India's instant connect
The last quarter of the e-commerce industry debunks the theory that behaviour change is a gradual process. Given the right ecosystem, the youth do not shy away from change
I found a pattern in the pink papers in the past few months: Every second day, the front pages have space reserved for news covering the adventures of the Indian e-commerce industry. On some days, it is about how some players in the industry are funded by prominent names, valuing these companies in billions; on other days it is about how established retailers and trade bodies are protesting and lobbying to put brakes on the flight of this industry. It is in the past three months that we see an increased activity in this space; the biggies have almost doubled their valuation and sales in this period. Almost everything from grocery to cars and houses are now sold online.
Enough has been said about the business aspects and prospects in this space; it is the social aspect of this that interests me the most. It was astounding how Indians have comfortably made the transition from physical to virtual shopping. It happened almost overnight, starting from Diwali this year. On any major sale day, e-commerce websites receive more than a billion hits and it takes less than 15 minutes, on an average, for 'best deals' to get wiped off. The mobile apps of the major e-commerce players have achieved millions of downloads and are being actively used with about 50 per cent of visits on these websites being routed through mobile phones.
When the world took a decade, Indians got online in a matter of a quarter, and we can boast of parallels like the Cyber Mondays. The numbers speak for themselves, but this phenomena is much beyond these numbers: It is about behavioural change and the speed of this change that is unmatched by history.
The last quarter of the e-commerce industry is a testimony to the fact that given the right ecosystem, behaviour change is possible in no time. This debunks the belief that behaviour change is a gradual process and can not be achieved instantly. There are theories written on technology adoption and how it takes a long time for people to adapt to technologies as we have to move from innovators and early adopters, who are few in number, eventually to the vast majority. But Indians' response to online shopping seems to have bucked the trend.
The speed with which we are changing and adopting new things is unprecedented. Based on approximate estimations, it took more than 500 years to popularise the wheel, more than a 100 years to adapt the steam engine, two decades for masses to use mobile phone, about five years for smartphones. But it took just three months for e-commerce to become exponentially popular in India. There is a deep insight to learn here - the youngsters are open to change, tech savvy and given the right ecosystem (like in this case smartphone usage, internet connectivity, multi-lingual interface etc.), they do not shy from adopting the new. India, with one of the youngest population globally, is set to see more of this and bigger change waves. The government, not-for-profit organisations, companies, advertisers should all take a note: Just give them the right environment and see they will start the ball rolling.
Enough has been said about the business aspects and prospects in this space; it is the social aspect of this that interests me the most. It was astounding how Indians have comfortably made the transition from physical to virtual shopping. It happened almost overnight, starting from Diwali this year. On any major sale day, e-commerce websites receive more than a billion hits and it takes less than 15 minutes, on an average, for 'best deals' to get wiped off. The mobile apps of the major e-commerce players have achieved millions of downloads and are being actively used with about 50 per cent of visits on these websites being routed through mobile phones.
When the world took a decade, Indians got online in a matter of a quarter, and we can boast of parallels like the Cyber Mondays. The numbers speak for themselves, but this phenomena is much beyond these numbers: It is about behavioural change and the speed of this change that is unmatched by history.
The last quarter of the e-commerce industry is a testimony to the fact that given the right ecosystem, behaviour change is possible in no time. This debunks the belief that behaviour change is a gradual process and can not be achieved instantly. There are theories written on technology adoption and how it takes a long time for people to adapt to technologies as we have to move from innovators and early adopters, who are few in number, eventually to the vast majority. But Indians' response to online shopping seems to have bucked the trend.
The speed with which we are changing and adopting new things is unprecedented. Based on approximate estimations, it took more than 500 years to popularise the wheel, more than a 100 years to adapt the steam engine, two decades for masses to use mobile phone, about five years for smartphones. But it took just three months for e-commerce to become exponentially popular in India. There is a deep insight to learn here - the youngsters are open to change, tech savvy and given the right ecosystem (like in this case smartphone usage, internet connectivity, multi-lingual interface etc.), they do not shy from adopting the new. India, with one of the youngest population globally, is set to see more of this and bigger change waves. The government, not-for-profit organisations, companies, advertisers should all take a note: Just give them the right environment and see they will start the ball rolling.
The author is chief creative officer, Sapient Nitro, India