services that has huge demand in the local markets.
Online Payments
Online payment has grown to an all time high after the lockdown, as the merchants started accepting online payments more in the local areas. UPI has become a major contributor in the growth of business, the search for contactless payments brought UPI to the forefront. 42% Indians have used digital payment mode multiple times as compared to the pre lockdown period in the last months as per Economic Times report. PayTM and Google Pay are among the top beneficiaries of this business. As the market for essential services has expanded and further opened after lockdown, the retail stores have also witnessed a growth in the number of payments made via payment apps.
On-Demand services
Even when the taxi services have seen a drastic drop in the volume even after the lockdown was lifted, home services and beauty services have grown in large numbers. The number of requirements for on-demand services in the last few months has grown exponentially, many facility management and individual companies have identified the lack of having an eCommerce portal. The positive trend has attracted people to invest in local On demand services as the return of skilled workers from GCC may boost the market with better supply of resources. There were many discussions in social media regarding the creation of such platforms and the utilisation of returned resources. This is currently the trend across the world as most of the users have faced problems in identifying resources during the lockdown days.
Career Consulting
Last but not least, local career consulting has made a great comeback as most of the companies started looking for local resources for their vacancies. We as a product company have received too many enquiries from local consultants who focus on unskilled resources and local talents. Also, the people who had resigned before the unexpected lockdown are now approaching the consultants nearby to avail a job in their area thereby creating more demands in the business.
Online Academics
There isn’t a need to explain the possibility for online academics, in the current scenario. Schools and colleges are in search of a suitable platform that meets all their requirements and that can help build an effective day to day operations schedule. Currently most institutions use a mix of products or just stick to the basic products to continue the classes and some of the apps have brought additional features to keep the business live. But, not one platform has claimed that they are 100% ready to be on-boarded for digital academic transformation. One of the most common observations is about the teacher student engagement through online provisions or students’ capacity to focus in classes for a long time. Secondly, online platforms do not meet the need for lower primary and KG students and effective sessions cannot be handled for these sections of academics. And, the major question is about the maturity of our market to adopt online academics. However, there is a huge potential for online academics in the market.
