Kart to Mart - Game Changer for Indian E-Commerce Industry

Abstract

E-Commerce business is one of the fastest growing sector in India and has a great potential for future on account of several factors like ease of doing business, investment climate, size, growth rate, digitization, rising internet penetration, etc. According to one of the reports, Indian E-commerce industry is expected to reach US$200 billion in 2026 from US$38.5 billion in 2017 and retail market to reach US$ 84 billion in 2021 from US$ 24 billion in 2017.This exceptional performance of Indian E-commerce industry has attracted the world giant Walmart Inc. to acquire the largest Indian E-commerce company Flipkart for a whopping US$16 billion, for 77% stake in Flipkart, making it the largest deal in E-commerce space globally. Though the deal is expected to benefit the consumers at large, yet it opens a several concerns about small domestic producers, big battle among the giant players, and other competition issues.The big deal is believed to impact the Indian e-commerce industry in a positive manner, benefitting Flipkart and Walmart. This type of FDI in E-commerce industry will surely contribute to the growth of Indian economy and ‘not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India’. The current paper analyses how this “Big Deal” is going to transform the way of doing business on e-commerce platform domestically and globally and sustainability of such type of “business model”. However, measures should be undertaken to prevent exploitation by bringing the national E-commerce policy.