Indians gearing up for shopping on eBay

What is e-commerce? Simple ' it is the buying and selling of products over what we know as a complicated structure of wires and complex communication with satellites that these wires and antennas exchange. The Internet. The concept of e-commerce essentially started in the 1970s with the advent of electronic data interchange and electronic funds transfer. Then a whole bunch of phenomenon started taking centre stage - credit cards, automated teller machines (ATM), telephone banking¦ all sort of stuff.

But the very craze of Internet started India quite late. It was not till the 1990s that India began taking Internet seriously. And when it did, boy it was crazy! And soon everyone even remotely related to the world of WWW realized that India was the place to be, in times to come.

So it is not surprising to see players like eBay coming in. E-commerce has been picking up in India, and with the youth driving the Internet consumption, the inhibition of doing business on the web has gone down massively. So what is the scenario of online shopping in India like?

"Online shopping is becoming a way of life for young, online Indians. On eBay India, 2.5 million Indians are shopping regularly from 2,471 cities in India. The key drivers for the growth of online shopping are the huge variety of products available online, availability of great deals and convenience. For online shoppers in tier 2 & 3 cities, the additional driver is that of access to brands and products which are not available through traditional retail in their hometown," says Deepa Thomas, Senior Manager ' Corporate Communications & Pop Culture, eBay India, in an exclusive conversation with Adgully.

Deepa says that online shopping has been increasing at the rate of 30 percent year-on-year and more number of Indians are getting increasingly inclined towards spending over the web, especially on items like technical gadgets, mobile phones, digital cameras etc.

Deepa adds, "With cheap and easy access to high speed broadband as well as increased awareness, many more Indians will start shopping online. The mobile / smart phone is also becoming the point of access for many shoppers. Online shopping is growing in popularity, as consumers realize the convenience and ease of shopping online as well as the great deals available."

Currently, e-commerce in India is hovering around the Rs 9,800 crore mark of which pure play online shopping is close to Rs 1,300 crore. Global market of online shopping has been growing anywhere between 8-10 percent, however, Indian market has shown movement of more than 30 percent according to industry estimates.

ebay has launched a campaign to get the target audience to drive them to eBay India's website whenever they think of shopping online for the best deals available out there on the net.

"We chose to do this by using a clutter-breaking campaign portraying consumers gearing up for shopping on eBay India's scorching hot deals with sunglasses & ice cubes. The early results in terms of the growth in visitor traffic is very positive and encouraging and we believe that a large number of internet users are having their first experience with online shopping on eBay as a result of this campaign.

One of eBay India's key advantages is the wide variety of products available on it ' ranging from mobiles to necklaces, digital cameras to salwar kameez, diamond rings to laptops, stamps to footballs etc. The audience that come onsite appreciates the variety and we are seeing good traction across categories as a result of this campaign," Deepa elaborated.

eBay has planned and released a combination of TV and OOH activities in addition to digital and social media engagements. To lure them, eBay is attracting Indian online users by offering attractive offers and discounts. "We recently launched a very popular property on eBay India: Daily Deals. These are huge discounts on popular products at 30%-70% off and only for 1 day in limited quantities. These have gained tremendous traction and we have sold as many as 650 quantity in just a few hours," Deepa said.

So with giants like eBay making hay in the Indian market, it is time to indulge in some online shopping and making the best of those 30 and 40 percent discounts! Go, hit that keyboard of yours and keep your Paypal details or credit cards ready.