Indian e-commerce companies are expanding and flourishing in the country at a rapid rate. According to a report, the Indian e-commerce market will overtake the US as the second largest e-commerce market globally in two decades. With the inclusion of smartphones and the internet in our daily lives, this has become an indispensable medium in the e-world.
The e-commerce domain definitely promises to get bigger and better with time, and a revolution in the definition of consumer and seller relationship is evident. Though the system is very beneficial, yet there are certain drawbacks faced by the Indian e-commerce industries. In this article, we will provide a detailed description of the drawbacks.
Personalization is a major problem in the country, with more than 70% of the total sales come from tabs and mobiles. The page used by e-commerce websites must also be responsive and user-friendly to attract more customers.
One of the most common instances is when a customer buys a product from a specific company for the first time. The buyer may not have any prior knowledge about the company or even the product. More than 50% of the nation’s people want to have personal support before purchasing the product. This is an arduous process and often disturbing for the seller.
Indian buyers mainly choose COD.
The mode of payment usually preferred by the Indian buyers is Cash On Delivery. People are still concerned about paying the money online. Online transactions via the gateways are often a failure, and people do not usually trust them. It is a gruesome procedure for the companies to collect the cash manually as it is risky, an onus, and an expensive process.
With the advancement in technology, smartphones are ubiquitous in India.
Access to every corner of India is not available due to the transportation barrier. Certain pin-codes are not available in the shipping address list, and it becomes an indeed tedious task by the companies to reach every citizen of the country.
COD being the preferred mode, it adds further obligation. As many as 80% of 2015 Flipkart orders were placed with cash on delivery options, and the small towns had a lead with 90% COD orders.
Indian buyers have to deal with the English language.
Language becomes a barrier to where people only can communicate in English for making a purchase online. The e-commerce companies lose potential regional buyers due to this issue as well. Placing false orders is an issue nowadays, where people canceled or did not receive the order they had ordered. The companies undergo a huge loss as they process the order and cater to their customers only to find the product getting returned!
As an eCommerce seller, you have to align strategies to counter these issues if you sell to Indian buyers. You need a good IT vendor who provides an excellent eCommerce website design service and mobile application development. After the IT part is done, you have to handle business processes like COD, returns, business margins, etc. When this is done, the majority of the operations will go smoothly.