Daily Times

NEW DELHI: “I have a very demanding job and I like to stay indoors over the weekend to spend time with my children. Shopping for grocery online gives me the luxury to make choices at my own pace and avoid crowd for a day,” said Swasti Singh, an IT professional based in India’s Delhi.

Singh is among many of India’s middle class that benefit from the booming e-commerce industry in the country. With technology increasingly making life easier, the way people are going shopping in India these days has also been transformed. From clothes to electronics to books and CDs, everything is being shopped online and within the comfort of the living room. The remarkable trend has proved to be a boon mainly for the country’s new middle class, mostly working couples, who rarely get time to spend hours in the market especially on the weekends.

Go over any popular e-commerce portal and it will be difficult to miss dynamic marketing strategies that companies are rolling out to target working couples and young families for whom time is of essence. In the current lifestyle, double income households have become a reality. More women are stepping out of their homes to take leading job profiles at work. As per the census in 2011, 45 percent of households across India are double income households, a rise of almost 10 percent in one decade.

With digital consumers in India standing at nearly 100 million, offering home shopping for working couples has been a key market segment of the industry. “It has become a part of lifestyle for this target group. Working couples want to save both time and money in unexpected ways. Besides, they are more informed these days and like to do a comparison before investing in anything. In all these ways, online shopping has been a very convenient experience for this group,” said M. Dalal, founder of an online grocery portal. It is also a dream come true for shoppers as there is an abundance of information about products, price transparency and a parade of special deals almost every week.

For men as well, online shopping has proved to be a profitable venture, both monetarily and emotionally. “I started shopping online as a conscious decision to spend time with my family. When my children want their stationary, books or toys, I sit with them and we surf online. Buying clothes and grocery online has also meant comfort,” said Akash Sharma, a financial analyst based in Delhi. “We check and compare prices and actually end up saving money at the end of the month. When my life becomes easier by avoiding traffic, navigating supermarkets and standing in queues, why would I not use it to my fullest?” he quipped. It is not just a definite age group that e-commerce portals target for online shopping. For the elderly people in the working class, online shopping has made the “C” of convenience even bigger and become a lifeline of sorts.

“I am a university teacher while my wife stays at home after a knee replacement surgery a year back. It was very difficult to manage home and work commitments. That is when my son based in Singapore suggested online shopping and now, from grocery to medicines, we get everything delivered at home. Life has become simple and I see it as quite an essential for people like me,” said Ramesh Nagar, an avid online shopper. Such a change is seen in retailing every half a century. It was the growth of big cities that created modern department stores. Now, digital information and choices are guiding 50 percent of store sales.

Innovations have flooded the market and marketing efficiency has increased through online advertising and social networking. Rising mobile internet penetration and increasing incomes further fanned the e-commerce market. Take the case of online grocery shopping, which has literally moved from the local general stores to the supermarket and now to laptops or smartphones. Online grocery portals like bigbasket, localbanya and grofers have registered increased profit in the last few years.

With the growing popularity, online portals are using innovative ways to attract consumers and offering a wide range of products. For instance, there are now portals that specialize in sweets, cakes or sweetened goods’ delivery. There are other local portals which are building on their unique offers like fresh meats and fish.

Bigger players like amazon.com have also introduced gourmet, organic and speciality products for the emerging segments like working couples and nuclear families. These are the products that are not easily available in the local stores and with people now experimenting with their gastronomical choices, these introductions could not have come at a better time. There are also portals now that are offering fresh food at the doorstep, a segment becoming very popular among working couples particularly in cities like Bengaluru in the south and Pune in the west.

Mobile and electronic companies are also introducing their products online first. It is thus no longer dictated what one shops and eats. From make-ups, phones, recharges and now, furniture, convenience has been the biggest factor in driving new-age couples to online shopping. While this has led to fierce competition among e-tailers, consumers are surely emerging as the winners in the end.