There has been an exceptional evolution in how India trades and shops, and eCommerce has been the most popular form of trading for two decades. In layman’s terms, it is buying and selling goods and services through the internet. The business transactions may occur business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C) or consumer-to-business.
The Indian eCommerce market has developed at lightning speed, and several companies have achieved phenomenal success over a short period. The advancement of technology, the rise of capitalism, and consumerism, have helped eCommerce change the way businesses are done in India.
The ‘Digital India‘ program by the government has helped bring the country together through wifi towers thus making E-commerce feasible to the world. It has enabled us to reduce barriers, bringing the manufacturer closer to the customer which in turn cut down on the cost and time. This is one of the most substantial reasons for eCommerce growth.
How Does eCommerce Work?
The internet feeds eCommerce and the smartphone is what makes online shopping accessible. The process is rather straightforward which makes it appealing to the customers. They simply may browse and place online orders for products and services.
Top 10 eCommerce Portals in India
Online shopping is more than a trend rather it is a practice that young and old both engage in. More than 19,000+ eCommerce companies in the country combine big and small portals. Listed down are the top 10 eCommerce Portals that have stood out from the crowd based on their resources, services, and traction on their websites. These iconic companies have made it easier for customers to shop online which is why they deserve to be where they are today.
Check Out the Top 10 Most Popular eCommerce Portals in India
1. Amazon
Amazon started in 1994 in the U.S. by Jeff Bezos as an online bookstore that later diversified to products including media, electronics, apparel, accessories, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. Having expanded to many countries, including India, Amazon has become the uncontested global leader of e-commerce and developed into brick-and-mortar retail with the acquisition of Whole Foods Market, as well as publishing, electronics, cloud computing, video streaming, and production.
Amazon started in India in 2010, and in only 12 years the site has generated around 322.54 million monthly visitors. Hence, it is one of the highest-performing sites in India’s eCommerce space. According to Statista, Amazon’s audience reaches 89 percent in India today. It has a vast global presence and is one of India’s most popular and extensive online stores.
It not only gives importance to personalization it also provides a variety of product choices with splendid customer service and a great user experience. Amazon monitors the consumers’ browsing and purchase patterns and makes an effort to offer them the recommended products for future purchases.
Aiming to increase its sales in India and for a good consumer experience, Amazon launched two initiatives for sellers and promised an accelerated and friction-free experience for selling products on the ‘Self Service Registration (S.S.R.)’ platform and ‘Amazon Easy Ship’.
- Amazon’s Self-Service Registration S.S.R. – It allows sellers to self-register on the Amazon website, irrespective of the location and size of the catalog. It enables sellers to start selling their products within a day without any third-party intervention making the process easy, quick, and transparent on both fronts.
- Amazon Easy Ship – the seller has to prepare the parcel to be shipped and confirm to Amazon that they are ready to deliver. Amazon Logistics ensures that the package is delivered to the customers within two to four working days. It allows sellers to tap into online channels easily and offer customers a delightful shopping experience.
With Amazon Prime, customers often receive delivery of products even within 24 hours. The reduced shipping time by Amazon keeps both retailers and customers happy and increases customer loyalty to the website. Right from mobile phones, gadgets, fashion products, pharmaceuticals, electrical appliances, books, groceries, and even bill payments can be done through amazon. It is a one-stop shop for all consumer needs. In the future, the company plans to tap its subsequent 500 million users by offering vernacular languages and voice shopping in Hindi using Alexa.
2. Flipkart
Initiated by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart is an Indian e-commerce company that started in 2007 in India. The online store is headquartered in Bengaluru and was incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. In no time, Flipkart became the biggest competitor of Amazon in India, with a 39.5% market share of India’s e-commerce industry. In 2018, Flipkart sold 77 percent of its share to Walmart for USD$ 16 billion, the world’s largest eCommerce deal.
Flipkart was started with a primary focus on online book sales and slowly expanded to apparel, electronics, digital music, home care, and beauty products, gradually accumulating a lot of interest in the minds of Indian consumers. Moreover, it has become a mega marketplace with a vast collection of cellphones, cameras, laptops, games, etc., which are offered chiefly at hefty discounts.
Flipkart has subsidiaries like Myntra, PhonePe, eBay, Ekart, Jeeves, and Jabong. Flipkart also launched Shopsy on July 2, 2021- an app that will uplift the country’s entrepreneurs to gain all the benefits of digital eCommerce that comes their way without investments.
Apart from the shopping experience, Flipkart is known for its most significant online shopping festival – Big Billion Days which turned out to be one of the most successful campaigns. Millions of orders churn out during that shopping festival. Flyte by Flipkart is an online music store from where you can download music after paying for it.
Flipkart’s success and growth are based on two strategies- The huge discounts offered on online products and the option of Cash- on- Delivery which makes consumers more confident in purchasing products. Flipkart has a fantastic customer retention rate with 70% of repeat customers, continuously developing and improving the customer’s shopping experience. The website is convenient and hassle-free to browse for consumers of all ages. And if you want to convert your local store into an online business, Flipkart will be the best option. It is also easy to register as a seller and start selling your products on Flipkart.
3. FirstCry
Supam Maheshwari and Amitava Saha started FirstCry in 2010 to provide baby care products providing millions of parents a one-stop solution to access the best brands for their children in India.
Asia’s most prominent eCommerce portal specializing in products and essentials for babies and early teens is FirstCry. Owned by the Mahindra Venture, the First cry has over 400 brick-and-mortar locations across the country, including Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, and other major cities.
As of 2021, over 200,000 products from 5000+ manufacturers are listed on their website. Mattel, Pigeon, Funskool, Ben 10, Hotwheels, Nuby, Farlin, Medela, Pampers, Disney, Barbie, Gerber, and Fisher-Price are to name a few. As the brand name comprises, the company significantly deals in all kinds of baby essentials like – diapers, skin and health care, toys, clothes, footwear, fashion accessories, and mom and maternity products. The company provides the best brands and products at affordable prices complemented by a quality online shopping experience, reliable delivery service, and prompt customer care.
FirstCry also runs a unique program that reaches over 70,000 new parents each month by giving out a ‘FirstCry Box‘. The box has all the necessities like diapers, baby lotion, baby oil, etc., required for children from brands such as Mamy Poko and Libero.
This program reaches parents in hospitals over the country as a token of congratulations on the birth of their newborn. Through this initiative, FirstCry has increased its audience base every month resulting in millions of customers.
4. Myntra
Myntra is a major Indian fashion e-commerce company founded by Mukesh Bansal, Ashutosh Lawania, and Vineet Saxena, headquartered in Bengaluru in 2007. The company was initiated to sell personalized gift products and focused on serving the B2B model during its initial years.
By 2012, Myntra had added 350 Indian and imported brands to its platform. The changeover from being a B2B brand to popping up as India’s biggest B2C fashion e-commerce marketplace is a matchless feat. Myntra witnessed quite a successful run before it was acquired by Flipkart in May 2014 for Rs 2000 crore, which indirectly makes it a Walmart subsidiary. In addition, the acquisition of competitor Jabong.com has helped it to grow further into the fashion space.
Myntra is also known for investing in technology such as the metaverse, live commerce, and artificial intelligence to keep it ahead of the eCommerce curve. It has also been working toward expanding its private clothing labels such as H.R.X. and Moda Rapido in the Middle East.
5. Snapdeal
Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in February 2010, Snapdeal is one platform that makes online shopping resonate with its impressive range of offers for its consumers. It’s an Indian e-commerce company based out of New Delhi quietly making its way to the top of India’s eCommerce websites. Since its launch, Snapdeal was able to attract funds from big investors – the Alibaba Group, Softbank, and Foxconn.
Snapdeal provides attractive deals on life’s necessities, such as electronics, clothing, kitchenware, fashion, toys, beauty, health, books, and more. It happens to be so fast-paced that a new product is added to the website every 30 seconds. It was established with the concept of making products available to customers at a discounted rate through offers and Snapdeal coupons. That is why Snapdeal is popular in almost 3,700 towns across India. Snapdeal follows the marketplace business model of permitting local vendors to post their products and sell them on the Snapdeal portal.
Snapdeal also helps users avail the timely notification facilities sent on their smartphones so that they don’t miss out on the fantastic deals and offers that the website brings. It could very well be called Snapdeal 2.0. The company was on the boundary of being acquired by Flipkart in 2017. However, it reversed the whole situation and survived the takeover by focusing on products with smaller ticket sizes.
Snapdeal’s vision is to entitle the customers to have a great shopping experience, a personalized, multilingual affiliate with cutting-edge technology, and value for money shopping which helped Snapdeal to climb the success ladder of the eCommerce ecosystem conveniently.
6. IndiaMart
IndiaMART is an illustrated B2B (Business To Business) and B2C (Business To Consumer) platform for Indian businesses started by Dinesh Agarwal and Brijesh Agrawal in 1996. The company’s main motto was ‘to make doing business easy; it facilitates the connection between customers and manufacturers, thus making business transactions easy. Manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters can list their products on IndiaMART’s website, and customers can contact them directly via smartphone or email. At present, it holds a 60% market share in India’s online B2B classifieds sector.
IndiaMart deals in anything you can imagine, building and construction, medical equipment, industrial machinery, apparel, electronics, chemical, dyes, and solvents, to name just a few.
IndiaMART is viable for Buyers in these ways:
– connecting with sellers at their convenience – anytime, anywhere
– A more comprehensive marketplace with a range of products and suppliers
– Payment Protection Program
IndiaMART is viable for Suppliers in these ways:
– Enhanced business visibility
– Increased credibility for your brand
– Lead Management System
– Instant Payment Solution: Pay with IndiaMART
Hence by catering to both buyers and suppliers, IndiaMart has been able to grow its consumer base rapidly, making it one of the top eCommerce portals in the country.
7. Shopclues
Shopclues is one of the most popular leading eCommerce companies in India, founded by Sanjay Sethi, Radhika Aggarwal, and Sandeep Aggarwal in the year 2011 giving fantastic deals and discounts on a wide range of products from apparel to kitchen appliances and electronics. It also offers multiple payment modes like Cash on delivery, etc., enabling users to share their favorite products with friends via WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter and get notifications for deals, offers, and coupons.
ShopClues is a forum to establish a connection between buyers and sellers in a managed environment. Shopclues has stood out from the crowd for empowering small and regional merchants, especially those from Tier 2 and 3 tier cities, giving them a safe online platform and transforming them into a national enterprise. It offers global and domestic brands and multiple online stores from brands or retailers from various categories.
They charge a 12% selling service fee on every successful transaction though it does not charge any setup fee to the sellers. The transaction process is so easy that people without any technical knowledge can make online sales through Shopclues. The Sunday flea market and Wednesday Super Saver Bazaar are two main traffic pullers for Shopclue.com.
8. Nykaa
Falguni Nayar founded Nykaa as a pure eCommerce platform that has now expanded to open 76 brick-and-mortar stores across India. It is an online store for cosmetics and beauty products, with over three lakhs products from 2000 national and international brands. In 2015, the company expanded from an online to an omnichannel model and began selling fashion products.
Nykaa also became India’s first eCommerce company for men’s grooming in 2018. It became the first Indian unicorn startup headed by a woman in 2020.
The brand facilitates an extensive collection of cosmetics, bath, and body, skincare, haircare, fragrances, luxury as well as wellness products for all genders, expert advice, and videos, coupled with understanding and preferences of the consumers.
Nykaa has its stores in three formats, namely:
- Nykaa Luxe – Nykaa’s Luxe stores feature more premium and luxury brands such as Dior, Estee Lauder, Huda Beauty, and M.A.C. Cosmetics, as well as a range of others.
- Nykaa On Trend – items being confined to trending and fashionable brands.
- The Nykaa kiosk – features a promotion for Nykaa’s new range of mascaras and a segment for its ‘Skin Secrets’ skincare line. Other featured products include its new natural haircare line, ‘ Wanderlust’ line of bath products, cosmetics, and personal care goods.
They follow an inventory model kind of business. In this model, the products are purchased through brands and distributors, after which they are directly sold to the consumers. It contrasts with a marketplace model where third-party sellers list the products. Thus Nykaa has a more secure hold on its items, helping them avoid any forged things which find their way on the platform.
9. Make My Trip
Nothing can beat the comfort of planning a trip from the comfort of your home, and more and more Indians are following this trend of online booking. You can check the prices and compare them to get the best deal. It started with a mission by Deep Kalra, Keyur Joshi, and Rajesh Magow in 2000 to “provide customers a one-stop-shop for all their travel needs”. It is one of India’s oldest and most well-known eCommerce travel and hospitality companies, offering many consumers excellent deals, reasonable airfares, special discounts, and a hassle-free online booking experience.
Make my trip provides online travel services, like – airline tickets, hotel reservations, domestic and international holiday packages, rail, and bus tickets. It also provides the facility of forex travel cards, foreign currency notes, and demand drafts for the convenience of the customers. The company has a 25% share in online hotel booking. The company operates in India, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, serving over 5 million happy customers. The company has 65 retail stores in 50 different cities in India, New York City, and Sydney.
After its launch in the year 2000, MakeMyTrip raised a total of 548 million USD in 5 funding rounds, and MakeMyTrip has acquired a total of 5 companies, including Ibibo, Hoteltravel.com, and Mykola.
10. Book My Show
BookMyShow, owned by Big Tree Entertainment Pvt Ltd, is India’s largest online entertainment ticketing platform. It offers many options to book tickets for movies, plays, monument tickets, sports, and live events through its website and mobile app. The app was launched in 2012. The company keeps upgrading and updating the app from time to time.
The founders of BookMyShow are the three musketeers – Ashish Hemrajani, Parikshit Dar, and Rajesh Balpande.
BookMyShow was initially named ‘Go For Ticketing’, and in 2002, the company was again named ‘India Ticketing’ and then finally ended up with the current name – BOOK MY SHOW referred to by a young engineer on a show. It is the most popular entertainment firm in India. It started in 1999 as a software reseller for movie theaters and converted into a platform catering to cloud-based ticket booking of all events.
Anybody who wishes to book tickets online for any events – BookMyShow is the only answer; making it one of the top eCommerce portals in the country.
Conclusion
The e-commerce market in India is developing at a breakneck speed. When deciding to sell products only, retailers and merchants are preferring to capture a larger audience that is only available online. E-commerce portals become the best for both large and small businesses to decrease the hassle while increasing revenue and reach. These top 10 eCommerce portals have a solid client base and a reputation for on-time delivery, resolving customer grievances, and also delivering high-quality goods. As a business owner, you should be choosing the best portal depending on your requirements.
As the world is growing competitive and dynamic. It is crucial to stay updated on the current skills and knowledge. Standing out from the crowd is important in today’s competitive job market.
Are you looking to get ahead in your career? If so, you should consider enrolling in an online digital course, which will give you the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in this competitive industry.
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