Rural Indian e-commerce gains momentum

India's rural areas, as well as towns of the tier-II and tier-III categories, are fast catching up with the metros in e-commerce, a study has found, according to the Business Standard.

Women are increasingly getting active in online shopping by prominently buying lifestyle items, says the fourth edition of the eBay Census.

However, while Delhi emerged as the leading e-commerce hub in the country, others in the top 10 list were Mumbai, Bangalore, Jaipur, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Pune and Chandigargh.

Even as rural growth in e-commerce is higher than that in metros, the purchase proportion is still higher in the metros, at 51% of the total.

Warc reports that the online auction site boasts three million customers and 23 000 sellers in 3 878 Indian cities. Over two million products are available on its pages each day, and the company has now drawn together data covering the year to 30 June 2011.

Muralikrishnan B, manager of eBay India, says: “If eBay was a store, then four buyers every minute would have shopped at our counter, 24/7. Thus, for us, it's always a process of mining data.”

Electronic gadgets continue to be the most popular, accounting for 50% of all online purchases on eBay India. Indian retailers are now exporting products to eBayers in 189 countries, reveals India Retailing

The US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Germany are the top five countries for Indian exports.