There was a time in the last year that seemed to be the death knell for e-commerce in India. The sentiment had turned negative and small entrepreneurs were holding off on their e-commerce investments. Needless to say, interest in getting e-commerce websites designed was also low.
To see how bad things had got to, see this article
Updated: India's E-commerce Deadpool Till June 2013
However in the last two months sentiment has bounced back. The entrepreneurs are back with all their fantastic, weird and exciting ideas and plans. The energy is back. Yeah baby!!
Its amazing how a few weeks can make a difference to an entire industry. The match that lit the fire was definitely Flipkart which seems to be defying gravity with its investment prowess and burgeoning sales. Millions of dollars in investments splashed on the front page of the local newspapers has awakened the hunger among Indian entrepreneurs to be the next e-commerce darling.
Here are two stories which got a lot of play in the media (link courtesy Medianama)
Flipkart Raises $160M From Dragoneer Investment, Morgan Stanley Investment & Others
Delhivery Raises Around $5M From NVP;
Both Flipkart and Delhivery are critical players in India's e-commerce game and critical role models for all e-commerce players.
Another story that caught my eye was this one.
It's a dead end for Silk Road kingpin Ross Ulbricht
Here is an excerpt
"Ross William Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, ran the Silk Road website - a one-stop shop for drugs, porn and dodgy documents for nearly three years, generating £1.2 billion in sales until he was arrested this week in a San Francisco library, according to papers filed in New York. "
1.2 Billion in sales! Holy cow! E-commerce at its best and at its worst!!
So things are again looking up in the e-commerce business in India and the fire is back, though it had never been extinguished, just damped down a bit.
So looking forward to more good news!
Cheers,
Ron
He has been in the web development business for the almost two decades.He is a keen student of marketing and business development and writes regularly on web strategy and other related topics which is read and followed by many every month.
