Challenge now for Indian e-commerce is to widen spending base:Mukesh Bansal

Curefit and Myntra founder adds that Tata is one of the most well-known brands with several consumer brands, and is about bringing these assets together

The next big challenge that the Indian ecommerce players need to unlock is to increase the number of spending households to 40-50 million in the coming years.

“Despite the size of the internet, the spending power unfortunately is still concentrated among top 10 million or so households, which means almost 80 per cent of GMV product and services comes from that section. The next big challenge for the Indian ecommerce players is to unlock this and increase the base of spending households from 10 million to 40-50 million,” said Mukesh Bansal, founder of Curefit and Myntra and president of Tata Digital. Bansal was in a conversation with Rajan Anandan, managing director of Sequoia at the 30th Nasscom Technology and Leadership Forum 2022.

Bansal also added that one has to unlock the digital potential which will then take the opportunity of digital commerce much higher. “Today online product and services digital commerce is a $75 billion size which has the potential to be $500 billion in the next 5-6 years,” he added.

When asked what it will take to unlock this potential, Bansal said that the average selling price of brands has to come down. Suppliers across products, brands will have to rethink price points that suit this consumer and it is in the range of Rs 200-300. He also said that some of the new players like Meesho have been able to get this right and hence have seen a huge surge from consumer spending.

Coming to his latest role at Tata Digital, when asked what is the grand plan, Bansal stated that while everyone is focused on SuperApp, the genesis of Tata Digital is that Tata already has phenomenal consumer presence. “If there is one brand that people trust then it is Tata, and other than brands like Zara, Titan, Westside, Croma Taj Hotels etc, now three airlines…we have a lot of these assets. The group has a brand relationship, deep category expertise across much broader categories and that’s what gives us the confidence to play the Tata Digital. Hence its about how we bring these assets together and stitch a unified value proposition,” added Bansal.

Bansal joined Tata Digital after the company invested around $75 million in Curefit. He was later elevated to the role of President.

Tata group that is in the midst of launching its digital play through Tata Neu has been acquiring new age firms as it prepares to battle players like Amazon, Flipkart, Reliance and several other vertical category players. When asked how founders work with large conglomerates, since Tata Digital acquired 1MG, Curefit and others.

Bansal added that the group in general has been quite innovative, especially over the last 5-6 years. “We have enough team members from the Tata Group who understand scale and understand building profitable business and it is an independent setup. The way our place is set up, our culture is not that different from what you find in any large scale digital startup,” said Bansal.

More importantly, he said, there is a lot of autonomy, independence, freedom to experiment and fail, “and that way I feel right at home," he added.