印度在線零售大競賽
接下來的15年，印度將比其他任何國家迎來更多的在線購物人群。
電子商務行業為了他們的客戶已經展開瘋狂的爭奪。
2016年3月5日
孟買郊區，早晨，寧靜、天氣溫和。
斑駁的陽光灑在塵土飛揚的街道，一只流浪狗在垃圾堆中翻找食物，一些小商鋪的百葉窗已經打開。
一名男子推著一臺裝滿橘子的車，堆得像金字塔的形狀。
一名投遞男孩，名叫阿尼爾，正在飛馳在他的路線上，摩托車是從他叔叔那借來的，他的投遞背包和他一樣大。
這男孩已經工作好幾個小時了，規劃路線，小心翼翼的將貨物塞滿他的背包，得確保到目的地之后可以在包的頂部拿出來。
阿尼爾走進一棟公寓樓，擠壓背包以擠進狹窄的電梯，將一件襯衫送給一個21歲的出租車司機。
在臨近的塔樓立他將一個智能手機的訂單交給一位16歲的人，他使用幾個應用程序為他的家庭成員購物。
不遠處，一位78歲的老奶奶是特別高興的客戶——在她孫子的幫助下，她買了一些別的地方找不到的陶土罐，還有一些廉價的高品質莎麗（南亞婦女服飾）。對阿尼爾來說，這是一項艱苦的工作。但是他確信印度的電子商務已無處不在、處于上升期，他希望能跟著趨勢一起飛。
接下來的15年，印度將比其他任何國家迎來更多的在線購物人群。
去年電商零售已經達到160億美元；2020年，根據摩根士丹利的報告，在線零售市場可能增長7倍以上。
印度的這個銷售預期增長比其它任何市場都要快。
這吸引了大量的電子商務公司，其影響可能遠遠不止是替代線下零售投資而已。
印度的小企業很少有機會獲得貸款;其消費者的大部分沒有信用卡，也不需要信貸。電子商務公司是投資物流、幫助商戶借貸和為消費者提供新的支付工具。AmitAgarwal，負責運營 印度亞馬遜，寄希望于"我們實際上可能變成一種改變印度的催化劑:印度的購買方式、印度的銷售方式，甚至改變生活方式。"
王冠上的寶石
亞馬遜希望將印度打造為僅次于美國的第二大市場。
盡管此時，僅有12%的市場占有率，它遠落后于本地成長起來的企業，Flipkart (45%) ，Snapdeal (26%)。
以上三家企業，以及一些較小的競爭對手，支出速度驚人。
隨著全球市場萎靡和硅谷獨角獸的絆倒，國際資金枯竭的情況使之成為可能。
懷疑公司目前計劃的可持續性被強調，在2 月26 日，一家摩根士丹利(morganstanley) 的共同基金，特別為此風險——將其在flipkart 公司股權的價值，減記27%。
對大量投遞員來說，改變印度的語氣可能是一種欺騙，而它不是因為好逸惡勞。
印度的遠見者通過回憶中國的案例保持斗志。
從2010年到2014年，中國的電子商務增長了近600%，使這個國家今天成為世界上最大的電子商務市場。
這在很大程度上得益于土著公司的成長：強大的亞馬遜只能咬在本土巨頭阿里巴巴和JD.com;eBay 都已經離開了舞臺。
而在這個過程中，中國頂尖的電子商務公司提供服務的范圍大得驚人。
阿里巴巴，成立由馬云于1999 年，如今市值美元1840億，提供了最好的例證。
為了平息公眾對網上購物的憂慮，阿里巴巴創建了支付寶，代管持有購物者的付款，直到他收到他的訂單。
該工具已經演變成金融服務公司，螞蟻金融，去年服務超過400 萬支付寶賬戶，超過2 億美元貸款給小企業和企業家。
為中國消費者提供外國商品進入該公司的服務包括但不限于：市場營銷、運輸和海關的幫助。
阿里巴巴現在為偏遠的地區建設服務中心，在那里購物者可以預定，收貨和出售貨物，以及支付他們的賬單。
這是一個長遠步驟，表明它的企圖不僅在于從中國人的消費增長中受益，還要塑造和加速這一進程。
從已經成功的案例中可以看出，電子商務企業越早介入一個國家的發展，它能發揮的作用可能就越寬。
對電子商務來說，印度在許多方面是比中國更嚴格市場。
它的人口更貧窮，它的基礎設施更糟。但其前景看起來也引人注目。
人均收入，2014 年是$1,570，到2025年可能達到兩倍。
三分之二的印度人不到35歲，其中通過手機訪問互聯網的人數非常龐大。
在2014 年12 月智能手機已經占印度手機的五分之一，根據高盛的數據。僅僅是六個月后，就達到了四分之一(見圖表1)。
摩根士丹利預計互聯網滲透率從2015年的32%上升到2020年的59%。到了2030年，印度預計將成為一億人規模的數碼市場。
增長到接近中國規模，第二大市場前景吸引了那些獲得首輪融資的企業。
鮑勃 ·范戴克，Naspers首席執行官，一家南非公司，支持JD.com和騰訊（中國最大的社交媒體公司），說他尋找人口眾多、智能手機的使用剛興起，并且缺乏零售連鎖店的地區投資。印度，在商場、超市和品牌的連鎖店，或分析師所稱的"有組織的零售"，只是10%左右完全符合條件。
中間商
Naspers在Flipkart 公司擁有17%的股份;其他JD.com投資者亦支持本公司，包括紐約的老虎基金，一個俄羅斯的基金－DST全球。
日本的軟銀，阿里巴巴的大投資者，自2013 年開始支持Snapdeal，阿里巴巴本身也在去年8 月跟投。
同時阿里巴巴的螞蟻金融在印度的Paytm，擁有20%的股份，并開始作為一個移動錢包公司與Snapdeal和flipkart 公司同在一個在線的市場競爭。
這三家公司市值加起來的幾乎達到250億美元。
與那些試圖復制其在中國成功的投資者，亞馬遜正在尋求彌補了它的失敗。
為了減少去年到阿里巴巴的天貓網站上開店的恥辱，杰夫貝佐斯確定，這一次，積累了更多經驗，而且是在更加開放的市場，局面將會不同。
Flipkart 公司成立于2007 年，當時亞馬遜是它的榜樣。
該公司開始為一家書店;兩個工程師開啟了它，薩爾薩欽和薩爾賓尼(不相關)，曾經在亞馬遜工作。
貝佐斯先生，雖然，他的意見是如果任何人如果想成為印度亞馬遜，它應該是亞馬遜。
在2014 年，flipkart 公司宣布獲得10億美元的投資后不久,貝佐斯先生穿上在班加羅爾的印度服飾，搭乘彩虹色卡車，交給Agarwal先生一張$20億的支票。
這家公司2015年營業收入超過1000億美元，因此股東們大約有更多的利潤可以如此慷慨援助。
無論Flipkart 公司、亞馬遜，或任何其他大的競爭對手都是跟隨亞馬遜在西方成功的零售戰略。
印度法律規定外資電子商務公司不得擁有庫存，這種情況下作為一個簡單的零售商就不可能了。
因此印度頂尖的電子商務公司看起來更像阿里巴巴模式。
Flipkart 公司已經成為一個集市：賣家提供一切東西，從移動電話到洗衣機到手袋。Snapdeal、亞馬遜和Paytm也是。
公司狂熱地打價格戰，打折正在吞噬他們自己的利潤。長遠來看，他們必須通過精細化服務，提高自己在賣家和消費者中的識別度，并向更多的印度人提供更好、更廣泛的產品。
實現這一目標的第一步是增加平臺公司上的賣家— —賣家，畢竟，他們將支付傭金和航運費用。
所以公司提供一系列的服務來吸引企業到他們的網站。
Flipkart 公司的方案包括：教賣家如何管理銷售高峰，通過排燈節（印度節日）掌握時尚品牌的趨勢和生產。
在2 月亞馬遜發布了一個在輪子上的旅行工作室，提供培訓、攝影和其他服務，以幫助商戶走到線上。
但他們提供的最重要幫助是放寬信貸。
小企業，僅能給的少量的財務報表和有限的信用歷史，長久以來從印度的銀行獲得貸款的非常困難。
他們常常依靠從鄰居或家人獲得昂貴的貸款。
電子商務公司有強烈的動機，使他們更好地提供信貸 — —因為他們有權訪問在線銷售數據，他們處于有利的地位，可用以幫助貸款人判斷信用風險。
以SumitAgarwal為例(和亞馬遜的加瓦沒有關系)，一個年輕的企業家，在2011 年開始在線制鞋企業。
在他新德里的倉庫里，工人在鞋盒堆積的高塔中間打包、掃描。
早期的不確定性;他的家人開始時反對開公司，他說，是”見鬼！這家伙在做什么?” ? 如今在首都，這種企業家尋求資本借以生長，要容易多了。
當Agarwal先生登錄到他在亞馬遜印度上的賣方帳戶，他的屏幕上列出了能提供的短期貸款，其費率根據他的交易數據計算得出。
其他電子商務公司有類似的計劃。在一月Snapdeal宣布印度國家銀行會立即批準高達37,000 美元貸款，如果它認可Snapdeal對借款人提供的數據。
一旦一個網站擁有賣家，第二個挑戰是幫助消費者購買他們的商品。
阿尼爾需要在他的路線上攜帶一個笨重的信用卡讀卡器，但大多數人付現金。
電子商務網站想要改變這一現狀。Paytm允許客戶將錢添加到數字錢包，然后被用于在線購物、手機充值、借錢給一個朋友，支付一份帳單或使用類似超級出租車的服務。它有1.2億數字錢包賬戶,近六倍于印度的信用卡數量。
Snapdeal4月份買了它自己的移動支付公司。今年 2 月，亞馬遜購買在線支付服務。
微妙的平衡
如果消費者購買產品，接下來的任務就是投遞它。交付本身不是什么新鮮事。
印度人很久以前就有當地的送貨員 Kirana 收到一罐黃油— —主宰印度零售的街頭小店。
但能夠提供更大的規模是一項挑戰。該國的郵件服務，印度郵政，裝備不良，等待顧客試穿衣服和思考返回它。
因此新進場者都在建設網絡。但印度的交通混亂如地獄，地址也含糊不清。
一個名為Delhivery的公司已經啟動，聘請超過15,000的工作人員，從研究員到高管都是從Facebook和頂級顧問公司挖來的。
其總部設在古爾岡，可以讓一批工程師集中在一起，遠離外界干擾，瘋狂地敲鍵盤。
Delhivery，配合大量的電子商務公司，利用機器學習來細分印度的郵政編碼，以更好地在地圖上標記特殊的目的地。
SandeepBarasia，該公司的總經理說:"我們可以知道寺廟旁邊的黃門的房子"。
本公司可以一夜之間將貨物移到700（？）或小型配送中心，以避免在營業時間內通過擁擠主干道。
然后數以千計的投遞男孩，全天從配送中心分發，在他們的自行車上承載超過20公斤。
電子商務公司也正在制定他們自己的解決方案。
一些投資，比如倉庫，非常簡單。其他人則不是這樣。Flipkart 公司去年開始用孟買的著名網絡dabbawallas，或午餐送貨人，當他們拿起客戶的午餐鐵盒的時候送貨。
亞馬遜有一個試點項目，客戶在線訂購食品，讓距離他們最近的 kirana送貨。
總的來說，電子商務公司稱，這些實驗可以創建新的真正的全國市場。
Neelkanth米什拉的一家銀行，瑞信指出那些道路施工，電氣化和手機大大增加了農村的工資水平，以及對商品的需求(見圖表2)。
Flipkart 公司說，其約一半的銷售額來自印度境外的大城市。Snapdeal聲稱超過60%。它最近推出了七個區域語言版本的網站。
他們建立了市場公司向小企業提供援助。
"亞馬遜網站上的一些大賣家在班加羅爾一個角落里只有一家商店;他們樂于賣到每個商店周圍的五公里，”亞馬遜的Agarwal先生說到。
"現在他們航運訂單到克什米爾和印度東部。"亞馬遜正在幫助超過印度中小企業出口。
Snapdeal 的若斯特沙利文巴爾同樣樂觀:”我們追求的是幫助印度的小企業規模擴大的同時，實現社會、經濟和地理的卓越平衡。”
這些大膽的計劃事實上還有兩個頑固的陰影。
第一，消費折扣，營銷活動和新的招聘意味著公司并無任何賺錢。
訪問任何公司的大廳，你會看到成群的求職者。像阿尼爾一樣的投遞男孩子是搶手貨— —在其分支機構的最高執行者，他掙的錢約14,000盧比(約合200 美元)每個月。
可以預見的是，亞馬遜遠超其競爭對手。
去年的銷售額是其損失的三分之二大小。阿加瓦爾先生并不介意缺乏利潤。"增長優先，"他解釋道。
AnkitNagori，Flipkart 公司的首席商務官說，他的公司的最重要指標不是利潤率而是新客戶數、他們多久購物，他們買多少和交貨速度。"如果你為解決這四件事，"他爭辯說，”然后總收入和賬面利潤將會步入正軌"。
更多的投遞員
第二個問題是監管。
擁有庫存的代價是禁止外資公司。企業在他們的網站僅能實現有限的產品質量控制，摩根士丹利(morganstanley)帕拉古普塔指出，他們不能精簡該國的分散的供應鏈。Flipkart 公司已成為相互關聯的實體，包括一家控股公司在新加坡，在追求利潤最大化同時要遵守印度的規則。
盡管如此，印度政府可能受到貿易保護主義壓力。
傳統零售商稱在線市場無視對外國直接投資規則。Facebook最近廢置了計劃為印度人提供免費的互聯網服務，包括其自身，引起了關于"數字殖民主義”風險的軒然大波。
線下零售商正在聚精會神地看著這一切。
Kiranas是相對地保護，感謝較低的稅收法案和有限的持有的成本(他們存儲很少)。大商店和商場是另一個故事(見圖表3)。
“令我關注的是在很短的時間，電子商務已占據一半的有組織的市場，"波士頓咨詢集團的Abheek說。
"兩年跌落這條線，三年跌落這條線，電子商務市場將更龐大。”
大型外國零售商— — 如宜家，瑞典家具公司，年后的混亂最后可能開放印度的商店 — — 不能直接在線銷售。
事項簡單為印度零售商，但他們的路線依然是多云。信實工業企業集團，超過1 萬平方米的車間，規劃了自己的電子商務創業。未來組，開創了我國大型超市，舾裝小店主和企業家與數字目錄，以便消費者可以訂購未來集團產品在那里永遠不會有的地方一家商店。然而該公司已經縮放回一些電子商務及其更雄心勃勃的計劃。"你做的越多銷售，你會失去更多的錢，"繆斯對此感興趣，未來集團創始人。"你需要有持續的資金資助和人家背你"。
其時，大公司的部門有那些需求得到滿足。"你必須有足夠深的口袋，至少三個，可能四個大玩家"說先生進行。"它會打很高的成本"。阿里巴巴和亞馬遜這樣的公司看看那作為值得付出部分，因為，正如他們應用他們在中國和印度學到的了，所以它們將使用其印度的經驗在他們進入下一個市場的成本。阿里巴巴，不滿足于回Paytm和Snapdeal，也直接在印度企業試圖拉攏。在12 月，它說它將有助于印度公司融資與物流，所以他們可能會使用阿里巴巴的平臺，出口到中國和超越。最終，馬英九喜歡說，任何一個消費者應該能夠從任何賣方，在世界任何地方購買。那些購買的越多，經歷了一個他的公司，越好。
Matters 是原始的印度零售商，但是它們的路線并不明朗。
Reliance工業企業集團, 擁有超過1 萬平方米的車間，規劃了自己的電子商務創業。
未來集團，開創了這個國家的大型超市，為小店主和企業家提供數字目錄，以便消費者無論在那里，都可以訂購未來集團產品。然而該公司已經壓縮了一些電子商務及其更雄心勃勃的計劃。"你做的越多銷售，你會失去更多的錢，"繆斯對此感興趣，未來集團創始人。"你需要有持續的資金資助和眾人支持"。
與此同時，這個行業的大公司也將面臨一些問題。
"你必須有足夠深的口袋，至少三個，可能是四個大玩家” 辛格先生說。
"它會產生很高的成本"。阿里巴巴和亞馬遜這樣的公司會評估那些成本是否值得付出，因為，正如他們應用他們在中國和印度學到的，它們將使用其印度的經驗當他們進入下一個市場的時候。阿里巴巴，不滿足于僅僅持有Paytm和Snapdeal，也在試圖直接拉攏印度企業。
在12 月，它說它將有助于印度公司融資與物流，如果它們使用阿里巴巴的平臺，出口到中國或更多地方。
最終，馬云喜歡說，任何一個消費者應該能夠從任何賣方，在世界任何地方購買。通過他的公司購買的越多，越多好處。
與此同時，面對這些無處不在的巨頭，本土企業家希望他們本地的觸覺會給他們劃定邊緣，并尋找海外投資者支持他們。
其中許多人將會失敗:印度在它之前還不能提供給一個例子，如何賺取利潤，而且它可能需要很長的時間。
但只要其中一些努力生存下去，他們將為速度進步和創新，在市場中發展壯大。
正如亞馬遜的先生阿格沃爾說，"如果數以百萬計的小、中型企業在那里，制造商和零售商，能將他們的產品賣到世界任何地方— — 這就是轉型。"
Online retailing in India ?
The great race
In the next 15 years, India will see more people come online than any other country. E-commerce firms are in a frenzied battle for their custom
Mar 5th 2016
IT IS a quiet morning on the outskirts of Mumbai, the air still mild. Dusty streets are dappled with sunlight, a stray dog rummages through some rubbish, the shutters are lifted on a few tiny shops. A man pushes a cart bearing a pyramid of oranges. And a delivery boy named Anil is already racing along his route on a motor bike borrowed from his uncle, his delivery backpack as large as he is. He has been up for hours, planning his route and carefully filling his bag with the packages to be dropped off first stacked near the top.
Anil enters a block of flats, squeezes his backpack into a narrow lift and delivers a shirt to a 21-year-old taxi driver. In a neighbouring tower he hands a smartphone case to a 16-year-old who uses several apps to do the shopping for his family. A short ride away, a 78-year-old grandmother is a particularly pleased customer—with help from her grandson, she has bought some clay pickling jars that she couldn’t find elsewhere and some high-quality saris at a knock-down price. For Anil, it is gruelling work. But he is betting that e-commerce in India has nowhere to go but up, and he wants to ride up with it. In the next 15 years India will see more people come online than any other country. Last year e-commerce sales were about $16 billion; by 2020, according to Morgan Stanley, a bank, the online retail market could be more than seven times larger. Such sales are expected to grow faster in India than in any other market. This has attracted a flood of investment in e-commerce firms, the impact of which may go far beyond just displacing offline retail.
India’s small businesses have limited access to loans; most of its consumers do not have credit cards, or for that matter credit. The e-commerce companies are investing in logistics, helping merchants borrow and giving consumers new tools to pay for goods. Amit Agarwal, who runsAmazon.in, holds out the hope that “We could actually be a catalyst to transform India: how India buys, how India sells, and even transform lives.”
The jewel in the crown
Amazon wants to make India its second-biggest market, after America. For the time being, though, with just 12% of the market, it lags behind the home-grown successes, Flipkart (45%) and Snapdeal (26%). All three, as well as some smaller competitors, are spending at a blistering rate. As global markets dip and Silicon Valley unicorns stumble, the international funding that makes this possible may dry up. Doubts about the sustainability of the companies’ present plans were underlined when, on February 26th, one of Morgan Stanley’s mutual funds marked down the value of its stake in Flipkart by 27%. If the prospect of changing India a billion deliveries at a time is a beguiling one, it is not for the faint-hearted.
India’s visionaries keep their spirits up by remembering the example of China. Chinese e-commerce grew by nearly 600% between 2010 and 2014, making the country the biggest e-commerce market in the world today. It managed this largely through the growth of indigenous companies: mighty Amazon merely nips at the heels of home-grown giants Alibaba andJD.com; eBay has all but left the stage. And in the process China’s top e-commerce firms came to offer an astonishing range of services.
Alibaba, founded by Jack Ma in 1999 and now valued at $184 billion, provides the best illustration. To calm anxieties about buying online Alibaba created Alipay, which holds a shopper’s payment in escrow until he receives his order. The tool has evolved into a financial-services company, Ant Financial, which last year serviced more than 400m Alipay accounts and made over 2m loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs. To provide Chinese consumers with access to foreign goods the firm’s services include not just online listings but marketing, shipping and help with customs.
Alibaba is now building service centres in remote areas where shoppers can order, pick up and sell goods, as well as pay their bills. It is a further step in its attempts not merely to benefit from the growth in Chinese consumption, but to shape and accelerate it. The degree to which it has succeeded suggests that the earlier an e-commerce company arrives in a country’s development, the wider its role might be.
India is in many ways a tougher market for e-commerce than China. Its population is poorer and its infrastructure worse. But its prospects look remarkable. Income per person, which in 2014 was $1,570, could be twice that by 2025. Two-thirds of Indians are younger than 35, and their phones give a huge number of them access to the internet. In December 2014 smartphones accounted for one in five Indian mobiles, according to Goldman Sachs. Just six months later, they accounted for one in four (see chart 1). Morgan Stanley expects internet penetration to rise from 32% in 2015 to 59% in 2020. By 2030, India is projected to be a one-billion-person digital market.
The prospect of a second market growing to a near-Chinese size attracts those who made a packet the first time round. Bob van Dijk, the chief executive of Naspers, a South African firm that backed ?JD.com and Tencent, China’s largest social-media company, says he looks for countries with big populations, rising smartphone use and few retail chains. India, where malls, supermarkets and branded chains, or what analysts call “organised retail”, account for just 10% or so of the total market, fits the bill perfectly.
The middlemen
Naspers owns a 17% stake in Flipkart; other JD.com investors, including Tiger Global Management, in New York, and DST Global, a Russian fund, have also backed the company. Japan’s SoftBank, a big investor in Alibaba, has backed Snapdeal since 2013, and Alibaba itself followed suit last August. Meanwhile Alibaba’s Ant Financial owns a 20% stake in India’s Paytm, which began as a mobile-wallet company and now competes with Snapdeal and Flipkart as an online marketplace. The three firms have a combined valuation of almost $25 billion.
In contrast to those investors trying to recapitulate their Chinese success, Amazon is seeking to make up for its failure. Reduced last year to the ignominy of having to open a shop on Alibaba’s Tmall site, Jeff Bezos is determined that this time, with more experience and in a more open market, things will be different.
When Flipkart was founded, in 2007, Amazon was obviously its model. The company began as a bookseller; the two engineers who started it, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (not related), had worked for Amazon. Mr Bezos, though, is of the opinion that if anyone if going to be the Amazon of India, it should be Amazon. In 2014, shortly after Flipkart announced a $1 billion round of funding, Mr Bezos donned Indian clothes in Bangalore, hopped aboard a rainbow-coloured truck and handed Mr Agarwal a $2 billion cheque. A firm which earned over $100 billion in 2015 and has shareholders content to see more or less nothing by way of profits can afford such largesse.
Neither Flipkart, Amazon, nor any of the other big competitors are following the retail strategy that led to Amazon’s success in the West. Indian regulations bar foreign-backed e-commerce firms from owning inventory, and so acting as a straightforward retailer is not an option. As a result India’s top e-commerce companies look much more like Alibaba. Flipkart has become a marketplace where sellers offer everything from mobile phones to washing machines to handbags. Snapdeal, Amazon and Paytm run marketplaces too. The firms compete feverishly on price, offering discounts that chomp away their own margins. In the long term, they must differentiate themselves by honing services for sellers and shoppers alike, and offering a better, broader range of products to more Indians than would have them otherwise.
The first step to that goal is to boost the number of sellers on the company’s platform—it is the sellers, after all, who pay commissions and shipping fees. So companies offer a range of services to lure businesses to their sites. Flipkart’s programmes range from teaching sellers how to manage peak sales duringdiwalito advising fashion brands on trends and production. In February Amazon announced a travelling studio-on-wheels, offering training, photography and other services to help shop-owners come online.
But the most important help they offer is in easing access to credit. Small businesses, given their scarce financial statements and limited credit history, have long had trouble obtaining loans from India’s banks. They often rely on expensive loans from neighbours or family. The e-commerce companies have strong incentives to make them better offers—and because they have access to online-sales data they are in a privileged position from which to help lenders judge credit risk.
Take Sumit Agarwal (no relation to Amazon’s Mr Agarwal), a young entrepreneur who started an online shoe business in 2011. In his warehouse in New Delhi workers pack and scan shipments among towers of shoeboxes. The early days were uncertain; his family’s reaction when the firm started, he says, was “What the hell is this guy doing?” Now it is easier for such entrepreneurs to find the capital with which to grow. When Mr Agarwal logs into his seller’s account onAmazon.inhis screen offers a column of short-term loans, their rates calculated using data from his transactions. Other e-commerce firms have similar schemes. In January Snapdeal announced that the State Bank of India would approve loans of up to $37,000 instantly if it liked the look of the data that Snapdeal provided on the borrower.
Once a site has sellers, the second challenge is to help consumers buy their wares. Anil carries a clunky credit-card reader with him on his rounds, but most people pay cash. The e-commerce sites want to change that. Paytm lets customers add money to a digital wallet that can then be used to shop online, top up a mobile phone, lend money to a friend, pay a bill or use a service such as an Uber taxi. It has 120m digital-wallet accounts, nearly six times India’s number of credit cards. Snapdeal bought its own mobile payments company in April. Amazon purchased an online-payments service in February.
A fine balance
If a consumer does buy a product, the next task is delivering it. Delivery itself is nothing new. Indians have long been able to have a delivery boy from the localkirana—the cornershops that dominate Indian retail—bring them a stick of butter. But being able to deliver on a larger scale is a challenge. The country’s mail service, India Post, is ill-equipped to wait while a shopper tries on akurtaand ponders returning it. So newcomers are building networks. But India’s traffic is hellish and its addresses vague.
A startup named Delhivery has hired more than 15,000 staff, from developers to executives poached from Facebook and posh consultancies. Its headquarters in Gurgaon are so packed that engineers spill onto an outdoor porch, tapping their keyboards furiously. Delhivery, which works with a number of e-commerce firms, is using machine learning to subdivide India’s postcodes, the better to map idiosyncratic descriptions. “We’ll know the house with the yellow door next to the temple,” says Sandeep Barasia, the managing director. The company moves goods to 700 or so small distribution centres overnight to avoid congested main roads during business hours. Thousands of delivery boys then dash to and from the distribution centres throughout the day, bearing more than 20 kilos on their bikes.
E-commerce companies are devising their own solutions, too. Some investments, such as warehouses, are straightforward. Others are less so. Flipkart last year began using Mumbai’s famous network ofdabbawallas, or lunch-delivery men, to drop off packages when they picked up customers’ lunch tins. Amazon has a pilot programme that lets customers order groceries online and have them delivered from the nearestkirana.
Together, e-commerce firms say, these experiments could create a new truly national marketplace. Neelkanth Mishra of Credit Suisse, a bank, points out that road construction, electrification and mobile phones have stoked big increases in rural wages, and thus demand for goods (see chart 2). Flipkart says that about half its sales come from outside India’s big cities. Snapdeal claims more than 60%. It recently launched seven regional-language versions of its website.
As they build out their markets the firms trumpet their assistance to small businesses. “Some of the big sellers on Amazon only had a shop in a corner of Bangalore; they were happy selling to five kilometres around each shop,” declares Amazon’s Mr Agarwal. “Now they are shipping orders to Kashmir and eastern India.” Amazon is helping more than 6,000 Indian businesses export, as well. Snapdeal’s Kunal Bahl is equally expansive: “Our ambition is to be a great social, economic and geographic equaliser for the small businesses of India as they scale up.”
All these bold plans are clouded by two obstinate facts. First, spending on discounts, marketing campaigns and new hires means none of the companies has yet made money. Visit any firm’s lobby and you will meet herds of job applicants. Delivery boys like Anil are in hot demand—a top performer in his branch, he earns about 14,000 rupees ($200) each month.
Amazon is, predictably, outspending its competitors. Last year its sales were two-thirds the size of its losses. Mr Agarwal is not bothered by a lack of profit. “The priority is growth,” he explains. Ankit Nagori, Flipkart’s chief business officer, says that the most important metrics for his company are not margins but the number of new customers, how often they shop, how much they buy and the speed of delivery. “If you solve for these four things,” he contends, “then the top line and bottom line will fall in place.”
A billion deliveries more
The second problem is regulatory. Forbidding foreign-backed firms from owning inventory has costs. Companies have limited control over the quality of products on their sites, points out Morgan Stanley’s Parag Gupta, and they can do little to streamline the country’s fragmented supply chain. Flipkart has become a tangle of interlinked entities, including a holding company in Singapore, in an attempt to obey India’s rules while maximising profits.
India’s government may nonetheless come under protectionist pressure. Traditional retailers allege that the online marketplaces flout rules against foreign direct investment. Facebook’s recently scuttled plan to offer Indians free internet services, including its own, sparked a furore over the risks of “digital colonialism”.
Offline retailers are watching all this intently.Kiranasare relatively protected, thanks to meagre tax bills and limited carrying costs (they store little). Big shops and malls are another story (see chart 3). “What is remarkable for me is that in a very short time, e-commerce has become half of what the organised market is,” says Abheek Singhi of the Boston Consulting Group. “Two years down the line, three years down the line, the e-commerce market could be larger.”
Big foreign retailers—such as Ikea, a Swedish furniture company, which after years of kerfuffle may finally be opening an Indian store—cannot sell directly online. Matters are simpler for Indian retailers, but their course remains cloudy. Reliance Industries, a conglomerate with over 1m square metres of shop floor, is planning its own e-commerce venture. Future Group, which pioneered hypermarkets in the country, is outfitting small shop-owners and entrepreneurs with digital catalogues so that consumers can order Future Group products in places where there will never be a store. However the firm has scaled back some of its more ambitious plans for e-commerce. “The more sales you do, the more money you lose,” muses Kishore Biyani, Future Group’s founder. “You need to have continuous funding and someone to back you.”
For the time being, the big companies in the sector are having those needs met. “You have at least three, potentially four large players with deep enough pockets,” says Mr Singhi. “It’s going to play out at a very high cost.” Companies like Alibaba and Amazon see that cost as worth paying in part because, just as they applied what they learned in China to India, so they will use their Indian experience in the next markets they move into. Alibaba, not content to back Paytm and Snapdeal, is also courting Indian businesses directly. In December it said it would help Indian firms with financing and logistics so they might use Alibaba’s platforms to export to China and beyond. Eventually, Mr Ma likes to say, any consumer should be able to buy from any seller, anywhere in the world. The more of those purchases go through one of his firms, the better.
And everywhere these giants go, home-grown entrepreneurs will be hoping that their local acumen will give them an edge and looking for overseas investors to back them. Many of them will fail: India does not yet offer an example of how to make a profit, and it may be a long time before it does. But as long as some of these efforts survive, they will serve to speed progress, and innovation, in developing markets. As Amazon’s Mr Agarwal says, “If millions of small, medium enterprises out there, manufacturers and retailers, can...sell their product anywhere in the world—that’s transformational.”
譯者注
top line : 財務上指總收入
bottom line :財務上指利潤
the organized market ：未確定
