Online shopping in India set to boom: study

E-commerce in India is set to jump 95 percent from 11.8 billion Rupees (256 million U.S. dollars) to 23 billion Rupees (500 million U.S. dollars) in 2006-07 on a whopping 2.18 billion Rupees (47 million U.S. dollars) advertisement-spend, a new survey says.

This is largely because India's current 38.5 million Internet users will shoot up to 100 million by 2007-08, says the study by the Mumbai-based Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

"Referrals by online shoppers work as they come from a trusted source. The consumer is more credible and trusted than the advertiser or marketer," says the survey, which covered 1,240 online shoppers.

However, the report does not comment on the problems that such shoppers in India face due to the lack of a system allowing those who do not own credit cards to make online payments speedily and cheaply.

The survey found that 55 percent of visitors to e-commerce sites have adopted it as a shopping medium. Forty-six percent of the shoppers were from the 26-35 age group, 25 percent in the 18- 25 bracket and 18 percent in the 35-46 category.

There is also a gender bias in cyberspace, the survey found, as 85 percent of the shoppers are male, according to Indo-Asian News Service Monday.

Source: Xinhua