Walmart likely to advance its pan-Indian e-commerce plans

Reliance and Future Group also set to go online by Diwali

If the online plans of some of the biggest retailers are anything to go by, this year's Diwali is going to be a bright one for India's e-commerce market. The world's largest retail chain Walmart, which began its two-city e-commerce pilot earlier this month, for instance, plans to roll out pan-Indian operations of its wholesale online venture around October.

Besides, leading Indian retailer Future Group is planning to take the e-commerce plunge - its second attempt - around the same time. Other key retailers like Reliance Retail and Aditya Birla group are also expected to launch their ambitious e-retail services close to the festival time of Dussehra and Diwali.

According to its original road map, Walmart wanted to roll out e-commerce services in all cities where it has brick-and-mortar presence sometime in 2015. But the American giant has advanced its plan; it is likely to offer e-commerce in the 19 Indian cities across which it has 20 stores (Bhopal has two stores) by October.

E-TAIL BANDWAGON

• Direct competition to leading e-commerce players like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon
• Reliance to debut with perishable commodities like vegetables, meat in Mumbai
• Future to offer perishable commodities in select cities
• E-commerce share in overall retail market expected to grow from 0.4% to 3% by 2020
• The total market size likely to expand to $32 billion by 2020

"Our pilot project for the cash-and-carry, or wholesale, e-commerce initiative in the two markets (Hyderabad and Lucknow) has received a very encouraging response from members. We hope to extend this virtual shopping opportunity to our members across stores over the next few months," said a Walmart spokesperson in response to an emailed query from Business Standard. He, however, refused to mention the month for launch of pan-Indian operations. With about 15,000 unique registered users in each store, Walmart's focus in the e-commerce pilot was to tap a new customer base.

Walmart globally competes with online major Amazon in e-commerce. In India, foreign investment is not permitted in e-commerce - except in wholesale or the marketplace format.

Marketplace is about hosting retailers on a site, and companies like Amazon, eBay, Flipkart and Snapdeal follow this model.

Kishore Biyani-controlled Future Group, which directly competes with Reliance, will launch e-commerce in a phased manner beginning October. "By the year-end, the entire Big Bazaar store will be online across India," Biyani had earlier told Business Standard. Reliance will begin its e-commerce pilot in Mumbai, starting with the grocery segment.

With the brick-and-mortar giants' entry in e-commerce, a space earlier dominated by the likes of Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal is set to see change in the dynamics of competition.

Though e-tailing is still a small contributor to the overall retail - accounting for only 0.4 per cent - it is expected to grow significantly.

Compared with the current size of about $3 billion in 2014, the e-tailing market is expected to grow to over $30 billion by 2020.