Shopclues goes to villages in search of new shoppers
NEW DELHI: They weren’ t Shopclues’ regular orders.
One was from a small village, Raliang, in Meghalaya’s Jowai district. The other was from Gangaram village in the Kamam district of Andhra Pradesh. Both orders were for Samsung LED TVs, and since the villages had frequent power cuts and no broadband connections, the orders were placed through smartphones.
In both cases local- delivery companies were hired – in Raliang the delivery was done on a bicycle, and in Gangaram it was done on a bullock cart.
“We have tied up with regional and district-level operators — then there is one more distributor who does the last-mile delivery,” said Vishal Sharma, vice-president, operations, Shopclues.
In the past couple of years, almost close to 60-70% of orders delivered by e-commerce companies have been in smaller towns and cities, but villages are adding a new dimension to online shopping. The demand from small towns and rural India can no longer be ignored as growing smartphone penetration and aspiration levels lead to a surge in online buying. At the end of 2015, mobile Internet users in rural India stood at around 90 million.
For e- tailers, rural India provides a huge untapped market for FMCG and electronics goods. According to a report by AC Nielsen, the FMCG sector in rural and semi-urban India is expected to cross $20 billion by 2018 and reach $100 billion by 2025.
Shopclues is piggybacking on this rural demand. The e-tailer currently covers 29,000 pin codes, almost 8,000 of which are in very small towns and villages, not serviced by other e-commerce giants. Mostly the demand is for unstructured categories such as plastics containers and buckets, unbranded apparel, cheaper uten- sils, and low-ticket electronics.
In the south, it has partnered with mVikarsha, which acts as an agent. It has a network of 10,000 Internet- enabled desktops in various locations, mostly in rural areas, where villagers can place their orders, pay for the items, and collect them on arrival.
But Shopclues is up for some tough competition from the world’s biggest e-tailer. Amazon has tied up with India Post to deliver to 1,54,882 post offices, 90% of which are in rural areas. “We have tied up with regional delivery guys and courier partners, and are working with NGOs to create rural distribution centres,” said Samir Kumar, vice-president, Amazon India.
India Post deploys its vast network of about 4,60,000 employees to take goods to customers in remote areas. Amazon has also partnered Vakrangee Kendra, which provides banking services in villages. A team of 35,000 correspondents offer services, including insurance, e-commerce and e-governance. Even Flipkart isn’t far away. Last year it piloted a project to deliver Motorola phones in rural India.