India currently has over 74 million Internet users.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: An American Express report has revealed that online shopping in India is expected to hit a record high of 38 million cyber-shoppers in 2015.
India currently has over 74 million Internet users, a number that continues to increase with each passing year. According to the report, roughly 14%, or 10.4 million people, engage in online shopping. If that number goes up to 38 million, it will represent an increase of 265%.
The main reason for the growth in online shopping is not just because of growing Internet usage around the country, but also because more and more Indians are getting credit cards. According to American Express, the number of Indians with credit cards increased by 4% during the 2013 fiscal year.
Credit card companies saw activity on Indian shopping sites increased by huge amounts last year, however. Popular online marketplace Flipkart saw transactions increase by 160%, while Infibeam saw six times the number of transactions last year as they had the previous year.
The last three years have seen online shopping increase by 35% in India. The country itself is the third-largest in terms of Internet usage in the entire world, with the majority of the Internet demographic skewing under 35. However, the majority of Internet usage is dominated by social networking, which makes sense given that so many users are relatively young.
Social media sites, however, have increasingly become a portal for online shopping. Facebook as taken to advertising in a big way, using data collected on each user to cater ads specifically for each of them. For example, if you’re from a particular city, and like cricket, you’ll likely see an ad at some point for a jersey from your city’s local IPL team.
Twitter also has sponsored tweets to accomplish their advertising, and YouTube also plays 10-60 second ads in front of nearly all videos now. Online advertising and online shopping go hand-in-hand, and companies have realized that the growing Indian marketplace is one of the most surefire ways to see robust sales in the coming years.