Are Indians ready for online shopping in regional languages?

Bangalore, Apr 2: Electronic-commerce or E-commerce has become an important tool for businesses worldwide not only to sell to customers but also to engage them. With the help of advanced technology and dominance of Internet, e-commerce grabbed the eyeballs of many who continue to invest in this field.

E-commerce is the process of selling and buying services or products through electronic systems such as Internet or computer networks. India currently has about 70 million active internet users but the country is expected to have 300 million internet users by 2015. The mobile internet user base too is expected to be significantly big.

Online retail in 2011 was pegged at Rs 2,000 crore and is expected to grow to Rs 7,000 crore by 2015. The over all ecommerce market in India is expected to grow from $10 billion in 2011 to $200 billion by 2020. Earlier the average purchase price on ecom sites was about Rs 2000, today people are not shy of making purchases that cross Rs 20,000.

Now-a-days, people are too busy to go to market to purchase their daily essentials. So, e-commerce or online shopping is the most simple and easy way to get everything in their hands without spending much time or effort on getting those things. Flipkart, eBay, MakeMyTrip, BookMyShow are some of the websites which enable people to buy any products according to their choice, to book flight or train tickets with other facilities such as accommodation and food services during travelling time. People can book movie tickets from anywhere in the world.

People can send flowers, cakes, gifts and other surprises to their loved ones with the help of e-commerce. Citing the tremendous growth, potentiality and promising future of e-commerce in India, many foreign business entities have already invested a huge amount of in this field.

However, e-commerce in India is available only in English but what about those Indians who still feel comfortable in their respective regional languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu or Marathi? Most of the Indians still prefer regional languages than English. It would be very easy for many if they get options to shop online through regional languages instead of English.

The next wave of new internet users is expected to be from the Indian language speaking section. This set of users are more comfortable with non-English content. The very same set of users too would transact on the internet, logically they would prefer to transact on non-English ecommerce sites.

To fill the pulse, our Tamil channel - Oneindia Tamil conducted a survey which shows that most of the Tamilians are ready welcome e-commerce in Tamil. While 4,219 (40%) people conveyed positive response towards the idea of bringing e-commerce in Tamil, only 1,817 (17%) people showed their reliance in English. However, 1,600 (15%) Tamilians still want to wait for the time when ecommerce will be launched in Tamil. So, what about other regional languages? Will Bengalis, Marathis, Malayalis or Gujaratis be ready to experience the new extraordinary concept? Please share your opinions and thoughts with OneIndia.

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