Your neighborhood businessman goes online! Ecommerce is to small businesses today, what the telephone
was in the 90's - another great medium to take orders! 5 years ago, a designer running a boutique in the Hauz Khas
village in Delhi, wouldn’t have thought it was possible to sell her dresses all
the way to a customer in Chennai. With the growing usage of internet and social
media, the far-fetched has become a reality now. And it won’t be long before
you find every business in the neighborhood handing out business cards with not
just telephone numbers but their website address too!
Zepo, an ecommerce platform, based out of Mumbai, is playing
its part in trying to facilitate small retailers and manufacturers across
India, setup their own exclusive retail space on the web; their own online
stores at literally half the cost.
It recently concluded a survey of the 900+ online stores
operating on its platform. The figures not only substantiate the claims that
ecommerce is becoming a preferred point of sale among SMEs but also provides
insights into the ecommerce trends of small businesses.