10 points to sustain and boost ecommerce/mcommerce business in India?

1. Fair & honest business: There should not be any hidden cost added after product is selected,

order is placed just before processing the order. Few portals add shipping charges at the last

step of order processing. Be fair and honest in business and demonstrate the same.

2. Trustworthiness : Build trust with the consumers. Avoid mentioning FREE shipping while listing

the product or on the product description page when actually Portal adds up shipping cost at

the last step of order processing since dispatch destination is not of the local city.

3. Be owner : Portal owns the responsibility of warranty/guarantee of the product on behalf of the

merchant. Portal administrator cannot ask user to run around to find the merchant for the

replacement of the product. User has paid money to Portal and not to the merchant.

4. Committed merchants: As an administrator of portals its your responsibilities to get the

commitments honored by the merchants. Its after all reputation of your portal.

5. Intelligent search

a. Product as sold by the merchants from the city of dispatch to be displayed (as a one of

the filters) so that shipping cost is not applicable or minimum

b. Avoid displaying products out of stock unless asked

c. Let consumer select the appropriate variables and click on submit so that finer granular

result is displayed

d. Search display - ascending or descending listing based on price as an option must be

available for every search result. Also profile of user related to pricing to be captured

based on history and display by default.

6. About product and description

a. Accurate specification of the product – make sure to add complete, detailed and

accurate specification of the product. Consumer should have quick and clear idea what

is being purchased

b. Accurate variables of the products and available in search criteria. Also those are to be

included in description as well as meta-tag so as to display in the listing of search result

c. Include as many images and display of their larger sizes

d. Alert about quantity: Portals might want to display an alert if more than one quantity

gets added in cart or such order is being placed

7. About Money

a. Most economical: Always try to be economical or at least of the same cost of the

product. User will always transact where its economical. Its good to have a feature

requesting consumers to report if they have observed cheaper product.

b. Promotion code: It would be good practice to let consumers know in advance which

promotion code to be used while placing the order. Good to build as a feature while

using the portal.

c. Be quick while processing the refund

8. Be innovative : couple of innovative ideas to make consumers life eazy in every step like

searching, identifying the right or closest product, further processes till product is actually

received would be very helpful. Wondering if consumer can place order while watching video,

swapping a device against an article within video on any of the small-medium-big screens using

beacon, QR code and streaming technology?

9. Increase internet penetration and computer usage:

a. Conduct computer awareness training so that more % population will learn to transact

b. Plan for logistic for interior of India (Taluka and villages)

10. Customers : Most important element of any eco-system! Understanding profiling of customers

by various technologies soft and hard means is critical to display advertisement of the products

of interest and liking. Keep the temptation high! Serve those efficiently, connect with those

efficiently, retain those efficiently! It would be good to build analytics of customer profile and

purchase history.