It was just a while back that i recieved a mail offering me a pair of some very trendy shoes for Rs 499 for a very limited period of time. It was obviously very tempting with numbers ending in'99' and words like 'exclusive' and 'limited period' in it. But the foot and the eye are so far apart that i could not let one of them make the decison for the other.
Soon as days flew by and my exclusive limited period offer turned into a regular deal it gave birth to many new deals from different sites . The item in offering kept changing but the figure 499 remained same and attained a greater significance than the offered product.
As we all google(know) internet Shopping(e-Commerce) in India has now a very strong foothold with amounts of the range 1.6billion USD in the year 2012. The forecasts are of going upto 8.8 Bil USD by the year 2016. This is an amazing growth forecast considering the global and local overalls being not so bright. And these are not just forecasts but are backed in belief by the venture capitalists who are coming up with a new online store in every few weeks.
This scenario is a lot like the IT bubble of 2000 before its burst when a lot of money was pumped into the e-commerce but results will not be similar i guess, As technology is at a far more superior level and the penetration is at the penultimate stage.Also the Indian companies are providing On time deliveries,free return , very simple interfaces at very competitive prices.
So now coming back to 499, Internet shopping in India has attained a lot of trust with all the best practices these companies follow but still there is a level of insecurity when dealing in larger amounts.I think 499 will be a tipping point for the apparel/accessories sites. It can be generally said that 499 is the value that a normal e-commerce customer is ready to spend on buying anything which the Internet can convince him to buy ,whether he needs it or not dosent matter .Also 499 is the value that the user is ready to willingly risk and is not worried about not getting a suitable return back for it.499 was also very critical as it is less than the 500 Note which is a feel good to have in your pocket and not so much to take it out.
As per a survey of all the internet transactions only 25% are paid with COD rest all are wired.The products which you may get online for 499, that same product you may get outside in a local unbranded shop for the same amount or may be even less .But we care less about online money than the Green Gandhis so its easier to buy something that we are not sure of online than buying it face to face.
Currently 57 % of e-com revenues are from the non metros,so we will see the Sites going into regional languages and competition getting tougher . It may reach even up to the village levels but not with personal computers but more like small internet cafes acting as multi-brand online stores. So its happy days for the Indian Companies ahead :)
