Digital Dividend

Digitalisation offers brands a ringside view of customer behaviour.

- Chaitanya Ramlingegowda

Since the late ‘90s, the way we shop has been transforming constantly. From humble mom and pop stores, we transitioned to all-encompassing malls. Once the mall culture was in full swing, the internet took over the shopping scene, bringing about the e-commerce revolution. Today, products ranging from everyday FMCG essentials to heavy electronics are all simply bought online and delivered to the customer’s doorstep. The rampant shift to online shopping can be attributed to the advent of technologies, including the internet and smartphones. Once these began facilitating online shopping in an efficient manner, there was no looking back. Leading retailers across the country took to digital platforms that allowed them to run their businesses in tandem with or even foregoing bricks-and-mortar stores.

The Indian retail industry today, is the most dynamic part of the country’s economy. In FY17, the organised retail market contributed 7 per cent of the total retail sector while its unorganised counterpart contributed the remaining 93 per cent. Further, in 2015, e-retail sales made for 1.7 per cent of all retail sales in the country. This share of e-retail is expected to grow to 4.4 per cent in 2019. Evidently, e-retail is gradually coming to the fore and will capture more shoppers in the coming years. Owing to these numbers and the convenience offered by ecommerce dealings, an even higher number of retailers are preferring the online medium to boost sales. Further enhancing the enamour that e-tailing emanates is the fact that India had 36.2 million credit cards and 846.7 million debit cards in January 2018, which means more customers are leaning towards digital payments. Due to these factors, digitalisation and e-tailing are the new mantra in India’s retail industry.

Driving customer experience through digitalisation