eCommerce in India - A blog by Darpan Munjal

As the internet penetration reaches the average household in India, the digital eco system would need to evolve, opening up several gaps in the value chain. If you are an entrepreneur or dream of becoming one in the near future, there are significant opportunities related to internet/eCommerce that might give you a first or early mover advantage for the Indian market. Until now, my blog has focused on discussing trends, opportunities and best practices at a macro level. Now, however, I think it is time to make things a bit more interesting, and start focusing on specific concepts or business ideas that can be monetized in the Indian context. Over the next several weeks, I will be posting a series of blog articles which will showcase different business ideas in various categories related to internet/ online commerce in India.

Needless to say that these are just ideas and an idea alone cannot make a venture successful. End of the day, it is about execution and the team. If you have a strong team, with solid execution, the chances of your success are significantly higher even if you don’t have a killer/unique idea. However, everything else being equal, a differentiated idea will help further improve the chances of success as long as you are filling a genuine gap in the marketplace. So here are the categories in which I will be posting new business ideas – my hope is that some of these ideas turn into reality and when they do, the overall eco system for eCommerce will significantly improve, resulting in a far bigger pie for everyone.

1. Community based shopping:

In this category, I will be posting some ideas around the next generation of online shopping which will leverage the online communities at all levels of ecommerce value chain. We have already seen some of the successful Web 2.0 models for India outside the online shopping space; it is time now to look at some interesting models that fit within the online shopping space.

2. Content Management

As more players enter the eCommerce market, companies will seriously need to reconsider their content management strategy. There will be an obvious need for third party service providers who can provide value added content for products (e.g. detailed attributes, images, videos etc.). There is no need for eCommerce companies to keep this function internal, and outsourcing it to a mature service provider might help improve the overall user experience, and ultimately, the conversion rates. I will be discussing some business ideas for service providers who can rule this virtually uncharted space.

3. Aggregation Platforms

We are already seeing activity in this space. Portals like TolMol.com have started seeding this market and influencing customer behavior around online price comparison. However, Continue reading »