E-commerce in India

Till recently, online shopping hadn't really taken off in India the way it had in the rest of the world, despite its obvious conveniences. There has been a sudden explosion in shopping and other ecommerce related sites but I am still not convinced that many of the underlying obstacles have been removed. I have elaborated on the reasons for this elsewhere but that hasn't stopped many sites from coming online. Some of these are pure-play online sites while others are the online store-fronts of brick-and-mortar stores. Again, some have been around since Web 1.0 and have a first-mover advantage in terms of brand recall whilst the others are start-ups that hope to make a name for themselves through word-of mouth.

The Big Boys
These are the better-known online shopping sites in India, either because they have been around a long time or because, they are associated with leading shopping chains.

Indiaplaza
Indiaplaza, previously known as Fabmall, has loads of stuff on its site. I have done quite a bit of shopping on the site and written about this as well. Though my experience with them has been OK, others have had problems with getting shipments on time, and with adequate customer response. Part of the problem is that Indiaplaza's business model seems to be that of acting as a facilitator for third-party business partners to sell their wares over the site. So, the quality of service is dependent on Indiaplaza'a partners. And that varies widely.

Future Bazaar
The baby of Kishore Biyani, the business moghul who owns the Big Bazaar chain of megamarts as well as other brands like Pantaloons, Future Bazaar differs from India Plaza in one major way. All the stuff found on the Future Bazaar site are directly available with them, and not third party retailers. So, the quality of service, and the chances of redressal if anything goes wrong are also much higher if you shop with Future Bazaar. For instance, if you face problems with the product, you have the option of returning it within 7 days. What's better, you can also return the product within 15 days if you are not happy with it.
Both India Plaza and Future Bazaar are price warriors in the sense that the prices they offer are very hard to beat. Future Bazaar scores on the fact that many of the products there are available on interest free EMIs of 3-6 months. But India Plaza has a larger variety of items on offer

Rediff Shopping
The online store of this major Indian portal has merchandise available under a lot of categories. They also have dedicated mini-stores for nearly 34 brands including names such as Creative, Logitech, Asian Paints, and Landmark.

Indiatimes Shopping
I bought my first product online in 2002, and I'm yet to receive it. It was a gift for my wife, and you can find the whole story here. So, I hope you understand why when I say that I haven't bought anything else off the Indiatimes site since. That said, this is a comprehensive site, and like Rediff, has a number of branded mini-portals.

The Startups
Update
According to my dashboard, I last updated this lense almost a year ago, in October 2010. Since then, much has changed in the e-commerce segment, and a lot of new players have come in and pretty much overshadowed the older established players. The segments in which the new kids on the block have flourished are books, and electronic items.

Letsbuy
Letsbuy is among the most aggressive of the online e-commerce sites with prices that invariably beat the competition. It has reportedly been massively funded by VCs and is seems to be spending much of that on undercutting prices. What happens when the war chest runs out remains to be seen. The fact that they offer 0 percent EMIs has tempted me to do impulsive buying more times than I can count though I have ultimately successfully resisted the temptation.

Homeshop18
Part of the Network 18 stable, this site began life as an online property, and then consequently morphed into a TV shopping channel as well. Though there are a lot of categories available, the actual number of items available on the site is quite scanty. This site won the PC World Web Awards 2008 in the category Best Shopping site so it must have something going for it.

Storeguru
Also belonging to Network 18, Storeguru deals mainly in electronics, and describes itself as India's safest online store.

Gadgets.In
If there's one online store dealing in electronic items, can another one be far behind:-)This site is for the geek-hearted, and there are some pretty weird and pretty useful gadgets available on the site. If something's got a chip in it, then you are pretty sure to find it on the site. The only trouble here is that until you actually get the gadget, you are never sure whether it suits your purposes or not. Shower radio, anybody? Only Rs.899

Tradus
Tradus is from the Ibibo stable and is the most recent entrant into this already overcrowded space. Most of their items are selling at inaugural discounts, but as usual, I get the feeling that the original prices have been inflated to make the discounts scream.


Rate Tag
Rate Tag is a startup that I first came across when I was buying an airticket at Yatra. I was offered a discount of Rs 750 at Rate Tag if I bought the said ticket. So, I hoped over there and found an eclectic mix of items and quite a ragtag (sorry, couldn't resist:-)team of people ranging from fashion designers to civil engineers to chartered accountants running the site.

Storrz
Social Networking meets Online shopping. According to the site promotion, "Storrz allows you to interact with your friends,family, your social network and make informed buying decisions." Storrz aspires to be an online shopping mall with a number of stores selling different wares. Online shoppers can vote, comment and provide ohter forms of feedback on both the stores and items purchased. The site seems tailormade for the Indian yuppie with ridiculously overpriced kitsch available on sale in stores with exotic names like Inkfruit and Xintstore.

Naaptol
This site is an online shopping aggregator and comparison site, along with some social networking features. It fills a vacuum in that as the number of online shooping sites increase, shoppers would rather have one site make the comparisons for them rather than go to each individual site.

Inkfruit
Inkfruit describes itself as "a platform for designers to showcase their talents and get awarded and recognized for their work." What happens here is that anyone can design items ranging from T-shirts to mugs and posters and Inkfruit will sell them on its site. Haven't tried it myself but sounds like a great idea

Myntra
Myntra is similar to Inkfruit but their range is greater and includes calnedars, pens, coasters, watches and key chains


So, that's my list for the time being. More will be added, as they come online, and they will.


Other useful sites
Mouthshut
Mouthshut is a consumer reviews site that was founded during the first wave of the Internet in 2000. Having been around for so long, it contains a wealth of information and user generated reviews on literally everything under the sun, with particular reference to India. One can escape many of the pitfalls that are part and parcel of the consumer experience in India, offline and online, by taking time to go through the reviews there. I have a few reviews there myself, with the most recent one being on India Plaza

ReviewGist
As the name suggest, Reviewgist gives you a summary of all the reviews available on a product with links to the actual reviews. There's a whole lot of comparison tools also available on the site. to compare across products on various parameters. Do give it a whirl

Snapdeal
Snapdeal is an exciting concept in that it lets you try out new stuff for a very nominal price. It's less to do with products and more to do with services like dining out, personal grooming, health packages and holidays. I've already tried out a couple of deals and I think I'll be going in for many more provided the price is right.

20North
20North also comes in other sites because it's a site based in North America selling products from there but for which you can pay in rupees. I have never tried it myself, partly because, when you buy something from the US, the courier charges invariably equal or even exceed the price of the product. But it does seem to have become popular and they even have tied up with portals like Indiatimes to sell their products.

Bidrivals
I have a hard time understanding the nuances of basic auctions, how to bid and when to bid in order to get the best price. So, variations of auctions such as reverse auctions and time-limited auctions go completely over my head. Nonetheless, they seem to be picking up steam here in India, probably, because we are in general, a mathematically minded people with exceptions like yours truly. Bidrivals is one such site, and if you ever figure out how to play it right, do let me know. There was a similar site called Ipennybid that first popped up in Facebook as a recommendation from a friend and which I had put on the site. When I checked recently, the site itself was down and there were any number of complaints about it being a scam site. So, caveat emptor.

Ebay
Ebay finds a place here because even though elsewhere in the world it is a bidding site, here in India, it is more of an e-commerce site with very little emphasis on bidding. Ebay has recently started up Ebay Global, which has products from the international site, but where you can pay in rupees and the prices on the site are inclusive of shipping to India. Squidoo doesn't have a module for that but there's one for the US site and I've put it below so that you can get a feel for the site