PDF e- Commerce is experiencing a long-awaited season of growth in the Indian marketplace. What are the factors that will help sustain that growth?
Firstly, there’s the question of platforms. PC and internet penetration in the country is growing at a healthy clip. The trend of today is mobile phones, which are getting there faster. So optimizing e-Commerce sites and processes for mobile phones is going to be a big factor. Getting the user interface right for mobile transactions can help tap into a larger population. Even peripheral services like order confirmations and product inquiries via text messages will help e-Commerce sites interface more deeply with the fabric of their customers’ lives. In the western market, tablet users are emerging as a small but high-value market. That’s probably going to be true in India as well, but if you want to reach out to a large market base, go mobile.
- Service is crucial. Indian businesses are not exactly famous for delivering the best customer service experience to home-grown markets, as anyone with a mobile phone or internet connection can probably attest. In the online space, where you need people to be confident enough to order a product sight unseen, customer service becomes even more important. e- Commerce sites need to put the infrastructure in place for customer service that’s driven by more than just form emails and a mediocre call centre process. Live online chat, text message-based service and a higher commitment to rigorous service levels are what will differentiate the success stories from the also-ran ones.
- Social marketing is going to be a major channel for customer acquisition and retention. But, as the social space matures, it’s going to be harder and harder to leverage it without real insights and innovations. Brands are already learning that it isn’t enough to just be there. You have to move from push-based marketing to inbound marketing and being part of the conversation. Marketing people are very used to having a great deal of control over their messaging and very little subsequent dialogue. In the social media arena, you have to engage with a market, join or create discussion and catch the audience’s attention in ways that will help spread positive word of mouth. It’s uncharted territory for old-school marketing, but this is a skill that is going to be increasingly vital.So far, I’ve looked at ways in which businesses can align themselves for success. There are also on more crucial factor, namely ;
- Infrastructural factors that need to evolve in the right direction for e-Commerce to take an enduring hold. The Reserve Bank of India needs to take measures to ensure a good climate for e-Commerce and banks need to work on increasing transactional security even more. The cost of internet access and of access devices, whether mobile devices or PCs needs to reduce further – something that seems to be in line with prevailing trends, fortunately. Credit cards need to be more widespread, or else more banks have to allow for online transactions via debit cards on a wider variety of platforms. Another big factor that will help is if the large population of developers in this country gets involved in finding ways to improve the technology that drives e-Commerce.
Building an e-Commerce marketing campaign that drives sales takes a combination of business focus and tech savvy.
i-Vista’s Digital Marketing and Technology teams are ready and roaring to rise to the challenge.