E-commerce in the country is growing at an astounding rate. This means that the sector has plenty of job opportunities for those who are people-friendly and can adapt themselves to the fast changes that are taking place, says Samarjeet Singh
Expanse of e-commerce in India is witnessing a stupendous growth. It has emerged as one of the most dynamic and fast-paced industries due to the entry of several new players. It accounts for over 10 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and around 8 per cent of the employment. India is the world’s fifth-largest global destination in the retail space.
The Boston Consulting Group and Retailers Association of India published a report titled, Retail 2020: Retrospect, Reinvent, Rewrite, highlighting that India’s retail market is expected to nearly double to $1 trillion by 2020 from $600 billion in 2015, driven by income growth, urbanisation and attitudinal shifts.
Online retail is expected to be at par with the physical stores in the next five years. The way of the future is clearly to commit fewer resources towards opening brick-and-mortar stores and instead, manifesting into virtual ones. As a result, online e-commerce marketers are constantly straddling between engaging with consumers whilst being agile in managing their online reputation.
Online retail underpins the significance of m-commerce. There is a burgeoning demand for online marketers to grapple with the massive number of people browsing and shopping online – shifting marketer’s focus from generating brand hype to being helpful via social media, engaging content, and community development with today’s ‘anytime anywhere’ — on the go — consumer. Fueled by rising Internet penetration and broadband availability, online retail and marketing is becoming an interesting subject, dangling as a tantalisingly big carrot for both domestic and international retailers.
With the proliferation of multi-channel commerce, it is no surprise that mobile continues to reshape the way that consumers engage with digital content. This evolving footprint is generating swathes of new information that both the content and advertising sides of the ecosystem must consider and act upon. Witnessing a consolidation, Indian e-commerce companies realise this, and to have a voice of their own in this online marketing cacophony, they are aiming to continue their focus on expanding sellers and selection on their platforms, innovating on multiple customer touch points, and providing seamless and rapid delivery in order to compete with the international entities.
Digital innovators are changing the face of marketing for e-commerce players in India. Social media presents marketers with a unique opportunity to connect with their target audience, build a consistent brand image across channels, and generate more sales.
With 70 per cent of marketers (how many marketers are increasing their budgets) planning to allocate more budget to digital, social media advertising in particular, it’s time to start thinking innovation and integration to make your campaigns count and messages last forever.
Integrating communications — capabilities, reliability, competency and content from the initial e-commerce transaction through fulfillment then, to communicate the progress of each purchase to the customers, in real-time the e-commerce process must be fast, seamless, well-communicated from dispatch to delivery — the entire process has stated to become streamlined and cohesive.
This means that there will be plenty of job opportunities in the e-retailing sector in marketing, the digital space as sales executives, retail marketers as well as jobs in the service sector including delivery boys. All that is required is that the person should be people-friendly and be able to adjust to the fast paced change that is happening in this sector.
(The writer is director, Iksula — e-Retail Strategy Consulting)