AKAMAI INDIA ONLINE RETAIL REPORT - CAPITALIZING ON DIGITAL POTENTIAL
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AKAMAI INDIA ONLINE RETAIL REPORT CAPITALIZING ON DIGITAL POTENTIAL
India Online Retail Report 2018
CONTENTS
Executive Summary 01
Industry Overview
B2C vs. B2B 05
Navigating Market Complexities
Reluctant online shoppers 07
Pushing for digital transactions 07
Evolving distribution networks 08
Accommodating mobile 08
Cybersecurity leaves many vulnerable 10
Profitability remains elusive 12
Winning Differentiation Strategies and Best Practices
Satisfy a niche 15
Optimize for mobile 15
Scale as needed 16
Stay customer-focused 16
Boost shopper engagement with rich online experiences 17
Lead with security best practices 17
Top 10 Predictions 18India online retail report 2018
India online retail report 2018
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
As an emerging online retail market, India promises
to reward those companies that strategically
embrace opportunities. The key is to understand
the online retail and offline retail landscape in India
and plan accordingly. This report provides insight
into the overall B2B and B2C Indian online retail
market, along with the common challenges and the
best practices for succeeding.
01India Online Retail Report 2018
Industry Overview
Online retail accounts for a small percentage of retail Online retail in India is estimated to grow over
sales in India, but for a large country like India, even 1,200% to $200 billion (Rs 13,30,550 crore) by 2026,
small is significant. The digital economy in India is up from $15 billion in 2016, according to a recent
1
projected to reach $4 trillion by 2020. Within that, report by financial services firm Morgan Stanley. By
industry experts say explosive online retail growth lies then, Morgan Stanley expects India to have 475
ahead. In fact, according to Forrester, India is the million online shoppers, up from 60 million in 2016,
2
fastest growing online retail market in the world. and predicts online retail will account for 12% of
India’s overall retail market, from just 2% last year.
60,000
52,301
50,000
45,206
37,979
40,000
Sales in million USD
31,123
30,000
25,076
20,059
20,000
16,073
10,000
0
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Online retail sales in India from 2016 to 2022
(in million U.S. dollars)
SOURCE: Statista, Online Retail and Online Shopping in India - Statistics & Facts
1 The Economic Times, Digital economy can reach $4 trillion in 4 years: Tech sector to government, June 18, 2017
2 IndiaRetailing.com, Online Retail Boom in India: Why online shopping is here to stay, May 19, 2017
02India Online Retail Report 2018
$86
$46 $25 $38
$149 $64
$93 $16
$861 $1,246
2016 2021
$681 $1,089
Online Retail Sales (USD in billion)
CHINA JAPAN SOUTH AUSTRALIA INDIA
KOREA
According to Morgan Stanley, growth is being This is consistent with CB Insights’ assertion that the
driven by a combination of rising Internet following key trends are, in part, driving Amazon and
penetration, a drop in data access costs, a shift to Alibaba to aggressively pursue online retail in India:
smartphones, and a flow of credit to consumers
3
and microenterprises. In other words, India’s • Global financial systems are going digital and
digital infrastructure, user base, and accessibility mobile
6
are rapidly improving. • Internet penetration is increasing
All of this ongoing digital transformation in the Online retail companies in India can glean some
country is expected to increase India’s total lessons from China. While the Chinese online retail
Internet user base to 829 million by 2021 (59% of market is far bigger than India’s, the exploits of two
the total population), from 373 million (28% of the local behemoths — JD.com and Alibaba — offer
4
population) in 2016, while the total number of valuable takeaways. As in India, online retail migrated
networked devices in the country is expected to from rural to urban areas, resulting in two distinct
grow to 2 billion by 2021.
5
markets. Urban China was dominated by young,
spendthrift consumers; small towns and villages were
dominated by an older, more frugal crowd. As a result,
companies found it difficult to apply a one-size-fits-all
strategy to China’s online retail market, which is set to
grow from $750 billion to $1.7 trillion by 2020,
according to a Goldman Sachs estimate.
3 YourStory, India growing fastest in online retail, says study, February 11, 2017
4 ETCIO.com, Internet users in India to double by 2021: Cisco VNI, June 9, 2017
5 Ibid.
6 CB Insights, Amazon Vs. Alibaba: How The Online Retail Giants Stack Up In The Fight To Go Global, March 2, 2018 03India Online Retail Report 2018
1.2 BILLION
POPULATION
28 STATES
23 OFFICIAL
LANGUAGES
That said, India is a more
complicated market than China.
With thousands of sub-cultures and
numerous languages and more than
7
1.2 billion people, India is a very
diverse country. Different regions
have their own distinct cultures: 28
states and seven territories,
according to the World Health
Organization.8 There is no official
language in India, according to a
Gujarat High Court ruling in 2010,
and the Constitution of India
officially recognizes 23 official
languages and Hindi is the official
language of the government.9 In fact,
59% of India’s residents speak
something other than Hindi,
10
according to The Times of India.
7 Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook
8 World Health Organization, WHO’s Study on global AGEing and adult health (SAGE)
9 The Times of India, There’s no national language in India: Gujarat High Court, Jan 25, 2010
10 Ibid. 04India Online Retail Report 2018
B2B vs. B2C
At a high level, online retail in India can be broken Vertically focused marketplaces include the likes
down into business-to-business (B2B) and of ShipServ for the maritime industry and
business-to-consumer (B2C). By 2020, India’s B2B MFG.com for the manufacturing industry.
online retail market is projected to grow by 2.5
11
times to Rs 45 lakh crore. This growth is much Marketplaces enabled or run by Farfetch,
bigger than what is anticipated for India’s B2C Zalando, Mirakl and others are also proving to be
commerce, estimated to be about Rs 1.86 lakh popular in B2C.
12
crore by 2020. B2B online retail is more lucrative
than B2C in India because of larger sales volumes Strict rules apply to these marketplaces. The
and the ability to sell without heavy discounting.
13 entity running a marketplace cannot own any of
the inventory or allow more than 25% of all sales
from one vendor to its group companies.
Both B2C and B2B online retail in India are Conditions also restrict discounting.
dominated by a handful of players. However,
within those top-level categories are many Inventory-based online retail
sub-categories. In this model, the online retail provider must own
the inventory and run all aspects of the online
Domestic online retail retail business. Alibaba of China operates under
This refers to native Indian brands and online this model.
retail players such as Flipkart, Snapdeal and
Single-brand online retail
TataCliq. India-based retailers such as Shoppers
This refers to a company that owns (or manages)
Stop and Croma have also expanded to sell and sells a single brand in its brick-and-mortar
online. stores and expands to also sell through its online
retail store (think Sony, Nokia, IBM, Maruti,
Cross-border online retail Mother Dairy).
This category is reserved for Indian shoppers
purchasing from countries other than India. The Multi-brand online retail
U.S. is one of the top ten countries for this type of In this model, an online retail store sells more than
one brand provided by multiple manufacturers.
shopping. Businesses outside India selling to
Examples include Planet Fashion, Bata, Jumbo
Indian shoppers must address high shipping Electronics and Car Bazaar. This could also fall
costs, import duties and the complexities under the marketplace model.
associated with returns and exchanges.
Marketplaces
Because the Indian government has allowed
100% foreign domestic investment (FDI) in B2B
THE B2B ONLINE
online retail, global companies such as Walmart RETAIL MARKET
and Alibaba are showing interest. In fact, Amazon IS HEATING UP.
and eBay, among others, compete against Nearly 50% of the firms founded
domestic marketplace operators like Flipkart and in India in 2017 operate in the
Snapdeal. According to CB Insights, Amazon’s B2B space. In total, B2B startups
marketplace revenue in India grew by 105% for now comprise about 40% of the
15
the year ending March 31, 2017.14 Indian startup ecosystem.”
11 Business Standard, B2B online retail to touch Rs 45 lakh cr by 2020 in India, September 4, 2015
12 Ibid.
13 Quartz India, Amazon and Alibaba are battling it out for India’s $300-billion B2B online retail market, September 27, 2016
14 CB Insights, Amazon Vs. Alibaba: How The Online Retail Giants Stack Up In The Fight To Go Global, March 2, 2018
15 Quartz India, India’s startup ecosystem is finally going beyond just online retail and cabs, November 3, 2017
05NAVIGATING MARKET COMPLEXITIES
India Online Retail Report 2018
When it comes to some of the challenging aspects of
conducting online retail in India, wary shoppers, complex
logistics, and inefficient payment systems top the list.
Reluctant online shoppers Pushing for digital transactions
India’s retail landscape tends to be dominated At the same time, government initiatives such as
by small, independent stores that are often “DigiShala” are intended to build a cashless
family-run. In turn, India’s consumers have been economy. Supported by other initiatives like the
National Optical Fibre Network and the
reluctant online shoppers due to a strong
introduction of Unified Payments Interface,
personal connection with these small local DigiShala is intended to drive a fast transition to
retailers that can’t always be replicated digitally. digital payments. Complementing this is the fact
that India is moving from an archaic and
Characterized by a wide range of demographics complicated tax system to a unified and
and technology awareness and comfort, India completely digital system (Goods and Services
cannot be approached in a one-size-fits-all Tax – GST).
manner. The hinterland (aka small towns and
As of November 8, 2016, “demonetization” urged
villages) is dominated by less sophisticated people to use smartphones to make payments.
consumers. Their lack of online retail experience Since then, digital wallets and credit cards have
drives them to insist on cash-on-delivery payment, gained traction. As of Feb 2017, according to the
forcing retailers to keep local warehouses RBI, there were 330 million debit cards and 30
stocked. Cash on delivery accounts for 70% of the million credit cards in India, together facilitating
44 million digital transactions per month (across
online retail industry’s orders, and costs Rs 40 per
16 all retail transactions). Most of this shopping
delivery and even more in the hinterland.
happens in urban areas, covering around 80
million Indians, half of whom shop on online retail
Conversely, a significant portion of India’s websites.
population now travels the globe, exposing them
to more brands and stores.17
People prefer to pay Cash on Delivery [CoD].
67% of the total online retail
transactions in India are CoD.”
18
16 YourStory, A year after demonetisation, e-commerce customers continue to take CoD route, November 9, 2017
17 IndiaRetailing.com, The resurgence of shopping malls in India, March 6, 2018
18 IndiaRetailing.com, Online Retail Boom in India: Why online shopping is here to stay, May 19, 2017 07India Online Retail Report 2018
Evolving distribution networks Accommodating mobile
At the same time, distribution networks tend to be India has the world’s second-largest number of
weak, partly due to low adoption of the kind of smartphones and it continues to grow. About 23%
technology needed to support a modern supply of Indian Internet users stated that they used a
chain network. The trucking industry is fragmented, mobile phone for making a purchase in 2016,
and there are few providers of organized logistical making India one of the leading digital markets for
22
services. Add in a complex tax structure, and the mobile online retail penetration. About 27% of the
supply chain challenges can be overwhelming and digital buyers in the country said they made an
costly. online purchase via their smartphones/mobiles on
a monthly basis, and 24% said they purchased
23
Note that Amazon India — with $5 billion in online goods and services weekly.
backing from its parent — spent much of 2017
figuring out how to extend its reach into the However, retailers must contend with numerous
19
hinterland. That expansion included a broader challenges when delivering websites and
network of delivery centres combined with applications to mobile devices: They must ensure
third-party partnerships for last-mile delivery and optimal viewing on multiple devices, multiple
more products. Today, Amazon India derives 85% screen types, and different operating systems. It’s
20
of its business from the hinterland. nearly impossible for companies to overcome
these issues on their own since mobile sites and
Similarly, Flipkart gets 60% of business from areas apps are dependent on public Internet, which
outside the metro cities. In May 2017, it announced is fraught with bottlenecks, latency, and
21
plans to build 100 new delivery centres. It also security issues.
pioneered a light mobile web application to
manage transactions on spotty networks from the India is dotted with patchy telecom networks and,
hinterland. overall, a poor infrastructure. Limited network
connectivity leads to problems such as low use of
digital wallets and debit and credit cards.
Flipkart and Amazon
by the Numbers
Total users:
Transactions per month:
Revenue per transaction:
21
19 The Economic Times, A rough road awaits e-commerce companies as they race to the
Indian hinterlands, January 21, 2018
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid. 08India Online Retail Report 2018
Optimizing the
online shopper
experience is hard
in a fast-changing
and increasingly
fragmented
mobile world.
Despite these challenges, it’s critical to Consider that Reliance Jio — an Akamai
deliver rich, dynamic experiences at partner — is working to create the most
lightning-fast speeds. We’ve seen, however, extensive and future-proof network in India,
that meeting smartphone users’ high providing next generation digital services
expectations can be exceptionally over an end-to-end all-IP network. It has laid
challenging. In fact, Akamai’s Consumer more than 2.5 lakh kilometres of fibre-optic
Web Performance Expectations survey cables, covering 18,000 cities and over one
found that mobile users have the least lakh villages, with the aim of covering 100%
satisfying online retail experience. of the nation’s population by 2018. Its initial
end-to-end capacity is intended to enable it
As revealed in Akamai’s Q1 2017 State of the to serve in excess of 100 million wireless
Internet − Connectivity Report, India and the broadband and 20 million Fibre-to-Home
Philippines once again had the lowest customers. Reliance Jio has also built nearly
average connection speeds among surveyed half-a-million square feet of cloud data
Asia-Pacific countries/regions, at 6.5 Mbps centres and a multi-terabit capacity
and 5.5 Mbps respectively. international network. The infrastructure is
being built in partnership with some of the
world’s most technologically advanced
companies.
22 Statista, Internet users in selected countries in Asia-Pacific who have made a purchase via mobile phone in 4th quarter 2016
23 Statista, Online shopping channel usage among digital buyers in India from 2013 to 2015
09India Online Retail Report 2018
Cybersecurity Finally, it’s essential to consider one of the more complex, deeply
entrenched issues impacting online retail in India. Proper cybersecurity
Leaves Many measures aren’t in line with India’s digital push, leaving many companies
vulnerable to cyberattacks. According to the Akamai State of the
Vulnerable Internet report, India was one of the top 5 source countries for DDoS
attacks in Q2 2017. It was also one of the top 10 source countries for web
application attacks worldwide and second for web application attacks in
the Asia-Pacific region, Q3 2017. The retail industry worldwide falls prey
to the largest bot traffic and credential abuse attempts. Retail
organizations on the Akamai platform saw about 1 billion credential
abuse attempts in November 2017 alone!
India ranked 23rd out of 165 nations in the 2017 Global
Cybersecurity Index, and ranked the fifth most vulnerable
country for cyberbreaches by Symantec’s Internet Security
Threat Report of 2017.
Cyberattack cases in India are usually According to the Ministry of Electronics and
under-reported because people tend to rely on Information Technology, India witnessed over
software rather than cybersecurity agencies to 27,000 cybersecurity threats in the first half of 2017.
protect them from a breach. Moreover, India does These threats include ransomware attacks, website
not legally require the reporting of an incident, nor intrusions or defacement, phishing attacks, and
is there a legal obligation to let victims know that data breaches.24
their data has been compromised.
That's not all. Professional web scraping has
That said, we know India was the third most affected become a big business. Legitimate websites create
country by the WannaCry ransomware attacks. value in the form of content, which can be spoofed
Moreover, the number of security incidents in India on fake sites or used by competitors in competitive
has also been increasing gradually year-on-year. pricing. The website www.80legs.com will index and
According to the Indian Computer Emergency scrape websites of the attacker’s choosing, for a fee.
Response Team (CERT-In), almost 11,000 networks
in India were victims of probe-scanning between
March 2016 and May 2017. Probing and scanning
are usually the initial steps used by a hacker to
monitor a system before the malware or
ransomware is installed on the network.
24 India Briefing, Massive Data Breaches and Cyber Threats in India, October 24, 2017
10India Online Retail Report 2018
JUNE 28 On June 28, 2017, the Petya global cyberattack disrupted cyberservices in
Russia, Ukraine, India, and Australia. India’s largest port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port
2017 Trust (JNPT), near Mumbai, had to be temporarily shut down as a result of the
attack; the virus affected computers running Microsoft software for the second
time after the WannaCry attack.
While all countries are vulnerable to cyberthreats, India is especially vulnerable as hackers take note of
India’s growing prosperity, weak cybersecurity infrastructure, and huge deficit of cybersecurity
professionals.
Lack of user awareness levels
due to varied user profiles
100% Endpoints/devices being used
100 for digital payments are not
secured (such as mobile phones,
80% desktops, etc.)
80
Concentrated attacks on users
60% through infected apps/malwares
60
Lack of adequate redressal
40%
Key Reasons 40 mechanism post incident
for
20
Security
Incidents 0
Source: KPMG, Digital payments – Analysing the cyber landscape, April 2017
11India Online Retail Report 2018
In recognition of this growing threat, the Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Center, CSK, established in
February 2017 and operated by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, focuses on desktop and mobile
device security. It’s a part of the government’s “Digital India” initiative.
Profitability remains elusive
While the festive season drives significant Per capita income plays a major role in India’s
purchases, India’s online retail firms are struggling online retail growth. 85% of the Indian working
to achieve profitability due to advertising costs and population, 300 million middle-class workers,
high discounts. Hyper-funded startups with cannot spare even 1% for online retail. Instead,
overpaid staff spend millions on advertising and most are saving their money. According to the
Bollywood endorsements, while offering deep Ministry of Statistics, the savings rate in India is
discounts. 31.3% of the GDP.
Major Buying Holidays
RAKHI FESTIVAL
[AUGUST]
DUSSEHRA
[OCTOBER]
DIWALI FESTIVAL
[OCTOBER or NOVEMBER]
CHRISTMAS
[DECEMBER]
12WINNING DIFFERENTIATION STRATEGIES AND BEST PRACTICES
India Online Retail Report 2018
To capitalize on the promise of online retail in India, businesses must put in place a solid strategy that
addresses the uniqueness of the Indian market. According to Nishi Suri, COO, Cheil SWA — a digital and
marketing agency in India — companies are “moving beyond traditional digital solutions, looking for new
ideas, products, and innovations leveraging technology solutions to drive business growth.”
Varun Jha, head of Cheil online retail, adds, “India is ready to adopt the next wave of 100 million online
shoppers and hence it’s equally important to tap into new and existing users through a host of innovative
online retail solutions. This calls for businesses to look for new digital channels, create new products,
enhance the existing web offerings, and create new systems at scale.”
LESSONS
FROM
AMAZON
Amazon operates the biggest store in India with over 100
million products, of which nearly 2.4 million are available
for next-day delivery. As it seeks to dominate the Indian
market — online and increasingly offline — the retail giant
has invested in infrastructure and technology, and pushed
the envelope on logistics and innovations.
25
For example, it launched the
concept of guaranteed one-day
delivery within six months of its
India-based operations.
25 The Economic Times, Indian ecommerce turns into a two-horse race as smaller players face likely wipeout, August 25, 2017
14India Online Retail Report 2018
Satisfy a niche
To encourage brand loyalty, smart retailers can cater to a specific sub-culture to fill a niche, track and
respond to customer behaviors, and encourage and reward new behaviors (e.g., pay online rather than
CoD). At the same time, they are finding ways to satisfy increasingly sophisticated consumers who are
demanding access to a greater array of products.
Optimize for mobile
Another must-have is mobile optimization, as India is a mobile-first country. Mobile opens new revenue
streams and new ways of engaging customers, but comes with development and operational challenges
around performance.
While major online retail players in India have experimented with a mobile-only version, they must plan for
both. Conversion rates can be 2.4% lower on desktop when customers have to wait 2.8 seconds for the page
26
to load, and 7.1% lower for smartphones. A two-second delay in page load can bring your session’s length
to about half.
Consider that Flipkart, one of India’s largest online retail websites, and its business unit Myntra, drive the
27
bulk of site traffic from mobile apps. As of Jan 2018, 78.65% of the 481 million Internet users in India access
28
the Internet most often via a smartphone.
Retailers can deliver a mobile-ready website and applications by using advanced capabilities like pre-fetch,
asynchronous loading, adaptive image compressions, and cellular network optimizations to achieve
the following:
• Optimize native application delivery via API operations, API acceleration, API response, and media
support
• Optimize mobile website performance by simplifying development, accelerating content, and
reducing infrastructure investment
• Overcome challenges of cellular network-based agency through content acceleration
• Automate the image workflow, and intelligently deliver the best image to every end user
26 Akamai, The State of Online Retail Performance, Spring 2017
27 Livemint, Flipkart, Myntra users go mobile; desktop still key for online travel firms, September 4, 2015
28 The Economic Times, Number of Indian Internet users will reach 500 million by June 2018, IAMAI says, February 20, 2018
15India Online Retail Report 2018
Scale as needed
If done well, advertising and marketing efforts will successfully drive traffic to online channels — sites,
mobile apps, and APIs. Retailers need to invest in infrastructure capacity to sustain peak traffic and avoid
shutdowns.
This traffic may be domestic or global and can come from a myriad of devices, browsers, and network
conditions. It is important to ensure web properties are fast and responsive regardless of planned capacity
or physical presence of servers and the relative presence of buyers around the globe.
UCWeb’s web browser, UC Browser, is India’s most
popular with over 40% of the market share. In
January 2018, the browser claimed 130 million
monthly active users and became the sixth most
downloaded app in India. UC Browser has
distinguished itself from peers like Google by
emphasizing curated and personalized content for
individual users.29
Stay customer-focused
As they seek to continually improve the user experience and boost profitability, retailers should track the
following key metrics:
• Page resolution speed
• Checkout speed
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• Customer retention cost (CRC)
• Customer repeat rates (CRR)
At the same time, it’s a given to enable cash on delivery. That said, make more modern payment options
available to support the country’s migration to a cashless society.
Boost shopper engagement with rich online experiences
Retailers must meet the heightened expectation of millennial shoppers. That means they need to provide
descriptive product details and reviews, personalized item recommendations, and interactive media
formats such as high-definition images, videos, and multi-angle photo viewers. Moreover, they must deliver
all of this regardless of the device, browser, or network connectivity situations of each unique visitor.
29 CB Insights, Amazon Vs. Alibaba: How The Online Retail Giants Stack Up In The Fight To Go Global, March 2, 2018
16India Online Retail Report 2018
High-quality videos and images have been shown to increase customer engagement leading to higher
conversion, but both can be a large performance liability. According to a recent report by SOASTA (now
30
part of Akamai), 53% of mobile site visitors abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load.
Retailers need to leverage Digital Performance Management tools that provide real-time actionable
insights into their user engagement metrics and how that impacts conversion rates. This also helps to find
and fix performance bottlenecks ranked by priority of impact on conversion.
Lead with security best practices
The online retail industry sees widespread web security attacks trying to take down sites using a distributed
denial of service (DDoS) attack that overwhelms the origin infrastructure with large amounts of malicious
HTTP requests. Other attacks use automated bot scripts to overtake inventory, scrape prices, or try to steal
credentials from online retail sites.
Knowing this, retailers need to embrace stringent cybersecurity. Consumer trust is already low, so online
retail companies need to take measures to ensure the security of their websites and applications, and
protect sensitive customer data associated with online transactions. It’s essential to safeguard data with
robust and well-maintained cybersecurity infrastructure. Otherwise, the promise of Digital India might be
eclipsed by hackers, ransomware, and data breaches.
Mainstream retailers in India such as FabFurnish and Pepperfry have been able to implement a strong
security strategy by leveraging web application firewall and DDoS protection solutions to protect their
business brand and ensure continuity.
30 Akamai, The State of Online Retail Performance, Spring 2017
17India online retail report 2018
TOP 10 While it’s impossible to say with certainty
what the future holds, here are our
PREDICTIONS predictions for the future of Indian online
retail based on today’s trends.
1 2
Online retail in India will keep Mobile commerce will
gaining momentum, fueled by outpace other forms of
a combination of online retail, since India is a
government and economic mobile-first country.
reforms, infrastructure
investments, a young and
growing consumer class, and
improved shipping and logistics.
3 4
International powerhouses Marketplaces and digital
will establish a presence in platforms will dominate,
India to capitalize on the since they reduce merchant
burgeoning Indian online risk by addressing
retail market and the complexities, such as
popularity of cross-border facilitating transactions.
online retail.
5 6
Companies that move beyond The online retail ecosystem
deep discounting to truly will expand, creating new
differentiate the customer jobs for Indian citizens in
experience — using data support of supply chain
analytics and personalization logistics. With this
— will drive purchases and expansion, online retail
loyalty that translate to companies will successfully
sustainable profitability. penetrate rural areas
(aka Tier II and Tier III cities
or the hinterland).
18India online retail report 2018
7 8
Online retail companies will Consumers will crave
invest in areas that drive digital content (think
measurable results, gaming, OTT, etc.),
including data-driven spurred by falling data
campaigns and branded prices, growing data
mobile applications. speeds, and huge uptake
of smartphones.
9 10
As the market evolves Emerging trends, such
and digital payment as enabling immersive
continues seeing an shopping via virtual
upsurge in adoption, reality and augmented
online retail companies reality, will gain traction
need to address as consumers become
cybersecurity measures. more comfortable with
Companies will be online shopping.
targets of sophisticated
attacks as these attacks
will be more profitable.
From individual fraudsters,
there could be a transition
to a group operating
on a regular/seasonal
basis. Marketplaces will
have to find mechanisms
to counter these threats. 31
Clearly, the Indian online retail market holds much potential. As with any strategic initiative, the key to
online retail success is about understanding the landscape and planning accordingly.
The winners will be those companies that approach the market with the right offerings, tailored to their
audience and delivered in a way that best serves their needs. While this touches many areas, online success
in India hinges upon addressing the needs of mobile shoppers in a scalable and secure way.
31 The Wire, The Economics and Future of E-commerce Fraud in India, April 17, 2017
19India online retail report 2018
It’s only a matter of time before online retail businesses in India feel the impact of emerging technologies
like Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and even the Internet of Things (IoT). Those companies
that put a solid foundation in place today to address current and future online retail trends in India will be
well positioned to succeed.
At Akamai, our customers include the top 20 global online retail sites and 95 of the top 100 U.S. online
retailers. Within India, we are proud to call these top online retail companies our customers:
Akamai’s “always on” web protection is delivered far from the data center at the edges of the Internet, so
content and transaction information is secure and protected from cyberattacks. Plus, whether you want to
improve the customer experience, grow your business, or prevent credential stuffing attacks, you can count
on Akamai to help manage bots simply and effectively.
If you would like to find out how Akamai can help your online retail business realize its vision, take
advantage of our no-risk trial: www.akamai.com/us/en/akamai-free-trials.jsp
20India online retail report 2018 As the world’s largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform, Akamai makes it easier for its customers to provide the best and most secure digital experiences on any device, anytime, anywhere. Akamai’s massively distributed platform is unparalleled in scale with over 200,000 servers across 130 countries, giving customers superior performance and threat protection. Akamai’s portfolio of web and mobile performance, cloud security, enterprise access, and video delivery solutions are supported by exceptional customer service and 24/7 monitoring. To learn why the top financial institutions, online retail leaders, media and entertainment providers, and government organizations trust Akamai, please visit www.akamai.com, blogs.akamai.com, or @Akamai on Twitter. You can find our global contact information at www.akamai.com/locations. Published 06/18.
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