speech on e commerce in india

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Rise of e-commerce in india: 7 trends influencing growth.

2020 – the year of the pandemic was a game changer for the e-commerce industry, which witnessed hyper-growth, both in volume as well as in value terms.

The rise of e-commerce in India was accentuated by evolving spending patterns and shopping preferences with an estimated  30-40% growth  in consumers that shifted from in-store shopping to online purchases. They prioritized convenience, no-contact home delivery and a seamless, touchless shopping experience.

The promising prospects of the e-commerce space is confirmed by  IBEF , which opines that India’s e-commerce industry is expected to leapfrog to #2 globally by 2034. Further, the sector would be worth US$99 billion by 2024, a jump from US$30 billion in 2019, growing at a CAGR of 27%.

Additionally, segments like grocery and fashion/apparel would be key growth drivers. It is estimated that the size of the grocery market in India is valued at  $380Bn (2019 ), comprising 60% of the retail market.

Source: IBEF

Key Trends in the Rise of E-commerce in India

A  Goldman Sachs report  indicates that online retail penetration levels are expected to jump to 11% by 2024 from 4.7% in 2019. Further the size in value terms of online grocery would swell 20X times to $29Bn in the next 5 years, from the current $2Bn in 2020.

The e-commerce growth rate in India till 2024 would exceed that of other countries like the US, UK, other European countries, Brazil and China.  We shall look at some of the key trends that triggered the rise of e-commerce in India.

Increased participation and funding

Recognizing the huge business opportunity, the e-commerce sector is attracting increased investments as well as intense competition with several players foraying into the segment. In 2019 alone, e-commerce and consumer internet companies received inflows worth over  $4.32 Bn  by way of investments from PE and VC players.

A  Grant Thornton report  highlights the increased investments in 2020 namely PhonePe (USD 28 million), BigBasket (USD 50 million) and Nykaa (USD 13 million). Further, the cumulative investments of over USD 13 billion (INR 100,000 crore) by multiple business entities in the Jio platform will shake up the e-commerce market dynamics in the coming days.

      Source: ET

Statistics indicate that BigBasket and Grofers commanded over  80% market share in 2019 . However, the entry of RIL into the e-commerce space is expected to be a major disruption. A Goldman Sachs study reveals that while online grocery clocked a 50% y-o-y growth, the online buying trend and RIL’s foray would boost the CAGR (2019-24) to 81%. With intense competition, one can expect the end-consumer to benefit with price discounts, bulk offers and consumer loyalty points.

Favourable Policy reforms

Another factor contributing to the success of e-commerce is the policy support offered by the Central Government, summarized below:

• 100% FDI is permitted in B2B e-commerce
• In the case of the marketplace model of e-commerce, 100% FDI under the automatic route is allowed

The Indian Govt: Leading by example

In August 2016 itself, the Indian Government took the digital plunge and launched a landmark portal under the common umbrella name  Government e-marketplace (GeM),  an online, digital B2B market place with the aim to bring in transparency and cost efficiency to the Government procurement process. Since then, the efforts have yielded positive results.

As per estimates (Sept 2020),  India has saved to the tune of $1 billion as of date, since the transition of $400 billion public procurement to GeM.  According to a BCG report, the platform has contributed  up to 25%  savings in Government expenditure.

Enhanced adoption of Digital payments

A complementary sector closely associated with the e-commerce space is the digital payments segment within the larger fintech landscape. A Grant Thornton report emphasizes that India would register the highest growth in the digital payments domain with an estimated 20.2% CAGR.

This is due to rapid digitalisation, huge user base, and proactive policy support from the Government and RBI. It spells good news for the e-commerce domain as the use of digital payment modes would find higher acceptance amongst e-commerce buyers.

Transactions surge during the festive season

The exponential hike in transactions during the festive seasons like Diwali is another trend seen during the rise of e-commerce in India. This year, owing to the pandemic and the preference to stay indoors, there was a huge jump in the transactions recorded during the festive months, as is confirmed from the below chart. It is estimated that the gross e-commerce sales touched a whopping  $33Bn  in the calendar year 2020 alone.

The emergence of the digital-savvy buyer and netizens

Higher internet penetration and mobile connectivity are also instrumental in driving the e-commerce user base in India. Another key factor is the Government’s favourable policies like Digital India, thrust on cashless payment options and the upcoming 5G telecom revolution in 2021.

By 2021, India’s internet users’ pool would include over  846 Mn , with 80% of this segment also having access to mobile. A report by  Invest India  states that by 2025, internet penetration would cover more than 55% of the entire population with a corresponding jump in online shoppers from the 15% in 2020 to 50% by 2026.

Internet users have indicated a preference for online e-commerce transactions. A study revealed that at the start of 2020,  74% stated they had made at least a single online purchase in the past month.

Higher purchasing power finds its way to e-commerce

The Indian middle class, defined as being aspirational and experimental in their purchases are fuelling the exponential growth of e-commerce. A PwC report highlights that by 2022, the Indian middle class, with an estimated annual income between  $7.5k-37k  will comprise the lion’s share of the population.

This segment with its new-found spending power is expected to channelise consumption-driven demand towards e-commerce platforms as a form of experimentation and exploring of new products and services. While the per capita consumption of rural Indians would grow  4.3x , the urban counterparts would witness a  3.5x increase.

Concluding thoughts on the Rise of E-commerce in India: 

The rise of e-commerce in India shows no signs of stopping. The Government is drafting a comprehensive e-commerce policy law with proposed monetary incentives for stores and retailers that transition to e-commerce.

Additionally, with the mandatory requirement to display the country of origin and the thrust on ‘vocal for local’, one can expect that ‘Made in India’ products would enhance their market share. There is also a growing preference for specialisation with niche e-commerce players offering only apparel, furniture, jewelry or electronic goods.

The e-commerce industry too needs to reinvent itself to match the changing customer expectations. Removal of supply chain bottlenecks, on-time last-mile delivery along with switching from the point-to-point model to the hub and spoke model would enhance the global competitiveness of domestic e-commerce players.

• ← Riding the COVID storm How digital payments won consumer trust amidst shifting spending patterns
• Online Payments – The Transition Story →

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• Speech Writing /

Speech on the Rise of E-Commerce for School Students in English 

• Updated on  
• Jan 5, 2024

Speech on the Rise of E-Commerce: Last day, I received a smartphone from an e-commerce website that was unavailable everywhere onsite. I was at the top of the world not just because I received the phone of my choice but also because the e-commerce company from which I ordered my handset gave me a cashback too, which was just half the price of an electronic device.

E-commerce has changed the scene of business worldwide. It has changed the way of buying and selling any commodity in trade. Prior, our presence was necessary for any purchase, but now we are getting the things, say electronic gadgets, furniture, books, or even groceries, packed food, and likewise, at the doorstep. Receiving all such goods and services with just one order is possible because of e-commerce companies.

Also Read: Speech on National Youth Day For Students In English

5-minutes Speech on the Rise of E-commerce

Greetings to all the fellow learners here. Today´s topic is centered around ¨Speech on the Rise of E-Commerce.¨

Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet. E-commerce includes different types of segments for customers, which include food items, fashion, electronics, flight and train tickets, beauty and personal care products, sports and outdoors, toys and games, and services such as online learning, cloud storage, streaming services, and many more.

The history of retail shops entering the market is not new. A student from Standford University started the business by buying and selling marijuana, a psychoactive drug that comes from the cannabis plant. The person, rather than the first online businessman, used the Advanced Research Projects Agency´s Network (ARPANET), which was later shut down by the university.

The market for online retail businesses became progressively active with the entry of e-commerce businesses in 1995 with the launch of Amazon and eBay. The beginning of the transformative era of e-commerce keeps on expanding and is successful with more development and diversification every year. Also, accessibility to the internet, use of smartphones, consumer preferences, and providing service with convenience help the e-commerce business grow within a short period. 

Who will deny shopping if consumers get a range of diverse products while sitting at home with competitive pricing? Moreover, e-commerce market strategies , innovative methods of selling a product, and engaging online experiences help secure online transactions, which not only enhance the customer experience but also help build trust.

Furthermore, the use of artificial intelligence and applications gave the customer an environment for a seamless and personalized online shopping experience. 

From business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions to business-to-business (B2B) collaborations, the lives of customers have turned to ease and convenience, and this is made possible only because of the rise of e-commerce. 

Talking regarding India, with the pride of being the 7th largest market for e-commerce businesses, we have successfully built up the trust and satisfaction of the customers in these online retail shops, which have earned revenue of 138 billion rupees and are expected to triple over the next three years, with a projected market volume of US$108,060.8 million by 2027.

However, as the saying goes, everything comes with a price, and so does the rise of e-commerce. The rise in e-commerce marks opportunities as well as challenges for customers and small business owners. On the one hand, these small businesses gain global market reach with reduced overhead expenses and increased visibility, but on the other hand, they face challenges in making their online presence. 

Also, online fraudulent cases, with customers delivering damaged or replica products, turn the user experience bad and create an obstacle to the upswing of e-commerce businesses.

It is important to control the challenges for keeping the market of e-commerce growing with quality assurance measures, secure websites with a safe online presence, monitoring the customer reviews, clear return and refund exchange policies and investing in flexible infrastructure that helps in growing e-commerce business without any compromise in performance.

In conclusion, e-commerce not only seizes opportunities but also helps in giving a boom to sectors related to business. Just a balance is needed to remove the hurdles, if any, and make the customer feel like a digital king.

Also Read: Difference between E Commerce and E Business

10 Lines on The Rise of E-commerce

Here are the short and simple lines for the topic ¨The Rise of E-Commerce.¨

1. E-commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services over the Internet.

2. Most people love the convenience of shopping online.

3. The use of smartphones, consumer preferences, and providing service with convenience help the e-commerce business grow within a short period.

4. Small businesses are growing through the global market of e-commerce.

5. Safe and secure payment options have built on the trust of customers for online retail shopping.

6. One of the major reasons for the boom in the e-commerce sector was the pandemic of COVID-19.

7. Strategies like giving discounts on competitive prices, attract customers for more shopping.

8. It is important to control the challenges for keeping the market of e-commerce growing with quality assurance measures.

9. Mobile commerce helps individuals to shop online through smartphones.

10. E-commerce is a reflection of shifting to digital easiness shopping habits. 

Ans. The reasons behind the rise of E-commerce are convenie nce, variety of products under one roof and competitive pricing among the brands.

Ans. Michael Aldrich is known as the father of E-commerce stores.

Ans. Talking regarding India, with the pride of being the 7th largest market for e-commerce businesses in the world.  

Ans. Online food delivery is the fastest-growing E-commerce industry in the world.

Ans. Business-to-consumer (B2C) is the most popular type of E-commerce. It is a business where the selling and buying of products and services is done directly to individual consumers.

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Deepika Joshi

Deepika Joshi is an experienced content writer with expertise in creating educational and informative content. She has a year of experience writing content for speeches, essays, NCERT, study abroad and EdTech SaaS. Her strengths lie in conducting thorough research and ananlysis to provide accurate and up-to-date information to readers. She enjoys staying updated on new skills and knowledge, particulary in education domain. In her free time, she loves to read articles, and blogs with related to her field to further expand her expertise. In personal life, she loves creative writing and aspire to connect with innovative people who have fresh ideas to offer.

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Related Expertise: Emerging Markets , Go-to-Market Strategy , International Business

Ten Things You Should Know About E-Commerce in India

July 06, 2022  By  Nimisha Jain ,  Kanika Sanghi , and  Nivedita Balaji

• Consumers in new online shopper cohorts are just as likely to be moderate to heavy buyers as longtime online shoppers.
• E- commerce spending by PIN code diverges sharply from offline spending.
• Smaller cities are playing an outsize role in the expansion of online shopping in India.
• Marketplaces now have more digital influence overall than search sites do.
• Social media and chat are a small but rapidly growing online-purchasing channel.

Our detailed survey of Indian consumers investigates the country’s explosive growth in online shopping--with extensive implications for businesses, platforms, and channels.

With the world’s lowest data and smartphone costs, growing internet penetration, and a proliferation of new online shopping channels, India is experiencing a dramatic rise in e-commerce and digitally influenced spending. In fact, the numbers of digitally influenced shoppers and online shoppers have grown rapidly in recent years, reaching 260 million to 280 million for the former and 210 million to 230 million for the latter in 2021. We expect these numbers to increase by 2.5 times over the next decade, accompanied by nearly sixfold growth in online retail spending. (See Exhibit 1.)

E-tail growth received a kick-start from the COVID-19 pandemic , which pushed many consumers to begin shopping online for the first time and encouraged existing shoppers to increase their online purchasing, as physical shopping channels closed or became difficult to access. The net effect was to accelerate growth in the number of online shoppers in India by approximately four years and in the amount of online spending by about three years. Shoppers who were new to online shopping made up 35% of total online buyers during the period from April to September 2020. (See Exhibit 2.)

To fully explore this growth in digital and digitally influenced spending, we surveyed more than 10,000 consumers in India across a range of geographies and incomes, analyzed the online transaction data of more than 200,000 online shoppers, and interviewed multiple industry experts. (See “Our Methodology.”)

Our Methodology

The results provide detailed and extensive insights into Indian consumers’ shopping patterns and preferences . They also reveal a number of intriguing trends, including changes in who is shopping, where they live, what they buy, and how they shop.

For example, in a surprising divergence from the traditional Indian e-commerce shopper—the metropolitan millennial male—several new shopper cohorts that previously were e-commerce laggards turned to e-commerce as the pandemic began. Two potentially overlapping cohorts dominate this new-shopper category: the over-45 age group, which now accounts for more than a third of new shoppers in India and is the fastest growing segment; and the “next billion,” or middle-income population, which accounts for 38% of new online shoppers. In addition, Indian women are rapidly increasing their presence in the internet marketplace, where they already make up about 43% of the country’s new post-pandemic shoppers. (See Exhibit 3.)

We found that smaller cities are also contributing a great deal to India’s e-commerce growth. However, rural shoppers—consumers who live on farms or in towns and villages with populations of no more than 50,000 people—may be the future of e-commerce. Our study indicates that 54% of online shoppers in India will hail from rural areas by 2030, and that they will account for 24% of online retail spending. (See Exhibit 4.) The primary sources of this growth are the youngest adult cohort (ages 18 to 24) and the rural affluent (incomes of at least $13,000).

As more and more shoppers in India embrace the internet and e-commerce, they are also expanding the number of categories in which they buy online. Spurred by the onset of the pandemic , for example, they have added groceries and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) to their list of online go-to items. In fact, categories such as online food orders, FMCG, and beauty and personal care (BPC) items have seen sales grow by three to five times in recent years.

We expect the shape of e-commerce spending in India to continue to evolve along this path. Whereas mobile devices, electronics, and fashion once dominated e-commerce, food and FMCG will gain share from mobile and electronics. According to our projections, fashion and food and FMCG will account for nearly half of the e-tail market by 2030, up from just over 30% today. (See Exhibit 5.)

Our findings have extensive implications for businesses, platforms, and channels that cater to the evolving e-commerce buyer in India. These players can take a number of actions to keep abreast of the changing market , including understanding the needs of new cohorts and high-growth categories, adapting their e-commerce strategy to meet them, taking advantage of emerging opportunities, developing new go-to-market approaches, and working toward integrated and seamless customer journeys .

Whatever steps they choose, businesses should act quickly to attract consumers’ attention online, convert that attention into sales, and continue the conversation to keep their customers engaged.

Download the full report to read more about our detailed findings.

Managing Director & Senior Partner

Partner and Director, Center for Customer Insight

Mumbai - Nariman Point

Associate Director

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Digital India: Technology to transform a connected nation

With more than half a billion internet subscribers, India is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital consumers, but adoption is uneven among businesses. As digital capabilities improve and connectivity becomes omnipresent, technology is poised to quickly and radically change nearly every sector of India’s economy. That is likely to both create significant economic value and change the nature of work for tens of millions of Indians.

In Digital India: Technology to transform a connected nation (PDF–3MB), the McKinsey Global Institute highlights the rapid spread of digital technologies and their potential value to the Indian economy by 2025 if government and the private sector work together to create new digital ecosystems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

India's consumers are taking a digital leap, uneven adoption among india's businesses has opened a digital gap, measuring the potential economic impact of digital applications in 2025, building digital ecosystems that connect, automate, and analyze, what are the implications for companies, policy makers, and individuals.

By many measures, India is well on its way to becoming a digitally advanced country. Propelled by the falling cost and rising availability of smartphones and high-speed connectivity, India is already home to one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing bases of digital consumers and is digitizing faster than many mature and emerging economies.

India had 560 million internet subscribers in September 2018, second only to China. Digital services are growing in parallel (Exhibit 1). Indians download more apps—12.3 billion in 2018—than any country except China and spend more time on social media—an average of 17 hours a week —than social media users in China and the United States. The share of Indian adults with at least one digital financial account has more than doubled since 2011, to 80 percent , thanks in large part to the government’s mass financial-inclusion program, Jan-Dhan Yojana.

To put this digital growth in context, we analyzed 17 mature and emerging economies across 30 dimensions of digital adoption since 2014 and found that India is digitizing faster than all but one other country in the study, Indonesia. Our Country Digital Adoption Index covers three elements: digital foundation (cost, speed, and reliability of internet service); digital reach (number of mobile devices, app downloads, and data consumption), and digital value, (how much consumers engage online by chatting, tweeting, shopping, or streaming). India’s score rose by 90 percent since 2014 (Exhibit 2). In absolute terms, its score is low—32 on a scale of 100—so there remains ample room to grow.

Public- and private-sector actions have driven digital growth so far

The public sector has been a strong catalyst for India’s rapid digitization. The government’s efforts to ramp up Aadhaar, the national biometric digital identity program, has played a major role. Aadhaar has enrolled 1.2 billion people since it was introduced in 2009, making it the single largest digital ID program in the world, hastening the spread of other digital services. For example, almost 870 million bank accounts were linked to Aadhaar by February 2018, compared with 399 million in April 2017 and 56 million in January 2014. Likewise, the Goods and Services Tax Network, established in 2013, brings all transactions of about 10.3 million indirect tax-paying businesses onto one digital platform, creating a powerful incentive for businesses to digitize their operations.

At the same time, private sector innovation has helped bring internet-enabled services to millions of consumers and made online usage more accessible. For example, Reliance Jio’s strategy of bundling virtually free smartphones with mobile-service subscriptions has spurred innovation and competitive pricing. Data costs have plummeted by more than 95 percent since 2013 and fixed-line download speeds quadrupled between 2014 and 2017. As a result, mobile data consumption per user grew by 152 percent annually—more than twice the rates in the United States and China (Exhibit 3).

Global and local digital businesses have recognized the opportunity in India and are creating services tailored to its consumers and unique operating conditions. Media companies are making content available in India’s 22 official languages, for example. And by tailoring its mobile payments and commerce platform to India’s market, Alibaba-backed Paytm has registered more than 100 million electronic “Know Your Customer”-compliant mobile wallet users and nine million merchants .

The pace of growth is helping India’s poorer states to narrow the digital gap with wealthier states. Lower-income states like Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand are expanding internet infrastructure such as base tower stations and increasing the penetration of internet services to new customers faster than wealthier states. Uttar Pradesh alone added close to 36 million internet subscribers between 2014 and 2018. Ordinary Indians in many parts of the country—including small towns and rural areas—can now read the news online, order food delivery via a phone app, video chat with a friend (Indians log 50 million video-calling minutes a day on WhatsApp), shop at a virtual retailer, send money to a family member using their phone, or watch a movie streamed to a handheld device.

Despite these advances, India has plenty of room to grow. Only about 40 percent of the populace has an internet subscription. While many people have digital bank accounts, 90 percent of all retail transactions in India, by volume, are still made with cash. E-commerce revenue is growing by more than 25 to 30 percent per year, yet only 5 percent of trade in India is done online, compared with 15 percent in China in 2015. Looking ahead, India’s digital consumers are poised for robust growth.

We surveyed more than 600 large and small companies in India to gauge the level of digitization in various sectors as well as the underlying traits, activities, and mind-sets that drive digitization at the firm level. We used each company’s answers to score its level of digitization and then ranked them in the MGI India Firm Digitization Index. Companies in the top quartile, which we characterize as digital leaders, had an average score of 58.2 (relative to a maximum potential value of 100), while those in the bottom quartile, the digital laggards, averaged 33.2. The median score was 46.2. A higher score indicates that the company is using digital in its day-to-day operations more extensively (implementing CRM systems, accepting digital modes of payments, etc.) and in a more organized manner (having separate analytics team, centralized digital organization, etc.) than the ones with lower scores.

Our survey found that, on average, leaders outscored others by 70 percent on strategy, 40 percent on organization, and 31 percent on capabilities (Exhibit 4).

Differences within sectors are higher than those across sectors. While some sectors have more digital leaders than others, top-quartile companies are found in all sectors—even those considered resistant to technology, such as farming or construction. Conversely, sectors with more leaders, such as information and communication technology, still have companies in the bottom quartile.

However, India’s digital leaders generally do share common traits in terms of the following areas:

• Digital strategy: Leaders are 30 percent more likely than bottom-quartile companies to fully integrate digital and global strategies and 2.3 times more likely to sell on e-commerce platforms. Leaders are 3.5 times more likely to say digital disruptions led them to change core operations and 40 percent more likely to say digital is a top priority for investment.
• Digital organization: Leaders are 14.5 times more likely than bottom-quartile companies to centralize digital management, and five times more likely to have a stand-alone, properly staffed analytics team. Top-quartile firms are also 70 percent more likely than bottom-quartile firms to say their CEO is “supportive and directly engaged” in digital initiatives.
• Digital capabilities: Leaders are 2.6 times more likely than bottom-quartile firms to use digital tools to manage customer relationships and 2.5 times more likely to use digital tools to coordinate the management of their core business operations.

The gap between digital leaders and other firms is not insurmountable. In some cases, even when the gap is large, lagging companies may be able to begin closing it by digitizing in small, relatively simple ways. Social media marketing is a good example. While bottom-quartile firms are much less likely than leaders to use social media, e-commerce, or listing platforms, each of these channels is cheap and easily accessible and there is little to stop a business owner with a high-speed internet connection and a smartphone from taking advantage of them.

For now, large companies (defined in our survey as having revenue greater than 5 billion rupees, or about $70 million) are more likely to have the financial resources and expertise needed to invest in some advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. But growing high-speed internet connectivity and falling data costs may soon make some of these technologies available to small-business owners and even sole proprietors.

Indeed, our survey found small businesses are ahead of big companies in terms of accepting digital payments: 94 percent accept payment by debit or credit card, compared with only 79 percent of big companies; for digital wallets the difference was 78 percent versus 49 percent.

Our survey found 70 percent of small businesses use their own websites to reach clients, compared with 82 percent of big companies. Small businesses are less likely than big companies to buy display ads on the web (37 percent versus 66 percent), but they are ahead of big companies in connecting with customers via social media, and more likely to use search-engine optimization. More than 60 percent of the small firms surveyed use LinkedIn to hire talent, and about half believe that most of their employees today need basic digital skills. While only 51 percent of smaller firms said they “extensively” sell goods and services on their websites (compared with 73 percent of big businesses), small businesses use e-commerce platforms and other digital sales channels just as much as large firms and are equally likely to receive orders through digital means like WhatsApp.

Companies that innovate and digitize rapidly will be better placed to take advantage of India’s large, connected market, which could include up to 700 million smartphone users and 840 million internet users by 2023. In the context of rapidly improving technology and falling data costs, technology-enabled business models could become pervasive over the next decade. That will likely create significant economic value.

We consider economic impact in three broad areas. First are core digital sectors, such as IT-BPM, digital communications, and electronics manufacturing. Second are newly digitizing sectors such as financial services, agriculture, healthcare, logistics, and manufacturing, which are not traditionally considered part of India’s digital economy but have the potential to rapidly adopt new technologies. Third are government services and labor markets, which can use digital technologies in new ways.

Core digital sectors could double their GDP contribution by 2025

India’s core digital sectors accounted for about $170 billion—or 7 percent—of GDP in 2017–18. This comprises value added from core digital sectors: $115 billion from IT-BPM, $45 billion from digital communications, and $10 billion from electronics manufacturing. Based on industry revenue, cost structures, and growth trends, we estimate these sectors could grow significantly faster than GDP: value-added contribution in 2025 could range from $205 billion to $250 billion for IT-BPM, from $100 billion to $130 billion for electronics manufacturing, and $50 billion to $55 billion for digital communications. The total, between $355 billion and $435 billion, may account for 8 to 10 percent of India’s 2025 GDP.

Newly digitizing sectors are already creating added value

Alongside these already digitized sectors, India stands to create more value if it can nurture new and emerging digital ecosystems in sectors such as agriculture, education, energy, financial services, healthcare, and logistics. The benefits of digital applications in each of these newly digitizing sectors are already visible. For example, in logistics, tracking vehicles in real time has enabled shippers to reduce fleet turnaround time by 50 to 70 percent . Similarly, digitized supply chains help companies reduce their inventory by up to 20 percent. Farmers can cut the cost of growing crops by 15 to 20 percent using data on soil conditions that enables them to minimize the use of fertilizers and other inputs.

Digital can improve government services and the efficiency of India’s job market

Digital technologies can also create significant value in areas such as government services and the job market. Moving government subsidy transfers, procurement, and other transactions online can enhance public-sector efficiency and productivity, while creating online labor marketplaces could considerably improve the efficiency of India’s fragmented and largely informal job market.

To unlock this value will require widespread adoption and implementation. The economic value will be proportionate to the extent digital applications permeate production processes, from supply chains to delivery channels. Our estimates of potential economic value depend on each sector’s digital adoption rate by 2025; where the readiness of India’s firms and government agencies is low and significant effort will be required to catalyze broad-based digitization, adoption may be low, between 20 to 40 percent of the potential. Where private-sector readiness is high and government policy already supports large-scale digitization, adoption could be as high as 60 to 80 percent.

In all, we estimate that India’s newly digitizing sectors have the potential to create sizable economic value by 2025: from $130 billion to $170 billion in financial services, including digital payments; $50 billion to $65 billion in agriculture; $25 billion to $35 billion each in retail and e-commerce, logistics and transportation; and $10 billion in energy and healthcare (Exhibit 5). Digitizing more government services and benefit transfers could yield economic value of $20 billion to $40 billion, while digital skill-training and job-market platforms could yield up to $70 billion. While these ranges underscore large potential value, realization of this value is not guaranteed: losing momentum on government policies that enable the digital economy would mean India could realize less than half of the potential value by 2025.

Digital can create jobs but will require new skills and some labor redeployment

Changes brought by digital adoption will disrupt India’s labor force as well as its industries. We estimate that as many as 60 million to 65 million new jobs could be created from the direct and indirect impact of productivity-boosting digital applications. These jobs could be enabled in industries as diverse as construction and manufacturing, agriculture, trade and hotels, IT-BPM, finance, media and telecom, and transport and logistics.

However, some work will be automated or rendered obsolete. We estimate that all or parts of 40 million to 45 million existing jobs could be affected by 2025. These include data-entry operators, bank tellers, clerks, and insurance claims- and policy-processing staff. Millions of people who currently hold these positions will need to be retrained and redeployed.

Jobs of the future will be more skill-intensive. Along with rising demand for skills in emerging digital technologies (such as the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and 3-D printing), demand for higher cognitive, social, and emotional skills , such as creativity, unstructured problem solving, teamwork, and communication, will also increase. These are skills that machines, for now, are unable to master. As the technology evolves and develops, individuals will need to constantly learn and relearn marketable skills throughout their lifetime. India will need to create affordable and effective education and training programs at scale, not just for new job market entrants but also for midcareer workers.

To capture the potential economic value that we size at a macro level, businesses will need to deliver digital technologies at a micro level: that is, how they use digital technologies to fundamentally alter day-to-day activities.

Three digital forces will drive these shifts: One is the greater ease with which people can connect, collaborate, transact, and share information; another is the opportunity for companies to increase productivity by automating routine tasks; the third is the greater ease with which organizations can analyze data to make insights and improve decision making.

The interplay of these forces will create new data ecosystems, which in turn will spur new products, services, and channels in virtually every business sector, and create economic value for consumers as well as those members of the ecosystem that best adapt their business models.

To highlight the kinds of business model changes that companies should predict and prepare for, we examine how this connect-automate-analyze trio can play out across four sectors: agriculture, healthcare, retail, and logistics.

Digital agriculture

India’s farms are small, averaging a little more than one hectare in size, with yields ranging from 50 to 90 percent of those in Brazil, China, and other developing economies. Many factors contribute to this. Indian farmers have a dearth of farm machinery and relatively little data on soil, weather, and other variables. Poor storage and logistics allows produce to go to waste before reaching consumers— $15 billion worth in 2013.

Digital technology can alter this ecosystem in several ways. Precision advisory services—using real-time granular data to optimize inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides—can increase yields by 15 percent or more. After harvest, farmers could use online marketplaces to transact with a larger pool of potential buyers. One such platform, the government’s electronic National Agriculture Market, has helped farmers increase revenue by up to 15 percent . Furthermore, online banking can provide the financial data farmers need to qualify for cheaper bank credit. Digital land records can make crop insurance more available. These and other digital innovations in Indian agriculture can help add $50 billion to $65 billion of economic value by 2025.

Digital healthcare

India has too few doctors, not enough hospital beds, and a low share of state spending on healthcare relative to GDP. While life expectancy has risen to 68.3 years from 37 in 1951, the country still ranks 125th among all nations on this parameter. Indian women are three times as likely to die in childbirth as women in Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa—and ten times as likely as women in the United States.

Digital solutions can help alleviate the shortage of medical professionals by making doctors and nurses more productive. Telemedicine, for example, enables doctors to consult with patients over a digital voice or video link rather in person; this could allow them to see more patients overall and permit doctors in cities to serve patients in rural areas. Telemedicine could also be more cost effective: in trials and pilots, it cut consultation costs by about 30 percent. If telemedicine replaced 30 to 40 percent of in-person outpatient consultations, coupled with digitization in overall healthcare industry, India could save up to $10 billion in 2025.

Digital retail

More than 80 percent of all retail outlets in India—most of them sole proprietors or mom-and-pop shops—operate in the cash-driven informal economy. These businesses do not generate the financial records needed to apply for bank loans, limiting their growth potential. Large retailers have their own sets of challenges. Their reliance on manual store operations and high inventory levels is capital heavy. In many cases, their marketing practices are ineffective, and their prices are static regardless of inventory or demand.

Digital solutions could reshape much of the sector. E-commerce enables retailers to expand without capital-intensive physical stores. Some do not even bother with their own website, relying instead on third-party sites such as Amazon, which offer large, ready pools of shoppers along with logistics, inventory, and payment services, and customer data analytics. E-commerce creates financial records that attest to the creditworthiness of both buyers and sellers, making it cheaper to borrow. Digital marketing can inexpensively engage customers and build brand loyalty. We estimate e-commerce in India will grow faster than sales at brick-and-mortar outlets, allowing digital retail to increase its share of trade from 5 percent now to about 15 percent by 2025.

Digital logistics

India’s economy has grown by at least 6.5 percent annually for the last 20 years. Continuing at that pace of growth would challenge India’s logistics network, which already suffers from a fragmented trucking industry, inadequate railways infrastructure, and a shortage of warehousing. India spends about 14 percent of GDP on logistics, compared with 8 percent in the United States, according to McKinsey estimates.

Digital technology can disrupt even this traditional, physical sector. The government is creating a transactional e-marketplace, the National Logistics Platform , to connect shipping agencies, inland container depots, port authorities, banks, insurers, customs officials, and railways managers. By letting stakeholders share information and coordinate plans, the platform may speed up deliveries, reduce inventory requirements, and smooth order processing. At the same time, private firms are using digital technologies to streamline operations by moving freight booking online, automating customer service, installing tracking devices to monitor cargo movements, using real-time weather and traffic data to map efficient routes, and equipping trucks with internet-linked sensors to alert dispatchers when a vehicle needs servicing. According to McKinsey estimates, digital interventions that result in higher system efficiency and better asset utilization can reduce logistics cost by 15 to 25 percent.

For India to reap the full benefits of digitization—and minimize the pain of transitioning to a digital economy—business leaders, government officials, and individual citizens will need to play distinct roles while also working together.

Business leaders will need to assess how and where digital may disrupt their company and industry and set priorities for how to adapt. Potential disruptions and benefits may be particularly large in India because of its scale, the rapid pace of digitization, and its relatively low productivity in many sectors. To benefit from these changes, companies need to act quickly and decisively to both adapt existing business models and to digitize internal operations. In this context, four imperatives stand out.

First, companies will need to take smart risks as they adapt current business models and adopt new, disruptive ones. Only 46 percent of Indian companies in our survey have an organization-wide plan to change their core operations to react to large-scale disruption.

Second, digital should be front of mind as executives plan. Customers are more digitally literate and have come to expect the convenience and speed of digital, whether shopping online or questioning a bill, but many companies have not reacted. In our survey, 80 percent of firms cite digital as a “top priority,” but only 41 percent say their digital strategy is fully integrated with their overall strategy.

Indian companies will need to invest in building digital capabilities, especially hiring people with the skills needed to start and accelerate a digital transformation.

Third, Indian companies will need to invest in building digital capabilities, especially hiring people with the skills needed to start and accelerate a digital transformation. That is challenging because many of India’s most talented workers emigrate. Companies could work with universities to recruit and develop skilled workers, beginning with digital natives who are currently in universities or have recently finished their studies. Companies also need to build deeper technology understanding and capabilities at all levels, including in the C-suite.

Finally, firms will need to be agile and think of themselves as digital-first organizations. This may need a new attitude that starts with a “test and learn” mind-set that encourages rapid iteration and has a high tolerance for failure and redeployment.

India’s government has done much to encourage digital progress, from rationalizing regulations to improving infrastructure to launching Digital India, an ambitious initiative to double the size of the country’s digital economy. However, much needs to be done for India to realize its full potential.

National and state governments can help by partnering with the private sector to drive digitization, starting by putting the technology at the core of their operations. This helps by providing a market for digital solutions, which generates revenue for providers, encourages digital start-ups, and gives individuals more reasons to go online—whether to receive a cooking-gas subsidy, register a property purchase, or access any other government service.

Governments also can help by creating and administering public data sources that entrepreneurs can use to improve existing products and services and create new ones; by fostering a regulatory environment that supports digital adoption and protects citizens’ privacy; and by facilitating the evolution of labor markets in industries disrupted by automation.

Individuals

Individual Indians are already reaping the benefits of digitization as consumers, but they will need to be cognizant that its disruptive powers can affect their lives and work in other fundamental ways. For example, they will need to be aware of how digitally driven automation may change their work and what skills they will need to thrive in the future. Individuals will also need to become stewards of their personal data and skeptical consumers of information.

While India’s public and private sectors have propelled the country into the forefront of the world’s consumers of internet and digital applications over the past few years, its digitization story is far from over.

Navigating the emerging digital landscape will not be easy, but it is one of the golden keys to India’s future growth and prosperity. Unlocking the opportunities will be a challenge for the government, for businesses large and small, and for individual Indians, and there will be pain along with gains. But if India can accelerate its digital growth trajectory, the rewards will be palpable to millions of businesses and hundreds of millions of its citizens.

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E-Commerce and Consumer Protection in India: The Emerging Trend

• Original Paper
• Published: 09 July 2021
• Volume 180 , pages 581–604, ( 2022 )

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• Neelam Chawla   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2161-1102 1 &
• Basanta Kumar   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3339-7481 2  

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Given the rapid growth and emerging trend of e-commerce have changed consumer preferences to buy online, this study analyzes the current Indian legal framework that protects online consumers ’  interests. A thorough analysis of the two newly enacted laws, i.e., the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 and literature review support analysis of 290 online consumers answering the research questions and achieving research objectives. The significant findings are that a secure and reliable system is essential for e-business firms to work successfully; cash on delivery is the priority option for online shopping; website information and effective customer care services build a customer's trust. The new regulations are arguably strong enough to protect and safeguard online consumers' rights and boost India’s e-commerce growth. Besides factors such as s ecurity, privacy, warranty, customer service, and website information, laws governing  consumer rights protection in e-commerce influence customers’ trust. Growing e-commerce looks promising with a robust legal framework and consumer protection measures. The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on e-commerce and consumer rights protection by elucidating the key factors that affect customer trust and loyalty and offering an informative perspective on e-consumer protection in the Indian context with broader implications.

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Study Background

The study context, which discusses two key aspects, namely the rationale for consumer protection in e-commerce and its growth, is presented hereunder:

The Rationale for Consumer Protection in E-commerce

Consumer protection is a burning issue in e-commerce throughout the globe. E-Commerce refers to a mechanism that mediates transactions to sell goods and services through electronic exchange. E-commerce increases productivity and widens choice through cost savings, competitiveness and a better production process organisation Footnote 1 (Vancauteren et al., 2011 ). According to the guidelines-1999 of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), e-commerce is online business activities-both communications, including advertising and marketing, and transactions comprising ordering, invoicing and payments (OECD, 2000 ). OCED-1999 guidelines recognised, among others, three essential dimensions of consumer protection in e-commerce. All consumers need to have access to e-commerce. Second, to build consumer trust/confidence in e-commerce, the continued development of transparent and effective consumer protection mechanisms is required to check fraudulent, misleading, and unfair practices online. Third, all stakeholders-government, businesses, consumers, and their representatives- must pay close attention to creating effective redress systems. These guidelines are primarily for cross-border transactions (OECD, 2000 ).

Considering the technological advances, internet penetration, massive use of smartphones and social media penetration led e-commerce growth, the OECD revised its 1999 recommendations for consumer protection in 2016. The 2016-guidelines aim to address the growing challenges of e-consumers’ protection by stimulating innovation and competition, including non-monetary transactions, digital content products, consumers-to-consumers (C2C) transactions, mobile devices, privacy and security risks, payment protection and product safety. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of consumer protection authorities in ensuring their ability to protect e-commerce consumers and cooperate in cross-border matters (OECD, 2016 ). The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in its notes-2017, also recognises similar consumer protection challenges in e-commerce. The notes look into policy measures covering relevant laws and their enforcement, consumer education, fair business practices and international cooperation to build consumer trust (UNCTAD, 2017 ).

E-commerce takes either the domestic (intra-border) route or cross-border (International) transactions. Invariably, six e-commerce models, i.e. Business-to-Consumer (B2C), Business-to-Business (B2B), Consumer-to-Business (C2B), Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C), Business-to-Administration (B2A) and Consumer-to-Administration (C2A) operate across countries (UNESAP and ADB, 2019 ; Kumar & Chandrasekar, 2016 ). Irrespective of the model, the consumer is the King in the marketplace and needs to protect his interest. However, the focus of this paper is the major e-commerce activities covering B2B and B2C.

The OECD and UNCTAD are two global consumer protection agencies that promote healthy and competitive international trade. Founded in 1960, Consumer International Footnote 2 (CI) is a group of around 250 consumer organisations in over 100 countries representing and defending consumer rights in international policy forums and the global marketplace. The other leading international agencies promoting healthy competition in national and international trade are European Consumer Cooperation Network, ECC-Net (European Consumer Center Network), APEC Electronic Consumer Directing Group (APECSG), Iberoamerikanische Forum der Konsumer Protection Agenturen (FIAGC), International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Agencies (Durovic, 2020 ).

ICPEN, in the new form, started functioning in 2002 and is now a global membership organisation of consumer protection authorities from 64 countries, including India joining in 2019 and six observing authorities (COMESA, EU, GPEN, FIAGC, OECD and UNCTAD). While it addresses coordination and cooperation on consumer protection enforcement issues, disseminates information on consumer protection trends and shares best practices on consumer protection laws, it does not regulate financial services or product safety. Through econsumer.gov Footnote 3 enduring initiative, ICPEN, in association with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), redresses international online fraud. Footnote 4 Econsumer.gov, a collaboration of consumer protection agencies from 41 countries around the world, investigates the following types of international online fraud:

Online shopping/internet services/computer equipment

Credit and debit

Telemarketing & spam

Jobs & making money

Imposters scam: family, friend, government, business or romance

Lottery or sweepstake or prize scams

Travel & vacations

Phones/mobile devices & phone services

Something else

Online criminals target personal and financial information. Online trading issues involve scammers targeting customers who buy/sell/trade online. Table 1 on online cross-border complaints of fraud reported by econsumer.gov reveals that international scams are rising. Total cross-border fraud during 2020 (till 30 June) was 33,968 with a reported loss of US$91.95 million as against 40,432 cases with a loss of US$ 151.3 million and 14,797 complaints with the loss of US$40.83 million 5 years back. Among others, these complaints included online shopping fraud, misrepresented products, products that did not arrive, and refund issues. Figure  1 shows that the United States ranked first among the ten countries where consumers lodged online fraud complaints based on consumer and business locations. India was the third country next to France for online fraud reporting in consumer locations, while it was the fifth nation for company location-based reporting. Besides the USA and India, Poland, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Turkey, Spain, and Mexico reported many consumer complaints. Companies in China, the United Kingdom, France, Hong Kong, Spain, Canada, Poland and Turkey received the most complaints. The trend is a serious global concern, with a magnitude of reported loss of above 60%.

Source: Data compiled from https://public.tableau.com/profile/federal.trade.commission#!/vizhome/eConsumer/Infographic , Accessed 7 October 2020

Online shopping-top consumer locations and company locations.

The international scenario and views on consumer protection in e-commerce provide impetus to discuss consumer protection in e-business in a regional context-India. The reason for this is that India has become a leading country for online consumer fraud, putting a spotlight on electronic governance systems-which may have an impact on India's ease of doing business ranking. However, to check fraud and ensure consumer protection in e-commerce, the government has replaced the earlier Consumer Protection Act, 1986, with the new Act-2019 and E-Commerce Rule-2020 is in place now.

E-commerce Growth

E-commerce has been booming since the advent of the worldwide web (internet) in 1991, but its root is traced back to the Berlin Blockade for ordering and airlifting goods via telex between 24 June 1948 and 12 May 1949. Since then, new technological developments, improvements in internet connectivity, and widespread consumer and business adoption, e-commerce has helped countless companies grow. The first e-commerce transaction took place with the Boston Computer Exchange that launched its first e-commerce platform way back in 1982 (Azamat et al., 2011 ; Boateng et al., 2008 ). E-commerce growth potential is directly associated with internet penetration (Nielsen, 2018 ). The increase in the worldwide use of mobile devices/smartphones has primarily led to the growth of e-commerce. With mobile devices, individuals are more versatile and passive in buying and selling over the internet (Harrisson et al., 2017 ; Išoraitė & Miniotienė, 2018 ; Milan et al., ( 2020 ); Nielsen, 2018 ; Singh, 2019 ; UNCTAD, 2019a , 2019b ). The growth of the millennial digital-savvy workforce, mobile ubiquity and continuous optimisation of e-commerce technology is pressing the hand and speed of the historically slow-moving B2B market. The nearly US$1 Billion B2B e-commerce industry is about to hit the perfect storm that is driving the growth of B2C businesses (Harrisson et al., 2017 ). Now, e-commerce has reshaped the global retail market (Nielsen, 2019 ). The observation is that e-commerce is vibrant and an ever-expanding business model; its future is even more competitive than ever, with the increasing purchasing power of global buyers, the proliferation of social media users, and the increasingly advancing infrastructure and technology (McKinsey Global Institute, 2019 ; UNCTAD, 2019a , 2019b ).

The analysis of the growth trend in e-commerce, especially since 2015, explains that online consumers continue to place a premium on both flexibility and scope of shopping online. With the convenience of buying and returning items locally, online retailers will increase their footprint (Harrisson et al., 2017 ). Today, e-commerce is growing across countries with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% between 2014 and 2020; it is likely to grow at 25% between 2020 and 2025. Further analysis of e-commerce business reveals that internet penetration will be nearly 60% of the population in 2020, and Smartphone penetration has reached almost 42%. Among the users, 31% are in the age group of 25–34 years old, followed by 24% among the 35–44 years bracket and 22% in 18–24 years. Such a vast infrastructure and networking have ensured over 70% of the global e-commerce activities in the Asia–Pacific region. While China alone accounts for US$740 billion, the USA accounts for over US$$560 billion (Kerick, 2019 ). A review of global shoppers making online purchases (Fig.  2 ) shows that consumers look beyond their borders-cross-border purchases in all regions. While 90% of consumers visited an online retail site by July 2020, 74% purchased a product online, and 52% used a mobile device.

Source: Data compiled from https://datareportal.com/global-dig ital-overview#: ~ :text = There%20are%205.15%20billion%20unique,of%202.4%20percent%20per%20 year and , Accessed 12 October 2020

Global e-commerce activities and overseas online purchase.

The e-commerce uprising in Asia and the Pacific presents vast economic potential. The region holds the largest share of the B2C e-commerce market (UNCTAD, 2017 ). The size of e-commerce relative to the gross domestic product was 4.5% in the region by 2015. E-commerce enables small and medium-sized enterprises to reach global markets and compete on an international scale. It has improved economic efficiency and created many new jobs in developing economies and least developed countries, offering them a chance to narrow development gaps and increase inclusiveness—whether demographic, economic, geographic, cultural, or linguistic. It also helps narrow the rural–urban divide.

Nevertheless, Asia’s e-commerce market remains highly heterogeneous. In terms of e-commerce readiness—based on the UNCTAD e-commerce index 2017, the Republic of Korea ranks fifth globally (score 95.5) while Afghanistan, with 17 points, ranks 132 (UNCTAD, 2017 ). According to a joint study (2018) by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and Asian Development Bank (ADB), Asia is the fastest-growing region in the global e-commerce marketplace. The region accounted for the largest share of the world’s business-to-consumer e-commerce market (UNESCAP and ADB, 2019). World Retail Congress (2019) brought out the Global E-Commerce Market Ranking 2019 assessing the top 30 ranking e-commerce markets on various parameters-USA, UK, China, Japan and Germany were the first top countries. India figured at 15 with a CAGR of 19.8% between 2018 and 2022. The report suggests that companies need to enhance every aspect of online buying, focusing on localised payment mode and duty-free return. Footnote 5 The observation of this trend implies online consumers’ safety and security.

Figure  3 explains that global cross-border e-commerce (B2C) shopping is growing significantly and is estimated to cross US$1 Trillion in 2020. Adobe Digital Economic Index Survey-2020 Footnote 6 in March 2020 reported that a remarkable fact to note is about steadily accelerated growth in global e-commerce because of COVID-19. While virus protection-related goods increased by 807%, toilet paper spiked by 231%. Online consumers worldwide prefer the eWallet payment system. The survey also revealed an exciting constellation that COVID-19 is further pushing overall online inflation down.

Source: Authors’ compilation from https://www.invespcro.com/blog/cross-border-shopping/ , Accessed on 15 October 2020

Global cross-border e-commerce (B2C) market. *Estimated to cross US$ 1 Trillion in 2020.

According to UNCTD’s B2C E-Commerce Index 2019 survey measuring an economy’s preparedness to support online shopping, India ranks 73rd with 57 index values, seven times better than the 80th rank index report 2018 (UNCTAD, 2019a , 2019b ). The E-commerce industry has emerged as a front-runner in the Indian economy with an internet penetration rate of about 50% now, nearly 37% of smartphone internet users, launching the 4G network, internet content in the local language, and increasing consumer wealth. Massive infrastructure and policy support propelled the e-commerce industry to reach US$ 64 billion in 2020, up by 39% from 2017 and will touch US$ 200 by 2026 with a CAGR of 21%. Footnote 7 Now, India envisions a five trillion dollar economy Footnote 8 by 2024. It would be difficult with the present growth rate, but not impossible, pushing for robust e-governance and a digitally empowered society. The proliferation of smartphones, growing internet access and booming digital payments and policy reforms are accelerating the growth of the e-commerce sector vis-a-vis the economy.

Analysis of different studies on the growth of e-commerce in India shows that while retail spending has grown by a CAGR of 22.52% during 2015–2020, online buyers have climbed by a CAGR of 35.44% during the same period (Fig.  4 ). The government’s Digital India drive beginning 1 July 2015-surge using mobile wallets like Paytm, Ola Money, Mobiwik, BHIM etc., and the declaration of demonetisation on 9 November 2016 appears to be the prime reasons for such a vast growth in the country’s e-commerce industry. The Times of India (2020 October 12), a daily leading Indian newspaper, reported that India's increase in digital payments was at a CAGR of 55.1% from March 2016 to March 2020, jumping from US$ 73,90 million to 470.40, reflecting the country's positive policy environment and preparedness for the digital economy. The government's policy objective is to promote a safe, secure, sound and efficient payment system; hence, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the national financial and fiscal regulating authority, attempts to ensure security and increase customer trust in digital payments (RBI, 2020 ).

Source: Data compiled from https://www.ibef.org/news/vision-of-a-new-india-US$-5-trillion-economy , http://www.ficci.in/ficci-in-news-page.asp?nid=19630 , https://www.pwc.in/research-insights/2018/propelling-india-towards-global-leadership-in-e-commerce.html , https://www.forrester.com/data/forecastview/reports# , Accessed 12 October 2020

E-Commerce growth in India during 2015–2020.

The massive growth of e-commerce in countries worldwide, especially in India, has prompted an examination of the legal structure regulating online consumer protection.

Literature Review and Research Gap

Theoretical framework.

Generally speaking, customers, as treated inferior to their contracting partners, need protection (Daniel, 2005 ). Therefore, due to low bargaining power, it is agreed that their interests need to be secured. The ‘inequality of negotiating power’ theory emphasises the consumer's economically weaker status than suppliers (Haupt, 2003 ; Liyang, 2019 ; Porter, 1979 ). The ‘inequality in bargaining power’ principle emphasises the customer's economically inferior position to suppliers (Haupt, 2003 ). The ‘exploitation theory’ also supports a similar view to the ‘weaker party’ argument. According to this theory, for two reasons, consumers need protection: first, consumers have little choice but to buy and contract on the terms set by increasingly large and powerful businesses; second, companies can manipulate significant discrepancies in knowledge and complexity in their favour (Cockshott & Dieterich, 2011 ). However, a researcher such as Ruhl ( 2011 ) believed that this conventional theoretical claim about defining the customer as the weaker party is no longer valid in modern times. The logic was that the exploitation theory did not take into account competition between firms. Through competition from other businesses, any negotiating power that companies have vis-a-vis clients is minimal. The study, therefore, considers that the ‘economic theory’ is the suitable theoretical rationale for consumer protection today.

The principle of ‘economic philosophy’ focuses primarily on promoting economic productivity and preserving wealth as a benefit (Siciliani et al., 2019 ). As such, the contract law had to change a great deal to deal with modern-age consumer transactions where there is no delay between agreement and outcomes (McCoubrey  & White, 1999 ). Thus, the ‘economic theory’ justifies the flow of goods and services through electronic transactions since online markets' versatility and rewards are greater than those of face-to-face transactions. The further argument suggests that a robust consumer protection framework can provide an impetus for the growth of reliability and trust in electronic commerce. The ‘incentive theory’ works based on that argument to describe consumer protection in electronic transactions (McCoubrey & White, 1999 ).

Online shopping needs greater trust than purchasing offline (Nielsen, 2018 ). From the viewpoint of ‘behavioural economics, trust (faith/confidence) has long been considered a trigger for buyer–seller transactions that can provide high standards of fulfilling trade relationships for customers (Pavlou, 2003 ). Pavlou ( 2003 ) supports the logical reasoning of Lee and Turban ( 2001 ) that the role of trust is of fundamental importance in adequately capturing e-commerce customer behaviour. The study by O'Hara ( 2005 ) also suggests a relationship between law and trust (belief/faith), referred to as ‘safety net evaluation’, suggesting that law may play a role in building trust between two parties. However, with cross-border transactions, the constraint of establishing adequate online trust increases, especially if one of the parties to the transaction comes from another jurisdiction with a high incidence of counterfeits or a weak rule of law (Loannis et al., 2019 ). Thus, the law promotes the parties' ability to enter into a contractual obligation to the extent that it works to reduce a contractual relationship's insecurity. The present research uses the idea of trust (faith/belief/confidence) as another theoretical context in line with ‘behavioural economics’.

As a focal point in e-commerce, trust refers to a party's ability to be vulnerable to another party's actions; the trustor, with its involvement in networking, sees trust in the form of risk-taking activity (Mayer et al., 1995 ; Helge et al.,  2020 ). Lack of confidence could result in weak contracts, expensive legal protections, sales loss and business failure. Therefore, trust plays a crucial role in serving customers transcend the perceived risk of doing business online and in helping them become susceptible, actual or imaginary, to those inherent e-business risks. While mutual benefit is usually the reason behind a dealing/transaction, trust is the insurance or chance that the customer can receive that profit (Cazier, 2007 ). The level of trust can be low or high. Low risk-taking behaviour leads to lower trustor engagement, whereas high risk-taking participation leads to higher trustor engagement (Helge et al.,  2020 ). The theory of trust propounded by (Mayer et al., 1995 ) suggests that trust formation depends on three components, viz. ability, benevolence, and integrity (ABI model). From the analysis of the previous studies (Mayer et al., 1995 ; Cazier, 2007 ; Helge et al.,  2020 ), the following dimensions of the ABI model emerge:

Precisely, ability, benevolence and integrity have a direct influence on the trust of e-commerce customers.

Gaining the trust of consumers and developing a relationship has become more challenging for e-businesses. The primary reasons are weak online security, lack of effectiveness of the electronic payment system, lack of effective marketing program, delay in delivery, low quality of goods and services, and ineffective return policy (Kamari  & Kamari, 2012 ; Mangiaracina & Perego, 2009 ). These weaknesses adversely impact business operations profoundly later. Among the challenges that are the reasons for the distrust of customers and downsides of e-commerce is that the online payment mechanism is widely insecure. The lack of trust in electronic payment is the one that impacts negatively on the e-commerce industry, and this issue is still prevalent (Mangiaracina  & Perego, 2009 ). The revelation of a recent study (Orendorff, 2019 ) and survey results Footnote 9 on trust-building, particularly about the method of payment, preferred language and data protection, is fascinating. The mode of payment is another matter of trust-building. Today’s customers wish to shop in their local currency seamlessly. In an online shoppers’ survey of 30,000 respondents in 2019, about 92% of customers preferred to purchase in their local currency, and 33% abandoned a buy if pricing was listed in US$ only (Orendorff, 2019 ). Airbnb, an online accommodation booking e-business that began operations in 2009, has expanded and spread its wings globally as of September 2020-over 220 countries and 100 k + cities serving 7 + billion customers (guests) with local currency payment options. Footnote 10

Common Sense Advisory Survey Footnote 11 -Nov. 2019-Feb. 2020 with 8709 online shoppers (B2C) in 29 countries, reported that 75% of them preferred to purchase products if the information was in their native language. About 60% confirmed that they rarely/never bought from an English-only website because they can’t read. Similarly, its survey of 956 business people (B2B) moved in a similar direction. Whether it is B2B or B2C customers, they wanted to go beyond Google translator-this is about language being a front-line issue making or breaking global sales. Leading Indian e-commerce companies like Amazon Footnote 12 and Flipkart Footnote 13 have started capturing the subsequent 100 million users by providing text and voice-based consumer support in vernacular languages. These observations suggest trust in information that the customers can rely upon for a successful transaction.

Data protection is probably the most severe risk of e-commerce. The marketplaces witness so many violations that it often seems that everyone gets hacked, which makes it a real challenge to guarantee that your store is safe and secure. For e-commerce firms, preserving the data is a considerable expense; it points a finger to maintaining the safety and security of the e-commerce consumers’ data privacy in compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) across countries. Footnote 14

PwC’s Global Consumer Insight Survey 2020 reports that while customers’ buying habits would become more volatile post-COVID 19, consumers’ experience requires safety, accessibility, and digital engagement would be robust and diversified. Footnote 15 The report reveals that the COVID-19 outbreak pushed the popularity of mobile shopping. Online grocery shopping (including phone use) has increased by nearly 63% post-COVID than before social distancing execution and is likely to increase to 86% until its removal. Knowing the speed of market change will place companies in a position to handle the disruption-74% of the work is from home, at least for the time being. Again, the trend applies to consumers’ and businesses’ confidence/trust-building. The safety and security of customers or consumer protection are of paramount importance.

Given the rationale above, the doctrine of low bargaining power, exploitation theory and the economic approach provides the theoretical justification for consumer protection. Economic theory also justifies electronic transactions and e-commerce operations as instruments for optimising income. The trust theory based on behavioural economic conception also builds up the relationship between the law and customer trust and thus increases confidence in the online market. These premises form the basis for this research.

Need and Instruments for Online Consumer Protection

The law of the land guides people and the living society. Prevailing rules and regulations, when followed, provide peace of mind and security in all spheres, including business activities (Bolton et al., 2004 ). Previous research by Young & Wilkinson ( 1989 ) suggested that those who have more legally strict contracts face more legal problems in contrast to trust-related issues (Young & Wilkinson, 1989 ). Time has changed; people going for online transactions go with the legal framework and feel safe and secured (Bolton et al., 2004 ). An online agreement is a valid contract. Most UNCTAD member countries, including India, have adopted various laws concerning e-governance/e-business/e-society, such as e-transaction laws, consumer protection laws, cyber-crime laws, and data privacy and protection laws. The trend indicates that the law is vital in establishing trust in online transactions.

A review of literature on e-commerce and consumer protection suggests that over the years, consumer protection in e-commerce has received significant attention, particularly from the regulatory authorities-government agencies, trade associations and other associated actors (Belwal et al., 2020 ; Cortés, 2010 ; Dhanya, 2015 ; Emma et al., 2017 ; Ibidapo-Obe, 2011 ; ITU, 2018 ; Jaipuriar et al., 2020 ; Rothchild, 1999 ; Saif, 2018 ). The OECD ( 2016 ), UNCTAD ( 2017 ), and World Economic Forum ( 2019 ) guidelines on e-commerce have facilitated countries to have regulations/laws to provide online customers with data privacy, safe transaction and build trust. Table 2 explains policy guidelines on consumer protection based on a summary of online consumer challenges and possible remedies at different purchases stages.

Research Issue and Objective

The research gap identification involves reviewing the literature on various aspects of e-commerce and consumer rights protection issues spanning two decades. An objective review of 36 highly rated (Scopus/Web Services/ABDC Ranking or the like) e-commerce related publications from over 100 articles published in the last 20 years (2000–2020) suggests that the vast majority of earlier studies in this field have been conceptual/theoretical and generic. Regarding the legal framework of e-commerce and consumers’ rights protection, six current papers exclusively in the Indian context were available for analysis and review. The observations are that while the focus on consumer privacy and rights protection concerns is too general, the legal framework's scrutiny has limited its scope. A review of selected studies on trust and consumer rights protection in e-commerce, as shown in Table 3 , reveals that application aspects, particularly legal issues, are lacking. Indian experience in e-commerce consumer rights protection through jurisprudence is nascent. Review studies show the research of a combination of management and law-related analysis in e-commerce and consumer rights protection is lacking. This scenario showed a gap in exploring a more comprehensive research opportunity in the Indian context.

While e-commerce and electronic transactions have evolved as a global trend, it is noteworthy that Indian customers are still reluctant to place complete confidence and trust in commercial online transactions. Compared to conventional offline customers, online customers face greater risk in cyberspace because they negotiate with unknown vendors and suppliers. Footnote 16 The common issues Footnote 17 related to e-commerce are data privacy and security, product quality, uncertain delivery, no/low scope of replacement, the jurisdiction of filing complaints, and inconceivable terms and conditions (Lahiri, 2018 ). “Country of origin” of the product is a significant issue in e-commerce, particularly in cross-border transactions (Bhattacharya et al., 2020 ). The inadequacy of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 and other associated laws has surged the insecurity and lack of trust among online customers. The significance of digital payments pursued by the Government of India's essential demonetisation policy-2016 has pushed for online transaction security and consumer protection in e-commerce activities. Therefore, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 Footnote 18 replaced the Consumer Protection Act 1986 and became effective with effect from 20 July 2020, Footnote 19 while on 7 July 2020, the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 Footnote 20 came into force to address the e-commerce challenges. Nevertheless, it was evident that to attract additional investment and to engage with the global market, India, as an emerging country, had to gain the confidence of e-consumers.

These two legislations primarily govern domestic e-commerce businesses. Therefore, the research focuses on these two legal infrastructure strands-new laws enacted during 2019 and 2020 and discusses their implications for online consumer security to increase customers' interest and trust in India's electronic transactions. Like the  ABI model , the study also examines the factors influencing e-commerce customers' confidence in the present research context.

Methodology

The research initially depended on the rigorous review of the consumer protection guidelines released from time to time by various bodies, such as the OECD and UNCATD, accompanied by an analysis of the Indian consumer protection legal structure. The Indian Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 were the review and analysis subjects. The study used e-commerce driver data collected from secondary sources-published material; the survey reported e-commerce growth and trends and consumer protection and conducted an online survey of 432 online consumers during August and September 2020.

Analysing the arguments of Zikmund ( 2000 ), Bryman ( 2004 ), Saumure & Given ( 2008 ), Bill et al., ( 2010 ) and Bornstein et al. ( 2013 ) about the representative of convenience sampling and bias, we consider it is similar to that of the population, and there is no harm with due care. Regarding inherent bias in convenience sampling, data collection from different sources with different respondents’ inclusion provides more data variability and considerably reduces prejudice (Sousa et al., 2004 ; Edgar and Manz, 2017 ). Therefore, the respondents included in the research were students, professors, advocates, doctors, professionals, and homemakers, avoiding excluding family, relatives and friends to ensure bias-free. Their contact details sources were various channels, including public institution websites, social networking sites, and the authors’ email box. Assuming that more respondents feel fun filling out online questionnaires and providing truthful answers (Chen & Barnes, 2007 ; Saunders et al.,  2007 ), the study used an online survey. Furthermore, because people in the digital age are more computer/smartphone savvy, they are more likely to follow a similar trend. Besides, such a technique was convenient during the COVID-19 pandemic condition because of its timeliness, inexpensive methods, ease of research, low cost (no support for this research), readily available, and fewer rules to follow. The respondents' contact details sources were various channels, including public institution websites, social networking sites, and the authors' email box.

The study used a structured questionnaire comprising seven questions with sub-questions except the 7th one being open-ended, consuming about 8–10 min, designed based on the insights gained from responding to customer surveys of different e-commerce companies last year. Pretesting the questionnaire with 17 responses from the target group supported modifying the final questionnaire partially. The first four questions were background questions-gender, age, respondent's attitude towards internet purchasing. Question number five with sub-questions, being the focused question, provided the answer to some trust-building factors found in the literature review. Following previous research (McKnight et al.,  2002 ; Corbit et al.,  2003 ; Pavlou,  2003 ) tested the Likert-scale, this question's solicited response relied on a five-point Likert-rating scale (1 = Not important at all, 2 = Less important, 3 = Somewhat important, 4 = Important, 5 = Very important). The query six asked was about the consumer protection issues in e-commerce/online transaction-scam/fraud and grievance settlement. The final question seven was open-ended for any remark the respondent wanted to make. The questionnaire was reliable on a reasonable basis with greater internal consistency on overall internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.829) at a 1% level of significance. The Zoho Survey technique was used to solicit required information. The response rate was 76% (327) of the total emails sent (432). The retained responses were 290, i.e. 88.69% of the replies received, completed in all respects and satisfying the research requirement. The research applied statistical instruments like percentage, weighted mean and multiple regression analysis using SPSS-26 for analysis and interpretation.

Figure  5 highlights the research framework and process.

Research framework and process

Deficiency in Act, 1986 and Key Feature of the New Act Governing E-Commerce Consumer Protection

The rapid development of e-commerce has led to new delivery systems for goods and services and has provided new opportunities for consumers. Simultaneously, this has also exposed the consumer vulnerable to new forms of unfair trade and unethical business. The old Act, 1986, has severe limitations regarding its applicability and adjudication processes in consumer rights protection in e-commerce. The new Act, 2020 brings fundamental changes regarding its scope of application, penalty and governance; and envisages CCPA and vests regulating and controlling powers. Table 4 explains the comparative picture between the old Act, 1986 and the new Act, 2019.

The Act, 2019 applies to buying or selling goods or services over the digital or electronic network, including digital products [s.2 (16)] and to a person who provides technologies enabling a product seller to engage in advertising/selling goods/services to a consumer. The Act also covers online market places or online auction sites [s.2 (17)].

Necessary definition/explanation connected to e-commerce provided by the Act are:

Consumer: Meaning

If a person buys any goods and hires or avails any service online through electronic means, the person would be a consumer of the Act [Explanation b to s.2 (7)].

Product Seller: Electronic Service Providers

The electronic service providers are the product sellers under the Act and have the same duties, responsibilities, and liabilities as a product seller [s.2 (37)].

Unfair Trade Practice: Disclosing Personal Information

Unfair trade practice under the Act [s.2 (47) (ix)] refers to electronic service providers disclosing to another person any personal information given in confidence by the consumer.

Authorities: Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)

The Act, 2019 provides, in addition to the existing three-tier grievance redress structure, the establishment of the Central Consumer Protection Authority [CCPA] [s.10 & 18] to provide regulatory, investigative or adjudicatory services to protect consumers’ rights. The CCPA has the powers to regulate/inquire/investigate into consumer rights violations and/unfair trade practice  suo motu  or on a complaint received from an aggrieved consumer or on a directive from the government. The specific actions it can take include:

Execute inquiries into infringements of customer rights and initiate lawsuits.

Order for the recall of dangerous/hazardous/unsafe products and services.

Order the suspension of unethical commercial practises and false ads.

Impose fines on suppliers or endorsers or publishers of false advertising.

The power of CCPA is categorical regarding dangerous/hazardous/unsafe goods and false/misleading advertisements. The CCPA has the authority to impose a fine ranging from Rs 100 k to Rs 5 million and/imprisonment up to life term for the violators depending on the type of offences committed by them (Table 5 ).

Redress Mechanism

The provisions laid down in Sect. 28 through Sect. 73 deal with various aspects of the consumer dispute redress system. The new Act has changed the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum terminology to the District Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission. The pecuniary jurisdiction of filling complaints in the three-tier consumer courts at the District, State and National level has increased (Table 5 ). For better understanding, Fig.  6 shows a diagrammatic picture of the judicial system of dispute settlement.

Grievance redress mechanism

The Act, 2019 provides a dispute settlement mechanism through the mediation process in case of compromise at the acceptance point of the complaint or some future date on mutual consent (Sec 37). A mediation cell would operate in each city, state, national commission, and regional bench to expedite redress. Section 74 through 81 of the Act lays down the detailed procedure. Section 81(1) maintains that no appeal lies against the order passed by Mediation, implying that the redress process at the initial stage would be speedy, impacting both the consumers and service providers.

Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020

The Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, notified under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 on 23 July 2020, aims to prevent unfair trade practices and protect consumers' interests and rights in e-commerce.

Applicability (Rule 2)

The Rules apply to:

Both products and services acquired or sold through automated or electronic networks;

All models of e-commerce retail;

All the e-commerce entities, whether they have inventory or market place model. The inventory-based model includes an inventory of goods and services owned by an e-commerce entity and directly sold to consumers [Rule 3(1) f]. In the marketplace model, an e-commerce entity has an information infrastructure platform on a digital and electronic network that facilitates the consumer and the seller. [Rule 3(1)g];

All aspects of unfair trading practise in all models of e-commerce; and

An e-commerce entity is offering goods or services to consumers in India but not established in India.

General Duties of E-commerce Entities (Rule 4)

The duties of e-commerce entities are:

An e-commerce entity must be a company incorporated under the Companies Act.

Entities must appoint a point of contact to ensure compliance with the Act.

They have to establish an adequate grievance redress mechanism; they would appoint a grievance officer for this purpose and display his name, contact details, and designation of their platform. He would acknowledge the complaint's receipt within 48 h and resolve the complaint within a month from receipt of the complaint.

If they are offering imported goods, the importers’ names and details from whom the imported goods are purchased, and the sellers’ names are to be mentioned on the platform.

They cannot impose cancellation charges on consumers unless they bear similar costs.

They have to affect all payments towards accepted refund requests of the consumers within a reasonable period.

They cannot manipulate the goods' prices to gain unreasonable profit by imposing unjustified costs and discriminating against the same class of consumers.

Liabilities of Marketplace E-commerce Entities (Rule 5)

The liabilities of marketplace e-commerce entities include the following:

The marketplace e-commerce entity would require sellers to ensure that information about goods on their platform is accurate and corresponds with the appearance, nature, quality, purpose of goods.

They would display the following information prominently to its users at the appropriate place on its platform:

Details about the sellers offering goods-principal geographic address of its headquarters and all branches and name and details of its website for effective dispute resolution.

Separate ticket/docket/complaint number for each complaint lodged through which the user can monitor the status of the complaint.

Information about return/refund/exchange, warranty and guarantee, delivery and shipment, payment modes and dispute/grievance redress mechanism.

Information on the methods of payment available, the protection of such forms of payment, any fees or charges payable by users.

They would make reasonable efforts to maintain a record of relevant information allowing for the identification of all sellers who have repeatedly offered goods that were previously removed under the Copyright Act/Trademarks Act/Information Technology Act.

Sellers’ Duties on the Marketplace (Rule 6)

The duties of sellers on the market encompass:

The seller would not adopt any unfair trade practice while offering goods.

He should not falsely represent himself as a consumer and post-product review or misrepresent any products' essence or features.

He could not refuse to take back goods purchased or to refund consideration of goods or services that were defective/deficient/spurious.

He would have a prior written contract with the e-commerce entity to undertake sale.

He would appoint a grievance officer for consumer grievance redressal.

He would ensure that the advertisements for the marketing of goods or services are consistent with the actual characteristics, access and usage conditions of goods.

He will provide the e-commerce company with its legal name, the primary geographic address of its headquarters and all subsidiaries/branches, the name and details of the website, e-mail address, customer contact details such as faxes, landlines and mobile numbers, etc.

Duties and Liabilities of Inventory E-commerce Entities (Rule 7)

As in the inventory-based model, inventory of goods and services is owned and sold directly to consumers by e-commerce entities, so inventory e-commerce entities have the same liabilities as marketplace e-commerce entities and the same duties as marketplace sellers.

The Act 2019 has several provisions for regulating e-commerce transactions with safety and trust. Since the Act is new, it would be premature to comment on its operational aspects and effectiveness. In a recent judgement in Consumer Complaint No 883 of 2020 ( M/s Pyaridevi Chabiraj Steels Pvt. Ltd vs National Insurance Company Ltd , the NCDRC Footnote 21 has proved the Act's operational effectiveness by deciding the maintainability of a claim's jurisdiction based on the new Act's provisions. However, it is inevitable that "beware buyer" will be replaced by "beware seller/manufacturer"; the consumer will be the real king. The Rules 2020 strike a balance between the responsibilities of e-commerce business owners and on-the-platform vendors. Contravention, if any, of the new regulation/rules would invite the provisions of the Act 2019. The observation is that limited liability partnerships are missing from the e-commerce entities. However, with the Act and Rules' operational experience, the judiciary or legislature will address this issue sooner or later.

Nevertheless, the Rules 2020 provide a robust legal framework to build consumers' trust in e-commerce transactions and protect their rights and interests, thereby proving the notion, "consumer is the king". The COVID-19 impact has pushed the government to adopt and encourage online compliant filling procedures through the National Consumer Helpline. Using various APPs is likely to expedite the adjudication process and benefit the aggrieved consumer and build trust in the governance system.

Reading the Rules, 2020, with the Act, 2019, the observation is that by making smartphones the primary target of the new legislation, the Act, 2019 is hailed as an all-inclusive regulatory regime that would raise customer interest investment in e-commerce. To safeguard consumers' rights in all modern-day retail commerce models, the Act, 2019 attempts to turn the jurisprudence pervading consumer protectionism from a caveat emptor to a caveat seller. In addition, the Act formally incorporated e-commerce within its limits and entered the realm of B2C e-commerce. One crucial takeaway benefit for consumers is simplifying the complaint filing process, enabling consumers to file complaints online and redress grievances.

E-commerce has become a gift to all customers in the COVID-19 pandemic's aftermath. The E-Commerce Rules, 2020 follow the stringent consumer protection regime under the new Act, 2019. In the raging pandemic, the timing of the E-Commerce Rules, 2020 is beneficial considering the current limitations on customers' freedom of travel and increased reliance on e-commerce. The grievances redress mechanism as provided in the Rules, 2020 is indubitably a calibrated step ensuring neutrality in the e-commerce market place, greater transparency, stringent penalties and a striking balance between the commitments of e-commerce firms and vendors in the marketplace. The mandatory provisions of appointing a consumer grievance redress officer and a nodal contact person or an alternative senior appointed official (resident in India) with contact details, acknowledging consumer complaints within 48 h of receipt with a ticket number, and resolving complaints within 1 month of receipt are unquestionably beneficial to consumers. Although each e-commerce company has its refund policy, all refund claims must have a timely settlement. However, anxiety abounds as daily online fraud and unethical trading practices have made consumers fearful of exposing themselves to unscrupulous vendors and service providers. Moreover, the regulations' effective enforcement would dissuade unethical retailers and service providers, thereby building consumer trust, which time will see.

Practical Contributions

The practical contributions of the paper emerge from survey findings. Concerning the primary survey, the male–female ratio is nearly 1:1, with an average age of 36 years in the age range of 20–65. As regards profession, 67% were working professionals, and 22% were students. While all of the respondents were computer/tablet/mobile-savvy, 96% had at least a five-time online shopping experience during the last 7 months between January–July 2020. The desktop with 61% response is still the preferred device for online shopping. The pricing with cash on delivery, shipping convenience, and quality reviews determined online shopping factors. About 57% of them agreed that COVID-19 impacted their online purchase habits and pushed for online transactions even though they feared insecurity about online shopping. The primary concerns were low-quality products at a high price, a refund for defective products, and a delay in settlement of wrong/excess payments. The top five leading e-commerce platforms reported were Amazon, Flipkart, Alibaba, Myntra, and IndiaMart. Netmeds was also a leading e-commerce business platform in the pharmaceutical sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic, JioMart was very popular for home-delivery food products, groceries and vegetables in the metro locality. The customer feedback system was found robust on Amazon.

The respondents' trust in online shopping reveals that a secure and reliable system was essential for 93% of the respondents. For nearly the same proportion, information about how e-business firms work provided security solutions was a priority factor. Choosing a payment option, 76% of the respondents prioritised “cash on delivery-online transfer at the doorstep. Regarding the privacy of personal information shared by online shoppers, 52% said that they cared about this aspect. Factors like warranty and guarantee (67%) and customer service (69%) were important factors of trust-building with the e-entities. Information on the websites (easy navigation/user friendly and reviews) was either important or very important, with 77% of the respondents’ confidence building to buy online. Information about the product features and its manufacturer/supplier was essential to 86% of the respondents for trust-building on the product and the supplier (manufacture) and e-commerce entity. Along with the ABI model discussed above, the presumption is that security, privacy, warranty/guarantee, customer service, and website information factors positively influence e-commerce customers' trust.

Multiple regression analysis suggests that as the  P  = value of every independent variable is below 0.05% level of significance, the independent variables security, privacy, warranty, customer service, and website information are all significant. Alternatively, the overall  P value of 0.032 with R 2 0.82 supports the presumption that security, privacy, warranty/guarantee, customer service, website information factors have a combined influence on e-commerce customers' trust.

Given this backdrop, Table 6 summarises the micro findings on respondents' online shopping behaviour, their trust and safety aspects, and understanding of the provisions of the new Act, 2019 and Rules, 2020. The higher mean value for a sub-factor implies higher importance attached to the factor by the respondents. P value at a 5% level of significance explains an individual element's contribution to trust-building behaviour for online buying.

Managerial Insights

The first observation from the data analysis is that, comparatively, the younger generation is prone to online shopping; it goes along with Xiaodong and Min ( 2020 ). Secondly, the respondents of all age groups have online buying experience even in a pandemic situation forced by COVID-19, compromising their safety and security concerns. The third observation is that factors like “cash on the delivery option (COD)”, adequate information on the e-commerce entity corporate website, and effective grievance/complaint redress mechanism are the three crucial factors that build consumers’ trust in e-commerce transactions. The reason probably is that this Act and Rules are new and significant dispute (s) could yet be reported seeking invoking the relevant provisions of the Act and Rules in an appropriate legal forum.

Further, the logical observation of the COD option being a perceived influential factor in trust-building emanates from the fact that protection and security are the essential elements that make customers hesitant toward utilizing other e-payment options. The studies by Mekovec and Hutinski ( 2012 ), Maqableh ( 2015 ) and Ponte et al.( 2015 ); have similar views. However, post-demonetization (2016), India is growing with more digital payments. In this context, we value Harvard researchers Bandi et al. ( 2017 ) contention that customers who switch to digital payments maintain their purchasing recurrence but spend more and are less likely to restore their purchases. The firms in emerging markets may appreciate gains from customer interest, notwithstanding operational increases from payment digitalization. The coherent perception about the impact of website information on trust-building is in line with the findings of Brian et al. ( 2019 ) that the online information source creates a spill-over effect on satisfaction and trust toward the retailer. The implication of the need for an effective grievance redress mechanism is that trust-building would be a tricky proposition if the company cannot ensure dedicated and tailored customer service and support. Kamari and Kamari ( 2012 ) and Mangiaracina and Perego ( 2009 ) had comparative perspectives likewise.

The final observation is that the level of trust required to engage in online shopping/transaction varies among the respondents depending on their trust perception level. The younger generation, less than 35 years old, is more risk-taking when it comes to pre-purchase online payment, but women over 45 years old are a little hesitant and prefer to do their online shopping with payment at the time of placing an order. This is ostensibly because the younger generation is more tuned to network connectivity via smartphone/tablet, and they perceive online transactions as less dangerous. The present research findings on the influence of security, privacy, warranty/guarantee, customer service, and website information on e-commerce customers' confidence-building support the earlier discussed ABI model proposition (Mayer et al., 1995 ; Cazier, 2007 ; Helge et al.,  2020 ). The  R 2 -value of 0.82 implies that there are other factors beyond what is studied. The other probable factor (s) that might have influenced trust is the new Act and Rules' effectiveness in protecting online consumers' interests. The new regulations need a couple of years (at least 2 years) of operational experience for proper assessment. The Act 2019 appears robust to protect consumer rights and interests of e-commerce customers with specific regulations (i.e. Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020) in force, helping the country's economic growth.

The study variably supports Nehf ( 2007 ) view that consumers make decisions about distributing their data in exchange for different benefits like, e.g., information on web sites and access to databases. Trust, credibility, privacy issues, security concerns, the nature of the information on the website, and the e-commerce firm's reputation directly influence consumers' internet trust (Kim et al., 2008 ). Trust is the focal point of online consumers' decision-making; the observation endorses  Larose and Rifon ( 2007 ) creation of privacy alerts as part of consumer privacy self-regulation initiatives and the use of a social cognitive model to consider consumer privacy behaviours. Besides, data privacy and trust breaches adversely affect the firm's market value (Tripathi & Mukhopadhyay, 2020 ) also hold good in the present context. Figure  7 demonstrates a diagrammatic model of trust of the consumer on e-commerce transactions leading to his decision-making.

Model for consumers’ trust on e-commerce transactions

Limitations

Every research has more or less some limitations; this one has too. The main impediment was the non-availability of adequate literature defining the impact assessment of the legal framework of consumer protection measures in e-commerce. The probable reasoning is that the Acts/Laws governing e-commerce and online consumer rights protection under consideration are new; ethical dispute resolution and judicial interventions have only recently begun. Sample size limitation is also a hindering factor in the generalisation of the findings. The observations and managerial insights are likely to change with a few more years of implementation experience of the Acts.

Conclusions, Implications and Future Research

Conclusions.

Lack of trust in goods and their suppliers/manufacturers was one of the primary reasons for people not buying online. The widespread internet penetration and the growing use of computer/tablets/smartphones have pushed e-commerce growth across countries, including India. The rapid e-commerce development has brought about new distribution methods. It has provided new opportunities for consumers, forcing consumers vulnerable to new forms of unfair trade and unethical business. Further, the government's measures to protect consumer rights, particularly online consumers, are inadequate. Hence, the government enacted the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020 and made them effective from July 2020. The new Act and Rules have less than 6 months of operational experience, implying premature comment on its effectiveness in providing safety and security to online consumers. However, online consumers' positive responses suggest that people gain confidence in online shopping with safety and security. Because consumer rights protection is paramount in the growth of e-commerce, the new regulations strengthen the grievance redress mechanism of online consumers, ensuring their trust-building ability, safety, and security. The "Consumer is the King with power" now. The new reform, i.e., enactment of the two laws, aids in doing business too. Some legal complications may arise with more operational experience in the future. Still, with judiciary intervention and directives, the online consumer's safety and security will pave the growth of e-commerce in India.

Implications

Some stakeholders have apprehension about the new Act and Rules' effectiveness because of the slow judiciary process, inadequate infrastructure support, and corrupt practices. The findings provide some practical implications for consumer activists, policymakers, and research communities to explore how to strengthen trust-building among online consumers. Regarding theoretical implications, the research improves the scientific community's understanding of the existing body of knowledge about online trust and e-consumer protection. The article further contributes to the body of literature on e-commerce and consumer protection, understanding the crucial factors impacting customer trust and loyalty and provides an insightful perspective on e-consumer protection in the Indian context on the eve of the new legislation enacted in 2019–2020.

Future Research

Given the presumption that e-commerce and trust are areas of constant change, trust in e-commerce will change, and it will be more challenging to integrate e-commerce into people's lives. The scope for further research to test the effectiveness of the Act, 2019, and Rule, 2020 in redressing e-commerce consumers' grievances and protecting their rights is wider only after a couple of years of operational experience. The government's policy drive for accelerating online transactions also poses challenges considering the importance of trust-building and consumer rights protection in e-commerce. Future research would shed more light on these issues.

See The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) guidelines on e-commerce https://www.unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/stats/groups/wggna/GuideByChapters/Chapter_13.pdf , pp 249–263, Accessed 7 October 2020.

Consumer International is a champion in the sustainable consumer movement for the last 60 years. Its vision for the future of 2030 is to address three issues-sustainability, digitalization and inclusion. See for more details https://www.consumersinternational.org/who-we-are/ .

econsumer.gov came into being in April 2001, addresses international scams and guides its members to combat fraud worldwide; see for details https://econsumer.gov/#crnt .

For more details, refer to https://icpen.org/consumer-protection-around-world .

For a detailed report, see https://www.worldretailcongress.com/__media/Global_ecommerce_Market_Ranking_2019_001.pdf , Accessed 10 October 2020.

Complete report available at https://business.adobe.com/resources/digital-economy-index.html , Accessed 10 October 2020.

https://www.ibef.org/news/vision-of-a-new-india-US$-5-trillion-economy , Accessed 7 October 2020.

Government of India’s press release, see https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetailm.aspx?PRID=1603982 , Accessed 7 October 2020.

See CUTS International survey at https://cuts-citee.org/pdf/Discussion_Paper_E-Commerce_in_the_Context_of_Trade_Consumer_Protection_and_Competition_in_India.pdf , CSA Research at https://insights.csa-research.com/reportaction/305013126/Marketing , https://insights.csa-research.com/reportaction/305013125/Marketing , and UNTAD study at https://unctad.org/page/data-protection-and-privacy-legislation-worldwide , Accessed 12 December 2020.

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Chawla, N., Kumar, B. E-Commerce and Consumer Protection in India: The Emerging Trend. J Bus Ethics 180 , 581–604 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04884-3

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Received : 20 December 2020

Accepted : 24 June 2021

Published : 09 July 2021

Issue Date : October 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04884-3

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The changing trajectory of e-commerce in India

India's e-commerce market is expected to reach $350 billion by 2030, says a recent ibef report. the indian online grocery market is estimated to reach $18.2 billion in 2024, expanding at a cagr of 57 per cent..

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Dawn of a new era: how brands are approaching india’s second e-commerce boom.

Dr. Somdutta Singh

Founder & CEO, Assiduus Global

The e-commerce market in India has been witnessing an exponential rise in size and stature over the last decade. With the advancement in technology and digital capabilities, the sector has become an inseparable part of the 21st-century living. The pandemic has invariably acted as a catalyst for the e-commerce industry as its adoption spurred astronomically across the country during the last couple of years. With a 25% increase seen in 2022, eCommerce sales are set to reach $80 Billion and are likely to double by 2025 while crossing the $100 Billion mark in 2023.

With countless traditional businesses graduating to the online realm, eCommerce has become an integral aspect of the contemporary business climate. Every business today, directly or indirectly, relies on eCommerce. Let’s delve deeper into some essential figures that depict the remarkable rise of eCommerce during the pandemic period. Over the first wave, online sales for FMCG more than doubled during the first COVID wave contributing to over 7% in the metros. The option of multiple payment formats also contributed to this growth. A survey indicated that more than 61% of the respondents preferred to pay by UPI on marketplaces. It also highlighted that 30% of the respondents are willing to purchase nutraceutical products on Amazon. No wonder the Global Wellness Institute states that the health and wellness market value is poised to grow by a whopping USD 1,299.84 billion by 2024. At the same time, the global Beauty and Personal Care Market is also estimated to touch USD 545.19 Billion in 2022 and is slated to reach USD 737.54 Billion by 2027.

With shoppers becoming more than habituated to the convenience and heavy discounting of quick commerce deliveries, industry experts are opining that a second eCommerce boom is well on the way. In this meteoric growth of the eCommerce industry, a few sectors such as grocery, nutrition, and pharma are the flagbearers, followed closely by sectors like furniture, stationery, and sports equipment. So, let’s look at some of the trends that are expected to go huge this year:

Super-speedy deliveries

With the advent of Quick commerce, online retail in India has seemingly pushed product fulfilment to the next level through dedicated high-speed deliveries. Hyperlocal delivery brands that deliver products within hours and even minutes redefine eCommerce. This is why several food delivery companies are now knocking at the doors of the eCommerce industry with substantial investments in rising brands that have managed to capture customer eyeballs.

With the promise of super-fast deliveries on the table, most customers do not mind paying a little extra for this expediency. It is anticipated that this burgeoning industry will grow 10-15 times in the next five years to cross the $5 Billion mark by 2025.

Redefining success, digitally

Besides high-speed deliveries, brands have also discovered successful ways of engaging and selling their products and services directly to customers. By removing the dependence on intermediaries and embracing the resilient and effective Direct2Customer (D2C) model, businesses are clocking tremendous growth. The tool helps brands make sure that customers’ attention is successfully preserved through retargeting their audience base via email-based marketing, push notifications, and in-depth feedback mechanisms. Various New-age phenomena such as Digital launches, sampling activities, and facilities like live chats are all offspring of the D2C model, which has enabled significant growth across the e-commerce industry in the country. Today, Brands are also much better placed to comprehend customer requirements and directing their product deliveries consequently. For customers also, the D2C model has provided heightened satisfaction through optimal demand-supply matching and market spending. This ensures that product marketing and delivery orders are always in tandem.

Metaverse and E-commerce

Essentially, metaverse combines the virtual world and the real world. It extends 3D digital spaces to eCommerce Brands, where consumers can engage themselves in experiences curated by the best of in-person and online shopping. The metaverse is set to take personalised customer experiences to hitherto unseen heights. It is heralding a new age in the world of digital commerce. The retail industry has witnessed rapid transformations from high street stores to online shopping. With the emergence of the metaverse, the level of digital innovation possible is extraordinary. People can effortlessly visit stores through personalised online shopping experiences without stepping into a brick and mortar outlet. With numerous brands competing across the metaverse segment, the sky is the limit.

AR and e-commerce

Augmented reality (AR) has become a real paradigm shifter for eCommerce. With the power of AR technology, shoppers can witness the item they’re shopping for in real-time, which helps them make informed purchasing decisions. AR has the potential to transform the shopping experience across numerous industries like fashion and home decor as the customer can gain a realistic perception of the item without actually seeing it in person. AR empowers users with the ability not just to see a 3D model of a product but also permits them to check how it would appear in their personal usage. It is safe to assume that AR is set to be one of the future cornerstones of digital commerce.

Video marketing

For many businesses, video has emerged as the go-to method to engage with customers. By leveraging short video content, brands can effectively influence the buyers to learn about their products and services. Videos also allow them to explain various product specifications and exhibit them more efficiently than image-based marketing. Businesses can keep a granular tab of their viewer’s engagement by extending the solution to any opportunity, challenge, or problem a buyer is looking to answer through the visual medium. That said, the role of videos in digital commerce cannot be underestimated.

Social media and influencer-led marketing

Most e-commerce brands worldwide today understand the need to have a strong and leading social media presence. As internet penetration has created a significant presence of consumers on social media, brands view social media marketing as a direct path to reach a wider audience. Through their established popular networks, social media influencers have helped brands reach a much larger audience. Brand collaborations/endorsements, which are emerging as a common source of revenue generation, are also proving to be a great way of increasing brand visibility. The country is ready to witness a boom in products and services marketing initiated by influencers as media platforms stay on the lookout for newer ways to assist influencers in advertising their brands more effectively.

With so much happening simultaneously across the e-commerce ecosystem, it is clear that both technology and consumers are constantly evolving. Since this industry is a synergetic element of the human and digital, the future is beset with tremendous opportunities. Businesses that can optimise the latest technologies and tools of innovation will undoubtedly thrive in the brave new world unfolding before us. As customers will continue to be the trendsetters and kings of the eCommerce space, it will be necessary for the companies to constantly strive towards exceeding their expectations to stay pertinent in today’s times.

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Essay on E Commerce in India

Students are often asked to write an essay on E Commerce in India in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on E Commerce in India

Introduction to e-commerce.

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, is the buying and selling of goods and services on the internet. In India, it has become extremely popular due to the rise in smartphone usage and internet access.

Impact on Indian Market

E-commerce has transformed the Indian market. It’s now easy to shop from home, leading to a boom in online businesses. Major players like Flipkart and Amazon have seen tremendous growth.

Advantages of E-Commerce

E-commerce offers many advantages. It provides a wider product range, competitive prices, and the convenience of home delivery. It also allows businesses to reach a larger audience.

Challenges for E-Commerce in India

Despite its advantages, e-commerce in India faces challenges. These include internet connectivity issues, digital literacy, and concerns about online fraud. However, efforts are being made to address these issues.

250 Words Essay on E Commerce in India

Introduction.

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, has revolutionized the way business is conducted in India. It refers to the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital platforms.

Growth and Evolution

E-commerce in India has seen exponential growth in the last decade. The advent of advanced technologies, increased internet penetration, and a shift in consumer behavior have driven this evolution. The Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5 billion in 2017.

Key Players

The Indian e-commerce landscape is dominated by giants like Amazon India, Flipkart, and Snapdeal. These platforms offer a wide range of products, from electronics to fashion, and have become a preferred shopping destination for the Indian populace.

Government Regulations

The Indian government has implemented various regulations to manage this booming industry. The introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) has streamlined taxation, while the FDI policy for e-commerce has attracted foreign investments.

Despite its growth, e-commerce in India faces challenges like logistics and infrastructure issues, digital illiteracy, and data privacy concerns. Cybersecurity is another significant concern that needs to be addressed.

E-commerce in India is a dynamic and rapidly evolving sector, offering immense opportunities. However, it is essential to address the challenges to ensure sustainable growth. The future of e-commerce in India promises exciting prospects, given the increasing digitalization and evolving consumer preferences.

500 Words Essay on E Commerce in India

Introduction to e-commerce in india.

E-commerce, or electronic commerce, has been a transformative force in India’s economic landscape. It refers to the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet, which has revolutionized traditional commerce by providing unparalleled convenience, variety, and cost-effectiveness.

The Growth of E-commerce in India

India’s e-commerce sector has seen exponential growth in the past decade. This surge can be attributed to several factors. Firstly, the proliferation of smartphones and the internet has made online shopping a viable option for a large segment of the population. Secondly, the rise of digital payments, facilitated by initiatives like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), has made transactions seamless and secure. Lastly, the growing middle class with increasing disposable income has fueled demand for a wide range of products and services available online.

Impact on Businesses and Consumers

E-commerce has had a profound impact on both businesses and consumers in India. For businesses, it has opened up new markets and opportunities. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in particular, have benefited from the vast reach of e-commerce platforms, enabling them to overcome geographical limitations and reach customers nationwide, or even globally.

For consumers, e-commerce has expanded choice and convenience. They can now compare products, read reviews, and make informed decisions before making a purchase. Moreover, the convenience of home delivery and easy returns has made online shopping an attractive alternative to traditional retail.

Challenges and Future Prospects

Despite the impressive growth, e-commerce in India faces several challenges. Infrastructure bottlenecks, such as inadequate logistics and supply chain, can hinder delivery and customer satisfaction. Cybersecurity is another concern, as cases of online fraud and data breaches can erode consumer trust in online transactions.

However, the future of e-commerce in India remains promising. The government’s Digital India initiative aims to further improve digital infrastructure and promote online transactions. Additionally, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and blockchain are expected to revolutionize e-commerce, offering personalized shopping experiences, enhanced security, and greater transparency.

In conclusion, e-commerce has transformed the commercial landscape in India, offering unprecedented opportunities for businesses and consumers alike. While challenges persist, the e-commerce sector in India is poised for continued growth, driven by technological advancements and supportive government policies. As such, it will continue to play a pivotal role in India’s economic development in the years to come.

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Innovation and exploitation: India’s e-commerce boom threatens to upend local businesses and workers’ rights

While online shopping explodes in the world’s biggest country, traditional companies are struggling to adapt

T he apps are there for whatever you need: an extra mango, a carton of milk, a pint of ice-cream or a replacement phone cable for the one your dog chewed in half. For those living in the urban centres of India – and increasingly in the smaller cities and towns beyond – almost anything can be delivered at the touch of a button – sometimes within less than 10 minutes.

Online shopping, otherwise known as e-commerce, is rapidly changing the way India shops and nowhere is that clearer than through quick commerce: the apps that can deliver groceries and other essentials to your door in the time it takes to hard boil an egg and at a cost of 30p – or less – for the service.

While only 6% of India’s $900bn retail market comes from e-commerce, the market is one of the fastest growing in the world. In 2022, 200 million people in India bought something online, while it was fewer than a million just a few years before.

But in a country of 1.4 billion people and rising, with the economy growing faster than almost anywhere else in the world, companies and analysts say these numbers are still only scratching the surface. By 2027, the number of online shoppers is predicted to rise to 500 million in a market worth $170bn.

While some say the innovations could make India a global leader in new ways of doing business online, others are more cautious in their predictions. Some analysts fear the rise in e-commerce has opened the door for large businesses to gain monopolies over retail, at a cost to the vibrant traditional marketplace, while others say the boom has been built on the back of the exploitation of India’s growing gig workforce.

Threat to local shopping

The sudden rise of e-commerce is all the more remarkable given the way that Indian people shop has not changed for decades. Unlike in the west, where vast supermarket chains command monopolies, strict regulations mean India has retained its hyperlocal way of shopping.

Fresh produce is predominantly bought from local markets and sabziwallas (vegetable sellers). Other essentials are often bought in the country’s 11 million kiranas , neighbourhood shops that are often described as the backbone of India’s economy. While big-name fashion brands are popular, people still mostly buy their clothes from locally run shops and markets, particularly those living outside the urban metropolises.

For 10 years the sector has been dominated by two companies, Flipkart – an Indian start-up that was later acquired by the US retail conglomerate Walmart – and US tech giant Amazon. Together they not only account for about 75% of the online shopping market, but given the lack of commercial chain monopolies in India, they are also the two biggest commerce players in the country overall.

Yet the e-commerce landscape is changing and expanding rapidly as India’s economy, the fifth largest in the world, continues to grow. Companies including Swiggy, Zomato, Big Basket, Zepto, Meesho, Blinkit, Nykaa and Dunzo, which deliver everything from restaurant food and fashion brands to electronics, instant groceries and medicines, have become ubiquitous not just in the city centres but beyond.

While 90% of Indians still earn less than £250 a month, and those outside of rich urban centres are less likely to have disposable income, according to all e-commerce companies who spoke to the Guardian, much of their growth is in the smaller Indian cities, those with a population of between 20,000 to 100,000, indicating that shopping online is no longer solely the domain of the rich urban elite.

Swiggy, one of the first apps to offer restaurant food delivery and which has recently expanded into quick grocery delivery, operated in about a dozen Indian towns and cities in 2018; today it is close to 600. Rohit Kapoor, a company CEO, credits its growth in part to the “digital equalisation” he has witnessed across India, in which social media has exposed people from across social strata to new things while e-commerce platforms finally made it possible for people to access them.

According to Kapoor, while Swiggy’s highest frequency customers are the middle and upper classes, and those in small towns are still often reluctant to go online for daily essentials, a shift was happening fast. “Honestly, I think this market is just starting out,” says Kapoor. “I feel there’s massive potential over the next 20 to 30 years.”

Sameena Mir, 23, a student from Srinagar in Kashmir, says that she has stopped visiting markets altogether. “Online the prices are comparatively better and an amazing variety of products are available on different sites,” she says. “Also the products are genuine and original, especially the beauty products, unlike our local stores where copies are mostly sold.

Much of the boom has been made possible by broadening access to cheap internet. There are 659 million people with smartphones in India and the cost of mobile internet data is among the lowest in the world. By 2025, 1 billion Indians are expected to have access to the internet and 33% of them will be online shoppers.

The Covid pandemic has also played a significant role, as lockdowns sent people online for groceries for the first time, while forcing traditional sellers to go digital as a means to stay afloat. It also prompted a wave of new e-commerce enterprises trying to take advantage of the sudden demand.

The third shift has been around digital payment systems. Only few years ago, India was predominately a cash-based society, with credit and debit cards used by only a small section of society. However, in the past couple of years this has been leapfrogged by a transition to a Unified Payments Interface (UPI), in which millions of Indians have bank accounts linked to apps and smaller items – down to a cup of chai or a single banana – can be paid for using a QR code on a mobile.

According to the Indian government, which has proudly been pushing the scheme, there were 74bn UPI transactions in India in 2022, amounting to 126tn rupees, a 91% increase from 2021. It has not only made swathes of the population more digitally literate, but also made it much easier to pay for goods bought online.

‘They treat us like animals’

Yet though e-commerce platforms have created employment for millions of gig workers at a time when jobs are scarce in India, the laws around their employment have lagged behind, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Shaik Salauddin, who leads the Indian Federation of App Based Transport Workers, says there are 23 million gig workers in India working without proper legal protection. Companies including Swiggy, Flipkart and Zepto emphasise that they offer their workers benefits such as medical insurance, accident cover and maternity leave, but agreed that more could be done across the sector.

Salauddin says that, as competition has increased and growth slowed over the past year, many e-commerce companies have gone on cost-cutting sprees that have directly targeted gig workers in order to stay profitable. Wages sometimes barely cover petrol costs, while workers have to endure harassment, violence and “inhumane” conditions.

Recent incidents have included one female gig worker whose throat was slit and another who was murdered by someone who wouldn’t pay for a delivery. Meanwhile, those who speak up against poor conditions are often banned from working or threatened by bouncers. According to a survey by the thinktank Center for Internet and Society, one-third of Indian gig workers fear violence or assault at work.

The issue recently came to the fore after the workers for Blinkit, one of the e-commerce apps promising 10-minute delivery, went on strike in April after their wages were cut by over 50% to 15 rupees (15p) a delivery. Workers told the Guardian how they were not given access to a toilet or shelter in between deliveries, they had no days off with working Sundays compulsory and if any customer complained they were automatically made to pay out of their wages. Some workers say they were threatened with police if they complained about conditions.

Nitin Sharma, 42, from Gurgaon, described how he made only 300 rupees (£3) for a 10-hour day, and 200 rupees (£2) of that went towards petrol costs, leaving him with earnings of just 100 rupees (£1) a day. “They treat us like animals,” he says. “It is like working for free.”

Sumit Kumar, 25, said the company was exploiting people’s desperation. “Because there are no jobs, thousands of young people like me are risking their lives and working hard even when we know that at the end of the day we are only earning enough for a few cups of tea,” he says. “It is not possible for us to survive on this.”

The workers also say nothing has been done to address the rising tide of abuse they are facing. Mohammad Yaqoob, 40, a Blinkit driver in Delhi, says he is often treated badly by customers because he is a Muslim.

“A customer recently cancelled the order and abused me when I went to deliver an order on the day of Hindu festival of Holi. ‘These are products for Holi. I can’t take it from the hand of a Muslim,’ he yelled at me,” said Yaqoob. “I felt helpless and humiliated. I consulted my manager but they did not help. They also misbehaved with me.”

The recent strike ended after Blinkit agreed to “restructure payments”. In a statement to the Guardian regarding the allegations made by workers, a Blinkit spokesperson said they were “based on incorrect and incomplete understanding of the situation”.

‘10-minute’ grocery delivery

Zepto is one of the country’s “unicorn” start-ups, which offers 10-minute delivery of groceries and other essentials in hundreds of cities. While “10-minute” grocery delivery has been piloted in several countries, including the UK, nowhere has it been rolled out at such scale as in India, a country almost the size of Europe. In just two years, quick commerce has become the fastest growing sector in Indian online shopping.

Launched in 2021 by two 18-year-olds who had been studying at Stanford University in the US but were forced to come back home to Mumbai when the pandemic hit, Zepto is worth $900m, making its founders India’s youngest millionaires.

It began as a service delivering groceries over WhatsApp to a single Mumbai neighbourhood during lockdown; less than two years later, it is present in all major Indian cities and has plans to expand. “Today Zepto is bigger than most of the traditional offline grocery players,” says co-founder Aadit Palicha.

In order to process orders at speed, the company has developed a software that streamlines the process of packing, bagging and dispatching groceries down to about 75 seconds, and built a network of dark stores that mean delivery distances average about 2km.

“We’re multiplying at a scale of millions of customers,” says Palicha. “From our vantage point, the growth of quick commerce in India is going to be bigger than anyone bargained for.”

But even as more players enter the market, some are fearful that the boom is also opening the door for the large corporations and powerful industrialists to monopolise India’s retail sector and made it difficult for independent e-commerce start-ups such as Meesho – a popular app for affordable and second-hand fashion – to compete and survive, despite having raised nearly $1bn in funding.

The Tata group, India’s largest conglomerate known best as a producer of cars and steel, has recently become a major player in e-commerce, opening its own online shopping site and investing in online grocery delivery app Big Basket.

Reliance, one of the most powerful retail, petrochemical and telecom conglomerates has also made significant inroads into e-commerce through its online shopping platform jiomart and a 25% stake in quick grocery delivery app Dunzo. A recent report by the research firm Berstein predicted that Reliance would soon be the top e-commerce player in the country, feeding wider concerns that the gains of India’s economic growth are being concentrated in the hands of a few corporations and their billionaire owners.

‘This is the future’

Much of the pushback has come from India’s powerful network of traditional local neighbourhood kiranas – referred to colloquially as ‘mom and pop stores’ – who currently account for about 80% of India’s grocery market, compared with the 1% of groceries currently bought online.

Some have gone digital or partnered directly with e-commerce platforms; Flipkart, for example, says 200,000 kiranas are among its 1 million sellers and 30% of its deliveries are through a network of these local shops. But many remain concerned about the impact of these emerging platforms on their businesses.

Balwant Singh, 30, who runs a kirana in the Saket area of Delhi, says he used to have 100 dedicated customers who would buy all their groceries from his shop but that number was reduced to about 30 after buying from apps became more popular.

“The rest of the customers come to buy small items occasionally,” says Singh, who recently began doing home deliveries in a bid to keep his business alive.

“I sometimes deliver as little as [one] half-litre milk packet in which my profit is less than half of one rupee. But I am doing all this to somehow retain customers and provide a better alternative than online shopping.”

This has proved problematic for the BJP government, as the shopkeepers and network of small businesses wield large amounts of power, through local influence and robust unions, and are a crucial electoral group.

The monopoly of Amazon and Flipkart, two foreign businesses, over India’s e-commerce market has also not sat well with the BJP’s ultra-nationalist political agenda, while being a major source of contention for the powerful trade body, the confederation of all India traders.

In 2021, in an apparent bid to break the dominance of the foreign big tech players and appease the small businesses community, the government entered into the e-commerce sphere itself as a backer of the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

A public-private enterprise, the idea of the ONDC is to allow companies or individuals to build their own network for selling online and connect them up with partners who could deliver the goods, without having to go through Amazon or Flipkart and without paying any commission. It is in its early stages, but ministers have claimed it will “democratise” e-commerce in India, give more autonomy to businesses and bring down costs.

Some have hailed its model as a revolution that could be copied across the world. “This is the future, it will change how business is going to run,” says Sooryah Pokkali, a network participant at ONDC. Others, however, have questioned its feasibility and accountability mechanisms.

Pokkali acknowledges it is “too early” to draw any comparisons with companies such as Amazon and Flipkart, admitting that there was some “inefficiency” and “the consumer experience could be a lot better” on the network. “We are very far from being at that level, there are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up, but eventually we’ll get the structure,” he said.

A digital divide

Yet for all the growth, India is still hampered by a significant digital divide. More than 50% of the country is still without internet access, considerably more in rural areas, while the aspirations of online shopping remains out of reach for the poorest in society, who still number in the hundreds of millions.

Hira Lal Raigar, 62, a retired teacher from the village of Sarangpura in Rajasthan, is among those who remain suspicious of e-commerce. He has spent his life buying daily necessities from the local kirana and a few times a year popping to the nearby town if he needs clothes or shoes.

“I have never used the internet for online shopping and do not think I will ever be able to do so,” says Raigar. “How can I buy a shirt without checking the quality of its cloth by hand? Online shopping might be a thing in big cities but here in the villages, it is still very odd.”

Aakash Hassan contributed reporting from Delhi

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India Is Cracking Down on Ecommerce and Free Speech

When it comes to cracking down on tech giants, India is on a roll. The country was the first to reject Facebook’s contentious plan to offer free internet access to parts of the developing world in 2016. Since December, Indian policymakers have taken a page from China’s playbook, enacting sweeping restrictions in an attempt to curtail the power of ecommerce behemoths like Amazon , and pushing proposals that would require internet companies to censor “unlawful” content, break user encryption, and forbid Indian data from being stored on foreign soil. In the past week alone, Indian officials have demanded that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey come before Parliament to answer accusations of bias, called for a ban on TikTok, and opened an investigation into claims that Google abused its Android mobile operating system to unfairly promote its own services.

For all its good intentions, India’s tech backlash could backfire, with potentially dire consequences for all tech companies—big and small—operating in India, not to mention free speech online. “There is an element of nationalism which is creeping into tech policy in India,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital-rights group. Gupta says this has resulted in a number of India-First-style tech policies being rushed through the government using the much quicker executive notification process rather than seeking parliamentary approval, which could have resulted in laws that would be more comprehensive and enforceable.

Calling for the regulation of tech giants is easy, but actually developing reasonable, scalable policies with a feasible strategy for deployment is more difficult. In the case of India, Gupta added, “it wants to do a lot, but it all seems a bit clumsy.”

Thursday marks the end of the counter-comment period for new proposed rules that could have a chilling effect on free expression and privacy online. The proposed changes would drastically weaken protections for internet “intermediaries” by amending Section 79 of the IT Act—the Indian equivalent of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US—effectively forcing platforms to censor user content deemed “unlawful” by the government, or be held liable for the postings. The rules would also require messaging services like WhatsApp to build a backdoor for Indian authorities, weakening end-to-end encryption. Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government could put the rules in effect as soon as Friday, as the change doesn’t require parliamentary approval.

The proposed rules were ostensibly created to check the power of tech giants, but they could end up helping the Facebooks, Twitters, and Googles of the world by holding newer, less-well-heeled rivals to the same strict censorship and filtering requirements. “It may have the unintended consequence of in fact benefiting [the tech giants],” says Gupta, “because only they would have the ability to actually comply with [these rules] to any feasible extent.”

On February 1, new rules aimed at limiting the influence of ecommerce giants such as Amazon and Walmart took effect. The new regulations ban many of the strategies that have contributed to Amazon’s dominance in the US and Europe, such as: promoting and selling your own products (or the products of a company you control), pushing other companies to sell products exclusively through your marketplace, giving certain sellers preferential treatment or placement, and abusing your market power to undercut your competitors by offering hard-to-beat discounts.

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Initially, Amazon was forced to pull thousands of products from its digital shelves because they came from Amazon brands or from companies in which it had a large stake. For example, Amazon owned a 49 percent stake in Cloudtail India, the site’s biggest vendor, and in Appario Retail, another extremely popular seller for Amazon users in India. Both were prohibited under the new ecommerce rules.

However, less than a week later, Cloudtail was back on Amazon, with over 300,000 products listed for sale. The rules defined company-controlled vendors as sellers in which the marketplace owns at least a 25 percent stake, so Amazon cut its indirect holding of Cloudtail to 24 percent, according to Reuters. An early supporter of the ecommerce restrictions, the Confederation of All India Traders called Amazon’s move an attempt to circumvent the rules. Amazon appears to have used a similar strategy to get its Prime Pantry services back online and is reportedly now selling its own grocery products via an affiliate. On Thursday, Amazon slashed its commission fees for certain high-performing sellers in an attempt to boost the visibility of independent vendors on the platform.

“It's a cat-and-mouse game to address harms such as anti-competitive effects and price gouging by using executive notifications rather than regulatory institutions such as a competition regulator,” says Gupta. He says tech giants like Amazon have a lengthy history of finding and exploiting loopholes in even the most stringent regulations, while smaller companies can feel the brunt of the rules. “Unless you specifically look at who is actually indulging in anti-competitive practices [and] levy a very tough penalty on them—which can only happen through institutional enforcement—these kinds of issues will linger,” he added.

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Voice Commerce – The Future of E-Commerce in India

• Nandita Raman
• Published Date : 19 April , 2020
• Updated Date : 24 May , 2021

By now, we’re sure you’re aware that smartphones play a huge role in driving sales in retail. But did you know that 28% of the search queries in India are done by voice ?

BigCommerce reports that by 2021, mobile eCommerce sales are said to account for 54% of the total eCommerce sales & it also projects a 270% growth in voice-based queries in India.

What’s the current trend with Voice Search?

Most e-commerce brands are looking at voice as an opportunity to grow and expand their businesses. Reports state that 43% of brands surveyed agree that Voice Search in e-commerce is an opportunity to harness while 26% agree on the same to a reasonable extent. With added risks, the benefits still seem to outweigh for most brands. Voice assistants are now part of most homes’ everyday life, starting from morning alarms, reminders to turn off their cookers to even playing music. This seems to be a promising touchpoint for e-commerce as consumers could soon begin online transactions through voice, as the technology becomes more pervasive in their everyday lives. 

To learn more about Voice Search trends, watch our video on The Complete Guide to Voice Search Marketing  

Voice shopping happens to be one of the latest trends shaping the future of eCommerce and as we all know, retail is growing faster than anything else.

So, how did it all begin?

IBM, a tech giant, started way back in 1961, the first-ever speech recognition software. When you look back at the iPhone, Siri, for example, was started in 2011 followed by Amazon which released Alexa in 2014. It's not novel but it has certainly become more relevant these days with more households using voice assistants in their daily lives. Voice assistance technology is definitely creating a large impact on E-commerce.

What is Voice commerce? 

Voice Commerce is a technology that provides the user with an alternative option to purchase a product online instead of using a keyboard and mouse. It is 3 times faster than the web interface. In other words, it screams convenience. 

How would Voice commerce enhance a customer's buying experience?

• Shopping through Voice Search technology evidently simplifies and eases the process of transacting online. For starters - It is hands-free. Multitasking happens to the new fad for most busy households these days. All that the customer needs is to search and buy something online using a virtual Voice Search assistant such as Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri etc. With the assistance of voice shopping, completing a purchase becomes simple and can be done at any time of the day - even when you’re in the shower or eating if your voice assistant can hear you!  
• Apart from being extremely convenient for first-time orders, it is also useful for repetitive orders. Since the Voice Search algorithm knows what you’ve purchased previously, it can help you with repeat orders.

Here are some disadvantages to keep in mind:

• You may face a slight difficulty in browsing, especially in the B2B space when product names are difficult to pronounce or if you have too many product codes or multiple colours, the technology might not be developed enough to grasp the subtle nuances and modify the searches just yet.  
• Privacy concerns. Research states that many people do not feel comfortable about having a voice assistant or a microphone that’s always listening to private conversations in their household or office as they see this as a  breach of privacy. However, customers are gradually adapting to it in the current scenario and brands are leveraging the fact that Voice Search is growing rapidly in the market and if you do wait too long to optimise your technology for Voice commerce, you will fall behind.  

3 ways to leverage voice commerce for your brand to drive more sales:

Build google norm actions / alexa skills.

With voice being the future, it is important that E-Commerce brands grasp & leverage these trends for their growth. Both Google and Amazon have made this easy for brands to get started with easy-to-use Voice Search assistant templates.

Jetson Ai is an all in one platform to manage your brand’s voice strategy - It is a voice-first market place which helps you connect with consumers across various voice assistants. With Jetson Ai, you can manage all your voice interactions from a single dashboard. Apart from this it also studies and learns about your consumers’ past purchase behaviour and customises their future interactions, making the journey as frictionless as possible.

Build a multilingual voice experience

Various brands have seen rapid growth in consumption of vernacular content overall social media platforms.

Niki.ai is one such company that has a multilingual voice experience which enables consumers to interact with you in their preferred language. This is an interesting strategy which would help you reach India's next billion internet users.

Niki ai helps consumers from tier 2 & 3 cities make purchases online through voice on Redbus, Cleartrip and BookMyShow.

Build conversational experiences across the customer’s purchase journey

The second thing you could explore is to build a conversational user experience across the consumer purchase journey starting from research, product queries to FAQ’s even. This has kindled companies’ interest by presenting a super-intelligent interface that’s going to help grow their businesses. Not only do they understand the text transcription of the consumers, but also the intention behind using those words.  

One such platform is Haptik. An intelligent voice virtual assistant which builds Voice Search based conversational Ai chatbots to help business enable voice commerce.  

These are three possible ways to build delightful voice commerce experiences for your consumers.

How have brands leveraged voice commerce?

A lot of brands have successfully leveraged voice to enhance their business . Some classic examples include Big Bazaar, Dominos, Whirlpool etc.

Smart search was introduced by BigBazaar in 2017 where anyone who searches with a prefix of Big Bazaar on Google was also given exclusive offers. With the success of this campaign and to reach out to more customers and benefit them, Big Bazaar also leveraged voice. 

Early last year, Dominos, rolled out their voice ordering app to make ordering pizza more accurate and efficient for their customers. This turned out to be an extremely successful campaign. With their inbuilt voice technology, they had a headstart over all other competitors!

What does Voice commerce hold for the future?

Voice commerce is not only a trend but is a complete shift in the way we communicate and share things with the world. This also helps brands innovate and launch campaigns which further enhances the brand reputation and in turn leads to a better ROI - This also widens the consumer base to newer audiences. Brands already selling on platforms such as Amazon need to start looking at ways to optimise their listings and create new opportunities on the platform itself starting today. A lot of research and surveys show that optimising for Voice Search definitely gives you a competitive advantage. This is why retailers have already started to use Voice commerce to expand their ROI and keep up with fast-growing technology.

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Regulating E-Commerce: Some Lessons from India

July 5, 2000 • 9 min read.

Governments around the world are waking up to the fact that the Internet and e-commerce need to be regulated. The Indian Parliament, for example, has just passed an Information Technology Act, which lays down the framework for electronic commerce in India, while other European and U.S. governments are in the process of framing their own laws to regulate the Internet. What will such regulations mean for the prospects of e-commerce in emerging economies like India, and for developed countries in the West? Dan Hunter, a faculty member in the legal studies department at Wharton School, discusses the moves being made by governments around the world to regulate e-commerce.

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Speech on e-commerce: meaning, characteristics and other details.

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E-Commerce: Meaning, Characteristics and Other Details!

It seems pertinent to mention at the outset that e-commerce is not about reinvesting business. It is about streamlining current business process to improve operating efficiencies which, in turn, will strengthen the value to provide to customers which, in turn, will provide the competitive advantage over competitors.

In simple words, electronic commerce (sometimes also called ‘web- based commerce’) is the process of doing business electronically or over internet. It includes business-to-business, business-to-consumer, and even consumer-to- consumer transactions that involve the buying and selling of goods and services, the transfer of funds, and even the exchange of ideas (Paul 2000).

According to Bharat Bhaskar, “Electronic commerce means the capability to buy and sell goods, services, and information online, through public networks.” Bajaj and Nag (2008) have defined E-Commerce as “paperless exchange of business information using electronic data interchange, electronic mail, electronic bulletin boards, electronic funds transfer. World Wide Web and other network-based technologies.” Among a few definitions of e-commerce so far given, the most widely accepted and used is one given by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

According to the WTO:

“…….. Production, distribution, marketing, sale or delivery of goods and services by electronic means. A commercial transaction can be divided into three main stages: advertising and searching stage; ordering and payment stage; and delivery stage. Any or all of these may be carried out electronically and may, therefore, be covered by the concept of electronic commerce.”

Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is defined to be the process of businesses trading with other businesses and the formulation of internal processes using electronic links.

Electronic business, or e-business, is a term often used interchangeably with e-commerce, but is more concerned with the transformation of key business processes through the use of internet technologies (Standing 2000).

In other words, e-commerce encompasses the use of technologies, processes and management practices that enhance organisational competitiveness through strategic use of electronic information. E-commerce is, thus, a modem methodology that addresses the need of organisations’ merchants and consumers.

It cuts costs while improving the quality of goods and services and increasing the speed of service delivery. E-commerce proves to be feasible for the standard products, low-value products, intangible products and digital products.

Characteristics of E-Commerce :

E-commerce is characterized by the following features:

a. The business tools are electronic and the application is commerce, i.e. profit motive.

b. Business is externally focused on those with whom business is conducted.

c. Most of the transactions are processed automatically.

d. Uses a gamut of business support services, such as inter-organizational e-mail and on-line directories.

Why E-Commerce?

One logical question arises is: why e-commerce? In other words, what is the rationale or justification behind the use of e-commerce?

One can rationalize the use of e-commerce imbued with multiplicity of justifications; the major ones are as follows:

The Top Line:

Access to global market by having ability to reach new customers and create more intimate relationships with all customers.

The Bottom Line:

Reduction in distribution costs with drastic cost reductions for distribution and customer service.

Categories of E-Commerce :

Business-to-Business E-Commerce:

Among the various categories of e-commerce, business-to-business (B2B) commerce is the largest category. This involves companies conducting e-procurement, supply chain management, network alliances, and negotiating purchase transactions over the internet or web.

One of the major purposes why businesses use e-commerce is, to the extent possible, to lower transaction costs of conducting business and also to make savings in terms of time and effort in conducting e-business.

Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce:

Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce is the second largest category and involves businesses introducing products and services to consumers via internet technologies. This includes companies selling software and hardware through the internet, taking orders for products that are subsequently delivered to the consumer, and providing digital services such as online magazines and search engines.

Business Processes:

Business process refers to the use of e-commerce to tailor the internal activities of a business in order to maximise their efficiency and effectiveness. Through the use of e-commerce, businesses can fine-tune supply chains, provide advanced consumer relations management systems, and reduce transaction costs.

Consumer-to-Consumer E-Commerce:

Consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce is concerned with the use of e-commerce by individuals to trade and exchange information with other individuals. There has been a huge growth in consumer- to-consumer auctions sites such as e-Bay and sites enabling consumers to offer goods and services to other consumers on an individual basis.

Business-to-Government E-Commerce:

Business-to-government (B2G) e-commerce is concerned with the need for business to sell goods or services to governments or government agencies. Such activities include supplying the army, police force, hospitals and schools with products and services.

Furthermore, businesses will often compete in an online environment for contracts to provide services to the public on behalf of the government. The commonest examples of such services may include the collection of taxes, and the supply of public services.

Now that we have understood the meaning of e-commerce, we can profitably distinguish between traditional commerce and e-commerce.

Difference between Traditional Commerce and E-Commerce :

The major points of distinction between traditional commerce and e-commerce are juxtaposed in the following Table:

Related Articles:

• Internet Marketing: Meaning, Components and Other Details
• E-Commerce System: Meaning, Resources Required and Benefits

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A new way to see your benefits info in Workday 

If you have had a peak at your benefits information in Workday recently, you may have noticed some of the screens look a little different. 

If you haven’t had a look, with the change of season upon us, it’s a great time to explore what’s new in Workday.  

Speaking of spring, there is no better time to get into Workday to do a spot of spring cleaning to ensure your benefits details are up to date.  

A new Workday application for Benefits  

As of March 9, after the latest Workday release , a new Benefits and Pay hub has replaced the Benefits app in Workday. The new Benefits and Pay hub provides a central location where employees can see their benefits, pay, and compensation information.   

The new hub provides quick access to the same useful resources the previous Benefits app supplied, including links to tuition waivers, pension information and benefit providers as well as options to update benefits, dependents and beneficiaries. The hub also gives access to important pay information, including payslips, tax documents and employment verification letters.  

The Benefits and Pay hub will automatically appear in your Global Navigation Menu. Don't forget, you can sort the apps to appear in whatever order you prefer.  

If you are curious to learn more about the new hub, see Benefits and Pay Hub in Workday in the Workday Knowledge Base.  

Note: The Pay app will be retired within the year, so you are encouraged to start using the Benefits and Pay hub to find pay-related information.  

Spring clean for your benefits  

Are you doing some spring cleaning in your home? It’s also important to make time to tidy up your benefits information. Our teams work hard to ensure the effective administration of the plan; we also rely on details in your Workday profile to be accurate and maintained throughout your career at UBC.  

Here are some helpful Workday reminders to ensure our benefits are working for you.  

Is your beneficiary information up to date?  

Life changes in the blink of an eye, and it isn’t always easy to keep our affairs in order. That’s why regularly reviewing your beneficiaries is a good idea – to ensure that the correct individual(s) or organization will be paid when the time comes.  

If you need to designate a beneficiary, please review the Change Beneficiaries in the Workday Knowledge Base.    

Overage dependent student status  

If you have an overage dependent who is still covered under your UBC Benefits plans, you will be required to confirm their details annually , before their birthday. A notification will be sent to your UBC email address, and you will be directed to the Dependents tab of your Benefits Summary in Workday to confirm eligibility.   

For more information, see Update Dependent Child's Full-time Student Status in the Workday Knowledge Base.  

Need more assistance  

When it comes to reviewing or changing your benefits in Workday, visit Get Workday Support in the UBC Self Service Portal or contact the ISC .  

If you have any questions about your UBC benefits, including eligibility, what’s covered, how to make claims please contact the Benefits team .

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