Why not to start e-commerce business in India

 Want to buy a T-shirt online? Just type it in google and you find 14 links on first page out of which 11 directs you to different companies. Each site offers you around 50-100 t-shirts, which will take your ten minutes at least to have a look at all of them. So what you are going to do? Will you go to each link and compare t-shirts of each site? If so, then you have got heck of a patience. But for a impatient guy like me, I would rather go to the most heard or most recommended site and pick one.

This makes one think why almost every week we see advertisement of one or two new sites on our facebook page. Although every now and then you must have got fascinated by some of the apparels or products of these ads, but do you really buy those from these sites about which you are not aware?  Even If you buy, does this make you their regular customer. I guess, NO.

The problem is India is too much focused on e-commerce.

Why most start-ups in India are focused on e-commerce ?

 The fundamental reason for this is the huge success of e-commerce in metro cities in last some years. High revenue has been generated by some of these top e-commerce sites. Many have followed the trend and you can see this herd behavior all over web while surfing. New entrepreneurs are watching online shopping as a tried and tested opportunity. And this opportunity is just too alluring to ignore. There’s a natural tendency to stick to the middle ground and do what everyone around you is doing.

Problems with e-commerce 

 How would you differentiate myntra.com from yebhi.com or jabong.com from tradus.in or homeshop18.com or shopping.indiatimes.com? The answer is you just can’t. They all look like same. They all are selling almost same products. There is no difference between the hundreds of e-commerce sites in India, and that is a big cause of worry.

 

Some might argue that this industry is big enough to foster all these sites. But in my opinion this argument is debatable itself. We are not talking about physical stores here. This business is online. This business can provide you products anywhere. You don’t need to open a new franchisee or new shop for a new location. Hence, only few sites can cover almost every possible geographical location.

One more big concern is attitude of venture capitalists towards e-commerce. Though venture capitalists are funding new e-commerce startups, but it is just to make sure that they have covered the industry. Sure they know that many of these guys will fail. But they just need to have e-commerce in the closet. The fallout is that these startups never receive special care and attention (follow up rounds of investments, etc) when you need it!

Indian online industry needs more areas to explore

 Entrepreneurs must not replicate what’s already been done. There are so many business opportunities available, so why settle for starting the 233rd e-commerce site in the country? We need more innovating ideas like zomato.com (An online directory for restaurants and pubs in metro cities) or saavn.com (The firm owns and distributes digital rights of movies, music tracks, music videos and ringtones). Even if you are thinking to open another e-commerce site, try to bring some innovation like bewakoof.com or zovi.com. Instead of selling branded products, they have created their own brand. And because of this they stand out of the crowd. These sites have more chances to grow and stay in business for long as compared to their counterparts.

Some of the entrepreneurs have already foreseen the future. Here you can find a list of entrepreneurs who took the challenge to explore new business areas and got quite successful. We need more innovative ideas, especially in areas for which online market is still to be established. Sometimes you need to get away from the crowd. It’s good to explore all the options you have instead of just accepting what everyone else is doing.