The big poster boys of eCommerce in India are selling everything under one roof, there is lot of focus on product categories and $ spend on customer acquisition.

Our eCommerce scene today is just a copycat of West, replicating a business in different cultures is a challenge, China is able to create a flavour of its own....the leading ecommerce site "taobao" is a standing example, they have more than 400 Million registered users, selling 50,000 items every minute. Taobao has leveraged the china factor and able to sell the products at the wholesale prices.

Our masses wont eat pizzas & burgers everyday....we need flavours of vada-pav, pani-puri, idlis & dosas....we need a model which is adaptive to local taste..

The trend in the Indian consumers buying pattern is walk into the malls or retail stores feel & experience the product, check on the prices then place an order with a e-tailer offering good discounts....this applies to shoes & apparels as well...eCommerce in India is getting pushed into a low margin business...which can be compensated only by increasing the volume of sales & driving huge customer transactions...

Agree to all the points of having deeper pockets to sustain the business & becoming profitable...but still kirana shops are still running and people are making the livelihood in-spite of sprung-up malls...

I believe small players can still exist and build a boutique culture in the eCommerce space....

thoughts?

Gopikrishna, //twitter.com/@gkrishnak1, www.smartas.in.