INC42 STAFF

Homemaker Resellers To
Grab 5.4% Share Of Indian
Ecommerce: Zinnov
Report
2 Mn Indian Women Resellers Registered $9 Bn
Gross Sales
Meha Agarwal

June 3, 2017 | 6 min read

 ADVERTISEMENT

135
SHARES
Facebook Twitter Linkedin

With Indias ecommerce market aiming to touch $220 Bn by 2025,

benefitting from this the online housewive resellers are going to touch
21-23 Mn by 2022 says a latest Zinnov report.

The majority of ecommerce market in India is been dominated by large

ecommerce players like Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon. However, slowly
and steadily, a new niche of online resellers has started emerging from
the almost invisible segment of our society the women homemakers.

As per a recent report released by Bengaluru-based consulting firm

Zinnov, 2 Mn women homemakers across the country registered $9 Bn
gross sales by selling apparels and lifestyle products adding to the
online resellers community in the country.
The report also stated that online resellers space has been projected to
grow to $48 Bn-$60 Bn by 2022. The number of online housewive
resellers will increase from the current 2 Mn to 21-23 Mn by 2022. Also,
the market share of online resellers is expected to rise from the current
1.2% of the Indian retail market to 5.4%.

Online Reseller Market: Key Findings From

The Zinnov Report

Overall, clothing is the most sold category (60-65%); while

accessories come second (28-32%) and home decor third (5-10%).
More than 60% housewife resellers sell Indian ethnic wear as their
core product including salwar suits, kurtis, dupattas (34-38%);
lehengas and bridal wear (10-14%), sarees & blouses (48-52%).
In accessories, jewellery is the most sought-after category (45-50%)
while handbags, watches, sunglasses (35-40%), and footwear (14-
18%) come later.
More than 60% of the housewife resellers hail from Tier II/ Tier III
cities.
 Facebook adoption is marginally more than WhatsApp.

Online ReSellers: An Emerging Concept In

Ecommerce

The Online Reseller is a relatively new term and can be described as a

group of sellers comprising of Housewives, ex-SMEs, college students,
unemployed males, etc. The Zinnov report focussed exclusively on
women homemakers, with an aim to show the shift and a new trend the
Indian women are bringing to the platform.

See Also:
Indian Startup Hubs: Startups And Ecosystem Builders
In The Kolkata Startup Ecosystem

15 Indian Startup News That You Dont Want To Miss

This Week [News Roundup]

Ecommerce Enabler Shopmatic Secures $5.7 Mn

Funding

Although, there exist ecommerce SaaS platforms like Shopify, Zepo,

Martjack and more, the typical housewives in our country, cannot afford
even the minimum fees requirements to start with their own. Plus, these
resellers work with typically low volumes and putting up an entire
website may not be a feasible option for them.

Platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook form an ideal destination for

these players just like for any other ecommerce player, giving them
the ease and flexibility of doing business anytime, anywhere. A
typical sales cycle followed by an ecommerce retailer looks like this:
Talking about payments, as per the Zinnov report, online resellers do not
prefer cash-on-delivery (CoD) as the preferred payment mode.
Therefore, while earlier the tradition online payment methods like net
banking, NEFT, etc were popular, a surge has been seen in the adoption
of newer models like that of digital wallets such as Paytm, Freecharge,
and Mobikwik just like in the case of ecommerce.

Distribution Of Indian Resellers: By Product

Category And Location

As per the report, 68%-72% of the resellers selling clothing contribute

more than 72% of the total commerce volume. Here, Jaipur has emerged
as a destination to source jewellery and other accessory products, while
Surat is the prime hub to source clothing.
Furthermore, it has been identified that 40%-50% of the online women
resellers in Tier I cities contribute more than 50% of the total commerce
volume. While the sellers in Tier I cities capitalise on rising technology
and greater adoption of social media tools, the Tier II/ Tier III sellers
bear an edge on the supply chain as the majority of manufacturing hubs
are present in these cities.
Moreover, a key finding also states that monthly commerce volume for
emergent resellers is over three times the same for new resellers
across product categories indicating the opportunity to create a
stable and scalable business in the long run.
Opportunities, Roadblocks For Resellers: Key
Findings From The Zinnov Report

The online resellers are presently capitalising on the personalisation,

trust, and unique products being offered to the consumers.

With Facebook, WhatsApp being the most dominant social media portals
in the country, the ease to directly chat with the sellers, getting instant
advice and feedback from loved ones and the convenience of shopping
just by looking at a post on Facebook or WhatsApp message offers a lot
of options for the buyers.
 ADVERTISEMENT

However, as with every coin, there is a darker side too. With no return-
exchange mechanism in place, no CoD and, at times, poor sales service
leads to a drop in the purchases.

In Conclusion
While these online women resellers are playing a pivotal role in
flourishing nicely within the overall ecommerce and online retail
segment, a few startups are also working in a similar direction. For
instance, Bengaluru-based Meesho offers an app which helps merchants
to manage their ecommerce businesses on WhatsApp and Facebook.
Businesses can create an online shop, share on WhatsApp and Facebook.
They can keep customers updated with new products, get new customers
leads in real-time and collect payments over chat. Meesho presently
claims to have over 1,000 small business availing its app services.

Also, there is another startup Jumper.ai, wherein a consumer can make

purchases on social media channels using hashtags. For instance, on
Facebook, one just needs to put #displayed product name in the
comments section.

Jumper.ai - Convert Social Media Comments into Sales .

As stated by Meesho founder Vidit Aatrey to ET, We are not looking for
revenues from this set of sellers. The fact that such a market has been
created already with 2 Mn active resellers shows the potential of the
opportunity, The total market for women resellers is expected to grow at
40%-50%, annually, for the next five years. This means it would be over
5% of Indias total retail market.

As the Zinnov report suggests, without building any website or an app,

these Indian women homemakers are generating billion-dollar revenues
using ecommerce. In the coming years, the sector offers a huge
opportunity with the increased adoption of AI, data analytics and
Machine learning in our lives. But till then, the need of the hour is to
make the bumpy road of Indian online resellers smooth, thereby
removing the roadblocks of patchy after sales service, or no CoD (in a
country that is largely cash-dominant) among other issues, at a rapid
pace.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can
be found here.

Related

Indian Startup Hubs: 15 Indian Startup News Ecommerce Enabler Ecommerce Enabler
Startups And That You Dont Want Shopmatic Secures $5.7 Shopmatic To Expand
Ecosystem Builders In To Miss This Week Mn Funding Its Role In India
The Kolkata Startup [News Roundup]
Ecosystem
 Explore Inc42

Ebay India Now A Bajaj Finance To Invest The Bitcoin Civil War SoftBank May Fuel Up
Flipkart Group $35.2 Mn In Digital Comes To An End: But Flipkart With Massive
Company; Merger Payments Company Will Indian Startups $2 Bn Funding
Transaction Complete MobiKwik For 11% Adopt Bitcoin Cash?
Stake

Powered by

Archived in Buzz and tagged Ecommerce, Ecommerce Market, Facebook sellers, Indian
Ecommerce Market, Online Resellers, Online Retail, WhatsApp Sellers, Zinnov.

0 Comments Sort by Newest

Add a comment...

Facebook Comments Plugin

Next article Previous article

Sequoia Capital Secures

$4 Bn Across Four Funds