Retail in Asia

In Trends

India’s e-retailers gear up for turf war

When two young graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi in 2007 launched Flipkart, an Amazon-inspired online book store, few Indians had ever bought anything other than airline tickets over the internet.

As a pioneer in the business, Flipkart had to wrestle with obstacles ranging from customers’ reluctance to give credit card details online – or even a lack of credit cards at all – to suspicions that goods would never arrive.

Flipkart might have hoped its early-mover advantage would help it build an impregnable position in India’s e-retail market, like China’s Alibaba, which accounts for more than 80 percent of e-commerce in its home market.
 

(Source: CNBC)