E-commerce Marketplace: The private eCommerce players Amazon and Flipkart have been the major eCommerce platforms in India for long now. However, this might not be the same anymore with the Confederation of Indian Traders (CAIT) and the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trader (DPIIT) coming together to launch an E-Commerce platform that will allow retailers, especially the grocery stores to sell online.
It is aiming to also make the last mile contactless delivery a possibility for all retailers given the current scenario.
E-commerce Marketplace –
The announcement comes in a time when everybody is talking about the boon in the eCommerce industry. Recently Amazon launched its new program “Local Shops on Amazon” that allows retailers to sell online. Also, we witnessed the recent investment from Facebook in JioMart ,a move to digitalize the grocery sector.
Also given the current situation of lockdown throughout the country, the launch of the eCommerce platform will make it a lot easy for the people of India to easily access groceries and other essential goods without having to move out of their homes.
The platform would come with a prebuilt payment gateway option and CIAT will provide the required logistics through its partnerships. Local retailers can choose their preferred partners as well. CAIT is aiming to onboard about 7 crore businesses from across the country to this portal. This would include manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers and retailers from all verticals. CAIT has been working on this project for the last three months where it has run a few pilots in Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
The organization aim to bring out the platform at the earliest to cater to the present challenges.
However, it will also stand as a permanent solution to tackle the competitive environment being created by the major eCommerce players.
Along with CAIT and DPIIT, the other major promoters for the portal are believed to be Startup India, All India Consumer Product Distributors Federation, and Avana Capital.
With all these major players in the ecosystem coming together we expect the process to be completed soon so that maximum citizens can be benefited from the same.
This news again emphasizes the fact that the importance of eCommerce platforms can no longer be ignored. eCommerce will be the way forward, it is only a matter of time.
Thus we urge all businesses to be prepared for being able to easily transit from the offline approach of doing business to the online method. A few operational changes that would be required are enlisted below:
A clean stocklist of all your products – E-commerce Marketplace
Offline or online, the stocklist is the basic requirement for the business to go live.
A strategy plan to sell according to the demand
We are in a situation where people buy only those things that are necessary. Everything else will be put on hold. Hence as businesses, we must list out the products that fall under the essential category of your own industry.
Clear communication with the portal and your business
No doubt, the online platform is something that is very new to you. Hence you should be prepared to communicate clearly with patience with the new platform.
A bank account that is enable for online transactions
The online platform will come with a payment gateway that needs to be linked to your bank account.
Hence make sure your bank account is enabled to handle online transactions.
Pictures of all your products that would be listed on the portal.
It is proved time and again that products with pictures sell 10X times faster than those without pictures. Hence make sure you have ample pictures of your products available with you to list online.
Having created multiple eCommerce platforms for clients from across the globe, our teams are completely equipped to handle all your requirements to go digital.
Feel free to reach out to us today if you have questions regarding the ways in which you can transform your business from the offline method to an online approach.
