Top 10 E-commerce Categories in India

eCommerce market is propagating at an unexpectedly faster pace. The cause of the same has found to be the lifestyle changes. The trend of ecommerce is booming with the increase in number of smartphones. People are prone to be mobile/online due to digitization in each and every segment/industry.

The revenue from ecommerce is expected to jump from $30 billion in 2016 to $120 billion in 2020, growing at an annual rate of 51%, the highest in the world, according to a joint ASSOCHAM-Forrester study paper.

The contribution to the ecommerce revenue in future would be expected from the below top categories.

Fashion

One of the major categories searched on various ecommerce sites not solely for purchase of apparel but for researching the latest fashion trends too across nation.

With varieties of collection and brand availability on same platform, e-tail / online fashion market is generating huge income. Nitin Bawankule, Google India Director of ecommerce has made several startling revelations in an event organised in New Delhi such as by 2020, India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue, of which $35 billion will come from fashion ecommerce.

With the increase in revenue contribution for ecommerce, fashion and apparel segment are expanding via mobile apps too. There has been a tremendous rise in the use of retail store apps for apparel & clothing too.

Mobiles and Tablets

With the constant innovation phase getting along, there are number of brands serving smartphones & tablets and that too at an affordable prices. This has led to the increase in number of purchases.

According to IDC, Indian market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world, accounting for 27.5 million devices inclusive of Smartphone and tablets sold in the second quarter of 2016, up 17 % in comparison to the previous quarter.

Mobile and tablets are among the top 10 searched products on ecommerce sites thus is a huge potential category of ecommerce in recent times.

Consumer Electronics

Consumer Electronics is one of the top selling categories today and the country has increasingly seen a number of online exclusive consumer electronics models. This industry is continuous evolving with new developments. The restriction of only being available online doesn’t stop these from being hugely popular.

According to latest industry analysis, India is expected to become the fifth largest consumer durables market in the world by 2025. The consumer electronics market is expected to increase to US$ 400 billion by 2020. The production is expected to reach US$ 104 billion by 2016,

eMarketer says, the consumer electronics products category is the largest product category in e-commerce, with an estimate of 21.8% of total web sales. This is expected to go up to 22.1% of the total by 2018

Books

Books are said to be the best travel companion. With a limitation of variety of books availability across nearby streets aroused the need of selling and buying books online with serving n number of books irrespective of Locality, City or Nation.

Believe it or not, books are what kick-started the e-commerce revolution. Initially Flipkart and Amazon buyers were too scared to fork out thousands, and books with 40-50% discount were a big draw.

Nowadays many writers launch their books on ecommerce and various ecommerce giant take advantage with exciting offers. Such an activity was recently done by Flipkart. It took over its competitor, Amazon, by giving customers the chance to buy popular author Chetan Bhagat’s new novel, One Indian Girl, for a mere Re 1 on its site on the day of its launch, even though Amazon has exclusive rights over the book and was selling it for Rs. 116.

Out of numerous categories, books continue to be one of the most attractive categories in the e-commerce space.

Movie Tickets

Skip the serpentine queues, the black-ticket dealers and the bad seats, sites like BookMyShow now empower movie-goers in exchange for a small processing fee.

With new ticket booking portals cropping every day, even the official websites of Cineplex’s offer booking services today. A cine-goer can book tickets, meals and even seats at the touch of a button. It’s too sweet a deal for anybody to ignore.

Famous concerts and shows of various artists across cities can also be booked on these online portals. Thus, this is one of the emerging categories of ecommerce.

Baby Products

With the nuclear family trend emerging and double handed income with both mother and father workings led to the promising category of Baby products. As the parents don’t have time to go out for shopping after their busy schedules for their babies, they shop online.

There are n number of sites serving this category apart from giants like Amazon, Snapdeal or Flipkart such as Baby Oye, First cry, Mom n Me, etc.

According to business standard reports, the share of baby care products online in 2014 was $100 million and is expected to grow to $ 500 million by 2017.

Groceries

From the local grocery shops to online grocery marts, the segment is expanding at a faster and remarkable pace. India’s online grocery market is estimated to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 62% between 2016-2022. The overall grocery market in the country is already worth over US$ 360 billion (Rs 21, 60,000 crore) making India is the sixth largest grocery market in the world and is expected to touch US$ 1 trillion by 2020.

The brands like BigBasket, ZopNow, Local Banya, Grofers etc are touching skies with their hyper local model.

Food Takeaway/Delivery

With increase in number of restaurant across cities, variety of food options are available. The taste craving and the concept of eating out twice a week has bought people online to stay updated about the recent restaurant opening. It is not possible to visit every restaurant after the hectic schedule therefore restaurants came to offer convenience by takeaway/ delivery option. That’s the reason restaurant businesses are developing food order & delivery apps as well as websites and getting huge benefits. Apart from the restaurants own sites and app, the portals such as Food Panda and Box 8 are also competing equally.

Zomato’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal provided some insights into how Zomato, and the food delivery market in India in general is earning. He stated that India’s Monthly Active Users are 8.5 million. 2.5% of them have started placing orders online. Zomato drive about 75% of the traffic to maximum restaurants. For some large restaurant chains, Zomato drives 60% of their delivery business.

Home Furnishings

Home furnishing market in India is projected to cross Rs. 40,000 crore by 2020, on account of rising demand for designed and innovative furniture.

Supporting figure shows the Y-o-Y growth of home furnishing market in India which is expected to continue through 2020.

Jewelry

The dilemma faced by most of the Indian crowd of buying Jewellery online or not was backing this category from going online. With the comfy usage of smartphones among Indian women and thanks to their habit of researching about products online, this section has taken its step to go online. Due to habitual of browsing stuff, they have started browsing jewelleries too and hence the online selling for this category is rising year by year and will lead to immense height in coming years.

“Reports say In India for every 5 minutes; an e-commerce store sells a piece of jewellery! “

Online jewellery market in India is expected to hit USD 3.6 billion in the next three years, i.e. roughly 20 per cent of the global market size estimated at USD 18 billion, mainly on the back of e-commerce boom.

Be it fashion, baby care, jewellery or restaurants, their contribution to the ecommerce market in India will grow with time and sooner or later every category would be present online. The above listed 10 categories are the most promising ones and will continue contributing the ecommerce market in India.