8 things to know about E-commerce trends and opportunity

We had conducted a GoCrackIt Intern Meet Up at IIM Bangalore on 27th April. The theme of the Meet Up was “ E-commerce: Trends & Opportunities”. The event was chaired by Pallavi Palkar, National Head (T-2 cities) – Bigbasket & Tridev Kundu – Supply Chain Design – Flipkart. We discussed multiple issues around E-commerce and career opportunities in the sector followed by very engaging discussions with students. Some of the insights we gathered from the discussion are as follows:

1. Why E-commerce as a career
   • New challenges
     • E-commerce industry is a very nascent stage which gives tremendous opportunity to come up with innovative ideas and at the same time implementing them
     • Enjoyed problem-solving in real time which is never discussed in theoretical books
   • A shift from traditional industry to totally new environment
     • Identified how traditional methods can be used in E-commerce industry
2. How customers are evolving in E-commerce industry
   • New concept of “Middle India”
     • An interesting concept of Middle India was introduced by our mentors which can be roughly referred to consumers with disposal income and technological savviness
3. Impact of Emerging/Emerged technology on E-commerce. How skill gaps can be bridged
   • Required for scale
     • Technology is definitely required for scaling and improving the customer experience to name a few
     • Our mentors talk about examples such as preferred delivery slots for busy customers, routing algorithms for supply chain, Automated Guided Vehicle at warehouses
   • Technology v/s excess manpower availability
     • India is still a labour-intensive country even today, so we need to see the cost benefit of technology v/s cheap manual labor
     • Technology will be more feasible over cheap labour once the technology eco system develops
4. Difference in marketing approach in T1 and T2 cities
   • Difference in value proposition
     • The value of E-commerce is different between T1 & T2 cities, while customers from T1 cities are value convenience and the customers from T2 cities are more price sensitive
     • The channels to reach out are TV and Newspapers for T2 cities
   • Ease of operations in T2 cities
     • In T2 cities, there are no traffic problems and hiring is easier because a lot of talent is available
   • Challenges of operations in T2 cities
     • Issue in local pin code intelligence
     • Varying region languages
5. Trends in payments
   • Understanding buyer behaviour
     • Cash on Delivery (CoD) is still preferable
     • Financial companies are understanding customers’ credit behaviour and bringing more schemes
     • One example is Buy Now Pay Later, so that E-commerce firm can sell even when customers do not have funds during the lean period of the month
6. How to retain customer loyalty
   • Efforts for multiple customer engagements
     • Flipkart’s move towards grocery will help it engage more with customers as groceries are bought frequently
     • Strict quality control to ensure less customer return and customer delight
7. Efforts for reducing losses
   • Introduction of profitable product segments
     • Private levels can be a profitable segment
   • Being more cost effective in operations
     • Reducing supply chain cost and other areas can help
8. Competencies required for getting into E-commerce firms
   • Problem solving skills
     • This is one of the most important skill. The ability to break down a given problem into sub problems and solve it accordingly
     • Ability to think on your feet
   • Think like a CEO for your own career
     • Define what companies/type of companies you want to join and thoroughly know the recent initiatives/progress/achievements of companies
     • Approach hiring managers with the problem which you can solve for that company
     • Think beyond marquee E-commerce companies and explore other smaller/niche companies to get a foot hold in the industry