C2C market powered by ecommerce firms boost business growth of SMEs

One of the many positives of the evolution of the Indian ecommerce industry is the opportunities presented to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Ecommerce companies, be it big players like Amazon, eBay or Flipkart, or niche start-ups like iPay and Inthree, have been helping SMEs spread across the country to enter into the digital world.

Thanks to the ecommerce firms, the customer-to-customer (C2C) market is growing from strength to strength, which in turn is working in favour of SMEs.

The booming C2C market

“With the introduction of Digital India, current scenario of C2C business in India is quite promising. It is booming. The C2C e-commerce, which is still at a very nascent stage, is evolving and a growing number of start-ups are trying to make their mark by providing a technological platform to the resellers with an intention to organise the space,” revealedPriyank Varshney, founder at Handikart, an online handicrafts store.

Ecommerce platforms like Amazon, eBay are enabling SMEs to reach consumers and sell their wares. Currently valued at $5 billion, the C2C sector is witnessing a steady growth. Last month IOS reported how Amazon is expanding its C2C sale segment ‘Local Finds’.

In 2015, Flipkart had shared with IOS that Indian SMEs are the cornerstone of Indian ecommerce industry. In June, Shopclues started GST compliance services to register over 6 lakh MSMEs under GST.

SMEs ready to go digital

Buyers and sellers from small towns and cities are not only aspirational but also eager to learn about new mediums of buying and selling. This includes the digital medium. And the rising demand for smartphones, data plans & mobile shopping is a proof of it. The Indian government started Digital India initiative with ‘a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy’. But aspirational sellers too need assistance which ecommerce platforms are providing.

Anurag Avula, CEO of Shopmatic reiterated the above statement by saying, “The Indian SME market is hungry and ambitious to embrace digital but is waiting for someone to take the lead and show the way. While everybody wants to take their business online, they still need a lot of handholding to address their latent barriers… For exactly these reasons, we decided to make our product really easy for them to use.”

Online digital companies are helping SMEs by:

• Creating an easily accessible channel for small sellers to come online
• Marketing products on social media
• Generating more orders by reaching to a large consumer base
• Optimizing digital marketing campaigns to reduce selling & marketing expenses

“I think this is right time for the MSME sector to flourish in India. I think GST is going to be a massive boost because cross-state and cross-city selling will become much easier. The small sellers traditionally have hesitated and focussed only on the local economy or within states. With e-commerce companies offering logistics and payment solutions, I think in the next two-three years, we will definitely see a lot of growth for online commerce in India,” said Akshay Ghulati, Chief Business Officer, Kraftly.