Before you dive into this post i must clarify that I am SEO guy and working in this field since last 7 years plus I am running my own e-commerce store since last 2 years.
The second stage when Indian ecommerce start to grow, there is a lot more awareness about it. They know where the customer are and they start hitting them. They got heavy funds so the bigger Indian ecommerce players have lots of money to spend on other medium of advertising , which includes TV, newspaper and other media.
So now what happens to the average new e-commerce customer in India, which is not good searcher and paying a high price of internet, it becomes a half backed cake. Which is not eaten by e-commerce company, and if they eat it tastes bad.
What the ingredients ?
He only know 10 ecommerce sites which is being shown on TV ads frequently. Plus he does not how to get discounts, or search for the better products, how to get true reviews on product. on Google to get true value of its money. So they try to go for the brands as they saw in TV or in other ads. The half backed Indian ecommerce customer knows that what he saw in ads, media sites and other related advertisement are the exists only and believe me most of the searchers are go ahead with wrong spells of e-commerce sites. And to get that customer, companies are trying to invest more in them and they cost them on their profits. So e-commerce in India never saw a true rise in profit. I am sure you guys are telling me that I am not seeing the big picture here. But I am pretty sure every industry needs a genuine customer, which mature as per time for a business to survive and grow.
In other markets where e-commerce is know key player in retail segment they saw a slowly growth in internet, e-commerce, credit cards, supply chains and most importantly their customer becomes mature too. But in India, people are lurking to get COD. I am 100% sure that the products which are shown in TV ads during e-commerce ads are the most saleable items.
there is a t-shirt selling site in US, since more than 10 years. But threadless arrived 2 –3 years back to get crowd sourced printed t-shirts. And In India we have t-shirt selling company and threadless kind of company started simultaneously.
We have to prepare a genuine e-commerce a customer who knows the value of ecommerce shopping, not in terms of only low prices and multiple choices. if we don’t do that our eco systems will throw out us, We are at coupon stage on the beginning of true emerging e-commerce landscape which forming right now, and even for the coupon companies things are not going good right now. Government policies, Review sites, Courier Guys have to give knowledge to get fully backed e-commerce customer.