e-shopping to grow by 180 pc this festival: Assocham

The wide spread violence and terror attacks are turning out to be blessing in disguise atleast for one section of retailers. While small retailers (footpath sellers), mainly dealing in clothes and varied household items are liekly to be the worst hit, those retailers who have adopted the e-commerce way of reaching out to their customers are likely to be the ones who will have some reason to smile this festive season. This was revealed by a study carried out by ASSOCHAM, which claims that e-shopping during the forthcoming season is likely to go up by 180 per cent in major cities like Delhi and other metros.The findings also revealed that during the coming Dussera and Diwali, the white goods and bullion trade was unlikely to be as impressive as it was last year because little or few discounts are being offered by consumer durables manufactures to attract customers because of their higher input cost . Higher inflation and loss of property and lives as result of terror activities at various places have completely dampened purchasing enthusiasm of common investors towards gold and silver. Releasing these findings of Assocham, its secretary general, DS Rawat said that through e-shopping in the month of Oct-Nov 2007, shopkeepers in major hubs of economic activities effected sales of number of articles to an extent of Rs 55 billion. Since, these on-line transactions take place through recognised and established banking mechanisms there is little room for fudging and these figures are therefore realistic, asserted Rawat. Assocham expects this figure to go up between 175-180 per cent to touch levels of over 150 billion.Rawat, however, added that the consumer durables and white goods sector is unlikely to do better because this sector has already fallen under recession because of extremely higher input costs forcing the already struggling manufacturers not to offer any of the customary discounts.Assocham findings further add that most of e-shoppers have shown satisfaction with e-shopping as the chamber has received feedback from various organised retailers in this regard. This experience will only be repeated which will amount to a hike in numbers of e-shoppers. E- shopping is getting much more attractive with assured supplies of an ever increasing range of products coupled with high quality and correct quantity, as most of these systems are automated leaving little room for errors. The comfort of shopping while sitting at home, 24x7 access, product and price comparison charts, home delivery and secure payment gateways are some of the reasons making more and more shoppers catch on to this trend in India.