The internet penetration in India has skyrocketed in past couple of years, due to the collective efforts by the Government and Private Telecom Companies. The setup of Communication infrastructure and budget internet plans and inexpensive mobile devices, the Internet has become widely accessible and widely available to everyone in the nation. Facilities such as Broadband and high speed optical fibre internet connection are mostly limited to the cities
and towns. But the 4G offers high internet connections to users at their convenience. This accessibility and availability plays a very vital role in the growth of M commerce in India. This new and increased number of users of Internet on their mobile phones has enabled the Ecommerce platforms to branch out to even remote parts of the nation for setting up their operations. While the technological aspect of creating a mobile platform for a web version is not challenging, this aforementioned ‘setting up of operations’ is a bit challenging, but very rewarding at the same time. For a country like India, where a large chunk of population lives in remote areas, it has countless advantages such as
- The products such as mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices which are not readily available at the local sellers or markets in a village or tier 3 towns can be delivered by these platforms, hence proving to be greatly advantageous for end user.
- Local artisans, potters and small-scale manufacturers and business owners can sign up on the platform can scale up their operations, to sell their products to a different kind of audience as these platforms provide them with logistic and ecommerce services.
As per the present status quo, Access to these platforms is only limited by owning a smartphone and a having an internet plan. As stated before, the cost of these limitations are massively reduced hence the accessibility provides the users with a marketplace which is free to access, and in a country like India where a major chunk of population looks for budget solutions of productions, these platforms play a very vital role in providing that. By streamlining delivery, manufacturing, and the entire process to become extremely efficient, the prices of certain products are massively low than the traditional market, which is very advantageous for the end user as well.
In the present times, where everyone has to stay at home in quarantine, these platforms with their extremely efficient operations have risen up to the occasion and now provide with the products which are essential for our sustenance. Products such as groceries, fruits, vegetables, medicines can be ordered on the separate portals built in the platforms and then can get delivered fresh at our doorsteps. Some platforms have even made use of their delivery
infrastructure and mechanisms to get these products delivered from one place to another. This has helped local business owners to sustain their businesses as they could deliver the daily groceries and supplies at homes of people who cannot get out due to lockdown or are affected by Covid-19.
Many restaurant owners have also shifted to cloud kitchen model, which is perfect for the pandemic as nobody is stepping out of their houses to eat food and are only ordering the food in.
However, there are certain disadvantages or concerns when it comes to M-Commerce india as well such as
- A vast majority of users of these platform are not informed about the dark side of using the internet, hence are prone to frauds and scams because they are vulnerable to misinformation due to lack of knowledge.
- The increased users of these platforms have an ill effect to the sellers who sell the same products but not on the platform or don’t adapt to the changing time. Either The local business owner/retailer suffers a loss by not matching the price of the product available on the internet and hence losing customers or get on the platform to sell their products as a supplier and cut down on retail costs.
- When these platforms are widely available, their clones and copies can easily fool the end users by phishing and smashing.
- Many fraud sellers are also signing up to the platforms to sell fake and expired products, which are harmful for the user.
- Returns and warranties also cause hassles, as many users are unaware on how to avail them or often find themselves in a situation where there is no return but absolutely want to return the product due to the policy of the social distancing norms.
