A Long way for Indian eCommerce Industry

Last entire month ( Oct, 2014 ) we had a lot of buzz on Online Shopping Sales, With all major e-commerce companies in India come up with a lot of Offers, Deals and sales program.

There was a lot of buzz in market for Pros and Cons for this and people considering such e comm companies as threat to traditional retail biz.

Flipkart claimed to have 100 MN $ Sale on their Big Billion Day Sale on 6th Oct. Same day Snapdeal and Amazon also claimed nearby sales figure.

Is this Big or reached peak ?
My answer is NO.

If we see similar Single Day sales in other countries, e.g. China which have Singles Day Sale on 11/11, on this day the online giant of china Alibaba reported sales of approx 9.3 BN USD on single day, which is more than total Annual sales of top 5 Indian E Commerce companies.

The similar sale in USA, as Cyber Monday Sale ( 1st Monday of Dec ). In 2013, US online market place reported sales of 2.29 BN USD on single day and expected to cross 2.5 BN USD in 2014.

Apart from sales figure, Indian  eCommerce sites have a long way for Technology, Marketing, Stock management and Delivery system/logistics.

On 6th Oct, we seen a lot of glitch on Flipkart’s Website with some downtimes, slow site openings and order issue. A lot of products were sold within few minutes in early morning ( Even I can say here IRCTC do a better job ) , Products sold so fast that booking a ticket on IRCTC is bit easy. Few products seen sold out in less than a minute.

Similar issue with the site of SnapDeal on 11th Nov, when they placed big advertisements in newspaper to compete with Alibaba’s Singles Day Sale.

Alibaba didn’t had any issue in order processing / website working or stock management in compare to Indian eCommerce sites despite the fact they had 100 Time more traffic and sales on single day in compare to Flipkart / Snapdeal.

Whereas Flipkart and Snapdeal cancelled a lot of orders due to stocks not available, I don’t understand one basic point, they do not have basic Stock Management integrated in website ?

How can then make sales without having Stocks in hand ?

If these companies taking only Virtual orders ?

They showing big sales figures to Investors and Public, will they disclose final figures after Cancelled Orders ?

Questions remains unanswered !!!!

Thus, still a long way for Indian eCommerce companies to be transparent and properly management of orders and stock managements.

Source ::
1. Alibaba Sales
2. Cyber Monday Sale