About 150 million people in India or around 75 million households are ready for ecommerce in India today. However, less than 10 million are engaged in active ecommerce today. The study adopted criteria of Income, Education and Occupation to arrive at the number of household capable of ecommerce today.
The key reasons for this mismatch between potential and actual ecommerce consumers, as the figure (below) represents and identified by the study, are Lack of Trust, Fulfillment issues, Shopping Experience.
The ‘Core’ potential of for consumer e-commerce is likely to increase to around 230 million households or 460 million individuals by 2024-2025. As below figure points out, the ‘Low SEC’ is set to increase at lower rate with about around 174 million individuals capable of e-commerce.
The potential of consumer e-commerce in India by 2024-2025 is likely to touch around 594.8 million individuals or 297.4 million households. By 2024-2025, as figure 3 shows, 58 million rural households will be part of the ‘Core’ potential e-commerce consumers. The study also reveals that ‘Poor SEC’ will decrease substantially.
According to Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the current size of e-commerce market in India is about US$ 10bn. The picture below refers to estimates of the size of consumer e-commerce market of India in 2024-25 based on different levels of adoption and two scenarios of growth of businesses and product categories. Under Scenario 1, the size of e-commerce in India by 2024-2025 can reach between US$ 70 billion – US$ 150 billion and under Scenario 2, the potential is between US$ 125 billion – US$ 260 billion.
[Editorial notes: Most of such market research are driven by current market sentiments, for e.g. funding frenzy in Indian ecommerce space. So do take them with a pinch of salt.]
