Madhav Kota is the Founder and creator of the brand iGRiD, India’s leading provider of affordable and quality consumer electronics & lifestyle products. At the company’s helm, Madhav leads the consumer business activities, manages customer experience, and growth of the brand. With an educational background in engineering and business management, Madhav Kota possesses significant experience in various corporate verticals across India. In his earlier avatar, Madhav managed the Channel & product marketing for consumer business with Canon India. Following this, he joined Tata Communications Ltd as their head of sales strategy and planning for their retail business unit. Subsequently, Madhav became the business head in India’s first WiMAX technology-based retail telecom company, MetaMAX Communications.
The consumer electronics sector is one of the most rapidly evolving and inventive sectors. Most electronics and lifestyle consumer companies are constantly producing the next-gen product, making their devices more user-friendly, and discovering new methods to serve or entertain their clients.
Convenience and availability of varied options is one of the drivers in the adoption of e-commerce by consumers. Added to the above, the proliferation of the internet to tier II and III cities are the fuel to the booming e-commerce business. Some of the other factors that are expanding the e-commerce business are the wallets and women increasing their spending on e-commerce. The past two years have been turbulent for many industries; however, the E-Commerce sector witnessed significant growth due to the country’s mobility restrictions during the pandemic and the increased ease of doorstep delivery due to the improvement in the logistics sector. Work-from-home has resulted in sustained demand for D2C products like headphones, smartphones, personal health care items and Beauty Products among other long-tail gadgets, which have emerged as the top categories for online brands.
E-commerce boosting its way through
E-Commerce in India is in its early stages but is gaining increasing acceptance among the consumers and giving a boost to the sale of electronic and consumer products, lifestyle products and home and health support gadgets. According to a report from GrandViewResearch, the consumer electronics business and the D2C segment is expected to register a considerable growth rate over the forecast period. The growth is attributed to increasing internet usage and the growing interest of consumers towards the new electronics and lifestyle products and trends. Increasing usage of artificial intelligence (AI) and in-app augmented reality is providing customers with the real-time shopping experience of consumer electronics, which contributes significantly to the decision-making process. Similarly, factors such as social media advertising, same-day delivery, custom packaging are attracting a greater number of customers.
The user-friendly tech constructs and ease of search are making the adoption a little easier among consumers. With the increase in D2C brands, e-commerce has gained a foothold in the Indian retail industry. Consumers have shown preference to online shopping of certain categories of D2C products that were earlier sold exclusively offline. With the Pandemic and the after-effects of the pandemic, consumers are preferring to make their purchases online rather than step out. D2C brands and products enabling the DIY aspect picked up massively in the market like trimmers, epilators, shavers, massagers, health monitoring gadgets and the likes.
Today’s consumer is well aware and has access to the global technologies and trends due to the wide proliferation of social media, largely due to the penetration of the internet into smaller towns and locations. The more agile D2C businesses have utilized this trend to their benefit by jumping on the bandwagon of the consumer’s demand. By being more innovative and by adopting a strategy of being price-aware, these new brands have become the drivers of the e-commerce business in India.
The Indian e-commerce industry has been on a growth trajectory, and it is predicted to surpass the US to become the world’s second-biggest e-commerce market by 2034. D2C brands are expected to lead this growth. With a larger segment of the consumers identifying the benefits of e-commerce during the pandemic, Ecommerce is set to increase its presence in the consumer’s purchase pattern.