E-commerce Report (April 2019)

“E-commerce is undergoing rapid transformation. What was once a good-to-have product has now become a must- have.Delivering quickly and efficiently as well as same-day delivery will soon become the norm and due to this e-commercebusinesses will be rigorously competing on the basis of their ability to deliver fast and with no added costs. According tostudies 56 per cent of online buyers between the ages 18-34 expect same-day delivery and 49 per cent of shoppers saythat same-day delivery makes them buy more online. In the near future it will be noticed that e-commerce businesses willshift focus more towards customer engagement to be able to differentiate their services from competitors.Balancing customer experience and keeping costs under control is a significant challenge that exists today in thee-commerce industry as well as understanding what exactly a customer wants. With technologies like natural languageprocessing machine learning and artificial intelligence becoming more available e-commerce organizations can buildbetter business models based on customer buying behaviour predictive intelligence and insights from recommendationengines.While speaking about the untapped potential in the e-commerce space internet penetration in rural India will be as high as 45per cent in 2021 compared to the present figure of 18 per cent which translates into a 10 billion to 12 billion e-commercepotential. Another significant development in the e-commerce space will be the growing importance of reverse logistics.In the US alone statistics highlight that returns deliveries will cost 550 billion by 2020 75.2 per cent more than four yearsprior and reducing such costs can boost e-commerce businesses.“