E-COMMERCE APPLICATIONS & BUSINESS (212)

(INDIAMART)

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment for the Award of the Degree of MBA 2019-
2021

Submitted By: Santosh kumar

University PRN: 1928100049

BHARATI VIDYAPEETH DEEMED TO BE UNIVERSITY,

PUNE SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION, PUNE
Academic Study Center - BVIMR, New
Delhi an ISO 9001:2008 Certified Institute
NAAC Accredited Grade “A” University

Page no. 01
 Format of Student Undertaking Certificate of Originality

I Santosh kumar, Course-MBA and Semester - II would like to declare that the
Project report entitled "INDIAMART’’ Submitted to Bharatiya Vidyapeeth University
Pune, School of Distance Education Pune, Academic Study Centre BVIMR New Delhi in
partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree.

It is an original work carried out by me under the guidance of _

All respected guides, faculty member and other sources have been properly
acknowledged and the report contains no plagiarism.

To the best of my knowledge and belief the matter embodied in this project is a genuine
work done by me and it has been neither submitted for assessment to the University nor
to any other University for the fulfillment of the requirement of the course of study.

MR. SANTOSH KUMAR

Student Name with Signature

Page no. 2
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Project report inculcates applied elementary creative thinking/working. It gives us immense

pleasure to prepare this study on “INDIAMART” This learning has many contours and impacts.
This learning has many contours and impacts. I wish to express my deepest gratitude for all those
people who made this project possible. I am indebted to BVUSDE honourable Director
Mr. A. R. Deshmukh without whom co-operation the project would have not been possible.
Also I would like to express my profound sense of gratitude to the project guide Ms. Surinder
Kaur Walia for guiding me as well as providing me the support to conduct this project.
Last but not the least, I take this opportunity to thank all the library members of BVIMR, New
Delhi, respondents, friends, and my parents without their concern and cooperation this project
would have not been possible.

NAME OF THE STUDENT:

Santosh kumar

Page no. 3
 Table of Contents

S. No. Topics. Page. No.

● Chapter 1 : Introduction to the topic. 07

Related To Subject,
Objective and Vision of Projects,
Limitations of the Project, Literature Review
 Chapter 2 : Research Design
Data Collection
Primary Data And Secondary Data Collection 12

● Chapter 3 : Findings & Analysis. 18

● Chapter 4 : Conclusions 29
● Chapter 5 : Recommendations / Suggestions 30
● Chapter 6 : Limitations of the Study. 31

Page no. 4
 ● Executive Summar

A. Objectives

o One of the models, which suited India mart best, was getting the site maximum visibility
on all major search engines. Coming back to their main business that of online
directories, as it was offering free listings, one would be forced to think that there is no
revenue here. Yes, first glance one does get the impression but while having a closer look
it can be seen that Indiamart encourages those listed under different sections to have a
web presence of their own. Indiamart offers its expertise on site building for which it
charges its merchants a fee. Those the service to India mart.

B. Methods and data sources

A series of research studies were conducted and the information presented in the entire paper is
abstracted from a variety of authoritative data sources, namely, scientific and practitioner
literature, and survey-based reports.

C. Key findings was identified that the major problems commonly faced by E-Commerce
Sector.

o Origin of the e-commerce platform: After returning from the US in 1996, Dinesh
Agarwal started Intermesh, a company that made websites for Delhi-based companies
like Nirula's. He then created India MART, a website directory of the sites that his
company created.

o In 1998, he set up the second office in Mumbai. By 1999, around 1,000 clients were
added to the list. After the US terror attack on 11 September 2001, India MART's
revenue fell by nearly 40 per cent but the company overcame the slump.

o In early 2009, IndiaMART raised an undisclosed amount of money from Intel Capital. A
total of $23 million was invested in India MART 197 Communications and Global Talent
Track. Building on the platform for suppliers, it also created a buyer- dedicated forum in
2011.

o Today, India MART has 40 offices in 100 cities across the country and total employee
count of 2600. Of these, 800 employees work at the head office in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.
India MART roped in Irrfan Khan as its brand ambassador for its latest brand campaign
that went live in November 2014.

Page no. 5
D. Conclusion
 A solid lead with a chance of conversion was passed to the supplier, while the buyer
received the requested information and quotes needed to make a business decision. India
MART now had the power to monitor the progress and duration of every call made
through these numbers using an online panel. With it, the company got a deep level of
understanding of the interaction happening between the two target audiences.

 The system also offered the flexibility to change numbers associated with each supplier.
In essence, it was a solution that enhanced the scope of India Mart’s business through
credible leads and a quick connection between its buyers and suppliers. Internet Profile.

 Through this SMEs can buy a business lead from a buyer after evaluating its relevance
for their business. Once they find it relevant, they can buy it for a nominal amount.
Through this model, suppliers are able to choose from the listed business leads and can
then pursue them to grow their sales. IndiaMART.com, has introduced a service for small
and medium enterprises, which puts buyers in touch with suppliers, Called ‘Buy Leads’,
it is based on a “pay per ‘seen’ lead” model.

 It is a slight modification of the “pay per lead” model, with the buyer of the lead being
able to see the contents of the lead before he decides to purchase it. It allows suppliers to
assess buying requirements, evaluate them and move further, if they find it relevant.

Page no. 6
UNIT - 1 INTRODUCTION

● Introduction

 Today, e-Commerce is entering the third phase with the focus on how the internet can
impact profitability. We call this phase e-business and it includes all the applications and
processes enabling a company to service a business transaction. In addition to
encompassing e-commerce, e-business includes both front and back office applications
that form the core engine for modern business.

 Thus, e-business is not just about e-commerce transactions or buying and selling over the
web; it’s the overall strategy of redefining old business models, with the aid of
technology, to maximize customer value and profits.

 To paraphrase Business Week, “Forget B2B or B2C, e-Business is about P2P – path to
profitability. Thus, e- Business is not about mere presence in the website, but all about
how we can setup an integrated business model for the handicrafts. To make the model
flexible and so that it can Grow Big Fast7, the model should outsource almost all of its
non core activities to business partners who specialize in those areas. India MART is an
Indian internet limited company headquartered in Noida.

Page no. 7
 It is an online business-to-business B2B marketplace which matches buyers and
suppliers. It has about 1.5 million suppliers listed on its website, with as many as 1 crore
buyers visiting the company's platform every month.

 In 2009, IAMAI conducted a study, which declared that India MART has a 60 percent
market share in India's online B2B marketplace. It has also been declared as the world's
second largest online B2B marketplace by Economic Times.

 After returning from the US in 1996, Dinesh Agarwal started Intermesh, a company that
made websites for Delhi-based companies like Nirula's. He then created India MART, a
website directory of the sites that his company created.

 In 1998, he set up the second office in Mumbai. By 1999,

around 1,000 clients were added to the list. After the US
terror attack on 11 September 2001, India MART's revenue
fell by nearly 40 per cent but the company overcame the
slump. In early 2009, IndiaMART raised an undisclosed
amount of money from Intel Capital.

 A total of $23 million was invested in India MART 197 Communications and Global
Talent Track. Building on the platform for suppliers, it also created a buyer- dedicated
Page no. 8
 forum in 2011. Today, India MART has 40 offices in 100 cities across the country and
total employee count of 2600.

 Of these, 800 employees work at the head office in Noida,

Uttar Pradesh. India MART roped in Irrfan Khan as its
brand ambassador for its latest brand campaign that went
live in November 2014. Idea generation in the words of
Dinesh Agarwal,CEO IndiaMart: Since I was a computer
analyst and among the early Internet users, I thought of
starting something in software services.

 I settled on building a platform for businesses to display their products via dedicated Web
I named the venture, India Mart Intermesh. The idea was to help the small and medium
enterprises in the country market their products and services. I had purchased a flat in
Delhi while I was working and set up my office in the flat in 1996. I had a saving of Rs
40,000 and it was invested in the business. I faced several challenges. The computers
were costly and few businesses used them.

Page no. 9
 Objective and Vision of Projects

 convincing customers to first buy computers, which, in turn, would help in the
promotion of their business was quite a task. Besides, the Internet speed was very
slow in those days. Uploading and downloading small files would take several
hours. Still, we managed to get fast-food chain, Nirulas, as our first client.

 The deal was to develop and manage their website for an annual fee of Rs 32,000.
I employed a few marketing and sales personnel to help generate business. We
came up with an innovative way of marketing. We began holding exhibitions at
Pragati Maidan, in New Delhi, to showcase our services, with the staffers wearing
T-shirts highlighting our brand. We offered businesses free listings on our
platform.

 Once their company profile was on the Web, it would start generating business
queries from potential customers from across the globe. We would monitor the
response and our sales personnel would apprise the company about the interest it
was creating on the Internet. Having proved the value of Web presence to the
companies, we would then offer them a customized, full service to enable them to
draw even bigger numbers for their businesses.

 This strategy helped us bag several clients. By the end of the first year (1996-97),
we had a staff of nine and the firm recorded a turnover of around Rs 6 lakh. As
our business started growing, we had to deal with several issues and the most
irksome among these was looking for bigger office space.

 This is the reason that between 1996 and 1999, we changed four offices. Besides,
for every employee who was hired, we had to invest nearly Rs 50,000 since it
involved the purchase of a new computer and relevant accessories, which proved
rather expensive. Though most of the queries related to our clients' businesses
would come to us via emails, very few clients had the e-mail facility.

Page no. 10
 Limitations of the Project, Literature Review

o Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely
require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a
significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship.

o It is almost midway through the quarter, and by this time you should have a
relatively clear idea of your topic for your group design project. In this next
assignment, you will lay out the scope and limitations of your project.

o an explanation of what kind of data you will collect, the methods you will use
(interviews, library research, observation, etc.), and how much of each kind of data
you will collect.

o a timeline with major tasks to be accomplished for the project and which team
member will take a leadership role and responsibility for the task.

Page no. 11
 Research Design

o Search engine optimization and marketing of the company: With this was born Indiamart
the first company in India to provide directory services for exporters and importers on the
net. Initially, for Indiamart, the project was that of collecting the queries and forwarding
the same to the merchants free of cost.

o It seemed to be a big boost for the SME (small & medium enterprise) who otherwise
would never have even think of selling their goods globally on their own. The next
important revenue source is the B2B auctions, which was launched last year in
December.

o In fact this addition of auctions on to the site has given Indiamart a opportunity to cash to
the high visibility that it has earned for itself for the past few years. The Auction
platform, which is the biggest in Asia, caters to over five lakh global B2B buyers that
visit Indiamart every month.

o Here suppliers can register online and list their inventory for auction on an annual basis.
The seller decides on the Reserve Price, Minimum bid price and bid increment amount.
Interested buyers can bid on the items listed free of cost after going through the product
information online. After the auction times out the seller is introduced to the winner to
complete the transaction.

o The success of the B2B auction portal can be gauged from the fact form its introduction
in Dec 2001 it has already earned through commissions Rs. 0.48 lakh for the last
financial year.

o The other income streams for Indiamart are Web advertising which accounted for Rs
35.86 lakhs, e-business solutions worth Rs. 24.21 lakhs and co-branded online promotion
campaigns for Rs 21 lakh.

Page no. 12
 Data Collection

 Speaking about the B2B auctions Dinesh says “Our strategy of network expansion to
reach larger SME markets and offering multiple business services and solutions thereby
generating multiple revenue streams has done the trick for us.

 We made it a point to run our business just like any other conventional business and not
to get carried away by the media hype about dotcoms or the easy availability of VCs in
the market.

 We only held the ground strongly and kept a close eye on our costs and revenues.” The
next step in auctions which Indiamart plans to unveil very shortly is the new B2B
transaction platform aiming to offer facilities like B2B reverse auctioning, ETOs
(Electronic Trade Offers), REQ/REP (Request for Quote/Request for proposal) along
with business support services like business finance, logistics and insurance to facilitate
online trade. Today as discussed earlier Indiamart has been making profits, according to
the summary of financial results for the year ending 31st march 2001 shows a growth of
128% with revenue earned from its operations at Rs 287.16 lakh.

 The growth of India mart has been phenomenon with just one office in Delhi today it has
branch offices in Mumbai, Chennai and Lucknow while its marketing offices are located
across 24 cities. While its other global trade partner’s yourimporter.com a Dallas based
online B2B auction platform and Indiafrance.com a France based enterprise gives India
mart a much needed global foothold.

Page no. 13
 A system of preferred mobile numbers was set up for suppliers. These virtual mobile
numbers were mapped to each supplier, and behind each number was an intricate system
allowing each call coming in to the number to be diverted to up to eight mobile or
landline numbers given by suppliers.

 That one call went to all provided numbers simultaneously, and as soon as one buyer
picked up, the others were instantly dropped. This minimized the call duration of the
buyer and ensured that someone would always answer. As opposed to other systems, the
call charged to India MART began only on pick-up by the supplier.

 Once the inquiry was made and answered and both parties hung up, a text and email was
sent to buyer and supplier instantly, thanking them for their call and sharing contact
details of both parties with each other.

 A solid lead with a chance of conversion was passed to the supplier, while the buyer
received the requested information and quotes needed to make a business decision. India
MART now had the power to monitor the progress and duration of every call made
through these numbers using an online panel.

 With it, the company got a deep level of understanding of the interaction happening
between the two target audiences.

 The system also offered the flexibility to change numbers associated with each supplier.
In essence, it was a solution that enhanced the scope of India Mart’s business through
credible leads and a quick connection between its buyers and suppliers. Internet Profile:

Page no. 14
 Primary Data And Secondary Data Collection

o As part of the free registration, these SMEs get to be listed among their peers in
that industry and also get a free website on India MART domain

o They can upgrade to a paid membership after experiencing the practical results
achieved through it. As part of this, we design web catalogues for SMEs and
provide them with premium listing, among other things. For these services,
members have to pay a minimal annual fee. Company has also introduced a pay
per lead model, which is the first of its kind in the world.

o Through this SMEs can buy a business lead from a buyer after evaluating its
relevance for their business. Once they find it relevant, they can buy it for a
nominal amount.

o Through this model, suppliers are able to choose from the listed business leads
and can then pursue them to grow their sales.

o IndiaMART.com, has introduced a service for small and medium enterprises,

which puts buyers in touch with suppliers, Called ‘Buy Leads’, it is based on a
“pay per ‘seen’ lead” model. It is a slight modification of the “pay per lead”
model, with the buyer of the lead being able to see the contents of the lead
before he decides to purchase it. It allows suppliers to assess buying
requirements, evaluate them and move further, if they find it relevant.

o The company introduced the service as a pilot last year, garnering 10,000 sign-
ups in the pilot year and registering monthly billings of over Rs 1 crore. It is
targeting 30,000 sign-ups in the next three years, Agarwal said. Buyers and
sourcing agents come to IndiaMART.com and post their purchase requirements
free of cost. Each requirement is manually screened and followed up with the
buyer post, which is listed in the ‘buy leads’ marketplace.
Page no. 15
o The company introduced the service as a pilot last year, garnering 10,000 sign-
ups in the pilot year and registering monthly billings of over Rs 1 crore. It is
targeting 30,000 sign-ups in the next three years, Agarwal said. Buyers and
sourcing agents come to IndiaMART.com and post their purchase requirements
free of cost. Each requirement is manually screened and followed up with the
buyer post, which is listed in the ‘buy leads’ marketplace.

o decide to buy or not. Lead prices start at Rs 50. Once suppliers purchase a lead,
contact details of the buyer become visible. How does the business model work
in practice? We offer free as well as paid membership to our users who are
mostly SMEs.

o Each SME is eligible to register on the marketplace for free. As part of the free
registration, these SMEs get to be listed among their peers in that industry and
also get a free website on India MART domain. They can upgrade to a paid
membership after experiencing the practical results achieved through it. As part
of this, we design web catalogues for SMEs and provide them with premium
listing, among other things.

o For these services, members have to pay a minimal annual fee. We have also
introduced a pay per lead model, which is the first of its kind in the world.
Through this SMEs can buy a business lead from a buyer after evaluating its
relevance for their business.

Page no. 16
o Once they find it relevant, they can buy it for a nominal amount. Through this
model, suppliers are able to choose from the listed business leads and can then
pursue them to grow their sales

o India Mart has been successfully doing it since 1996 through various B2B
solutions and services like online directory offering free-listing and business
query forwarding facility, building and promoting online catalogs for businesses,
and building content & database-rich industry portals, etc. It has now wished to
further benefits member businesses from an online catalog based trade-lead
system to B2B auctions that offer a more direct method of online trading and
negotiations".

o IndiaMART.com attracts international buyers looking for exporters, suppliers

and manufacturers from India for their business needs. The online marketplace
generates more than one lakh B2B trade queries every month through which its

Page no. 17
 Findings & Analysis.

o The 12 member SME businesses are estimated to have conducted a business

worth Rs 600 crores in the last financial year alone. Already fetching 5.6 million
*views, representing one of the highest figures in the world in the B2B segment,
IndiaMART.com offers its visitors online B2B directory with over
60,000businesseslisted under more than 450 product/service categories. Visitors
to IndiaMART.com can browse through over 1000 business catalogues and can
interact online with member businesses.

o The marketplace also offers a lot of useful B2B information on key Indian
industries, interactive community tools and business support services to facilitate
B2B trade between its visitors and member businesses.

o Through auction, it will now offer a more direct and interactive trading and
negotiation platform to fuel online trade across countries as well as locally. "Our
new online platform offering B2B catalogues, auctions, trade offers and other
online business support services will bring online the 'action' that was so far being
initiated at IndiaMART.com, but being finalized offline in the form of a
transaction.

o Through online B2B auctions, whereby sellers will get the highest price for their
inventory and buyers will be able to interact with multiple sellers at the same time
for their business requirements. Such e-marketplaces make B2B sourcing process
highly efficient, especially for industrial and international buyers.

o This process is similar to window shopping. Promotion of the website, publication

of e-catalogs in popular portals especially B2B platforms like
www.indiamart.com, www.alibaba.com etc will encourage e-browsing.

Page no. 18
 E-BUYING: In any such process the following things have to be taken care of: a) Provide
e- catalog: Customers go through it to find desired products. b) Configure Solution: If
required, customer can customize the product to suit his requirements. c) Determine
price: depending on the type of product chosen by the customer and the level of
customization, the price should be determined.

 Some of the elements that should be considered for determining the price are: i) Quantity
ii) Distance iii) Product iv) Purchase Amount. Overview: Indiamart created an online
platform, which enabled the global market reach and access for the MSMEs. It bridged
the accessibility gap between the MSMEs and global buyers by creating an online b2b
platform.

 during the initial years after inception, it focused on market building by acting as a
connection between offline customers and offline MSMEs it collected the queries from
different customers by different means like phone, fax etc, and forwarded the same to the
MSMEs in its database, free of cost

 Suppliers rating.
 Delivery and payments.
 Manage queries and buy-sell transactions.
 Directory listing and categorization.
 Maintaining database of suppliers.

 These developed a positive relationship with the MSMEs who didn’t have any
alternative access to the global market place.

Page no. 19
 The subsequent launch of the global platform or the e-hub helped the customers and
MSMEs to connect with each other online to interact, negotiate and conduct actual
transactions.

 Gradually, as the market acceptance and transactions started increasing, it expanded

its value offering by including an extensive range of value added products and
services across various industries and verticals, including apparel and fashion
accessories, auto components and spare parts, medical pharmaceuticals and scientific
equipments, home decor, gift and crafts, engineering and industrial products etc.

 The strategy view of indiamart.com is being evaluated from two perspectives.

 This includes value chain analysis and strategic frame work analysis. Value chain
analysis:

 The value chain analysis for indiamart brings forth the key primary activities are
Setting up infrastructure (Technology and physical setup) The increasing number of
members availing the indiamart platform generated the word of mouth publicity and
created the economies of scale from the larte volume of transactions conducted
online between MSMEs.

 Setting up technology and operational benchmarks.

 Focus on product, process and business model innovation.

Page no. 20
 Generating leads for suppliers: Every month IndiaMART.com generates over 250,000
leads from buyers in the form of buy requirements. Ad Words plays an important role to
generate these leads. In Q2 2014, IndiaMART.com added dynamic remarketing to its
marketing mix in Ad Words.

 The company chose dynamic remarketing for its ability to re- engage buyers with
personalized messages, increase the conversion rates for its display ads, increase lead
volume and meet a target cost-per-lead.

 These, in turn, help the company build lasting customer relationships. Using dynamic
remarketing best practices: India MART followed a number of bestpractices to set up its
dynamic ads to show relevant products to past site visitors.

 This involved implementing remarketing tags, a product feed, a dynamic ad template and
conversion tracking. IndiaMART’s remarketing tags, product feed and dynamic ad
template were set up together to ensure that ads reaching past site visitors would be
personalized based on the products and company web properties each had visited.

 In addition, IndiaMART prepared to optimize for conversions by setting up conversion

tracking, critical to facilitating the full lead generation power of dynamic remarketing.
The level of personalization in the ads built upon IndiaMART’s 18 years of experience in
the B2B segment

Page no. 21
 On the IndiaMART platform, the company already segmented suppliers and products on
various parameters in order to offer suggestions to buyers. Dynamic ads allowed the
company to apply this in-house expertise to showcase the most relevant products among
a catalog of over 10 million products. This has significantly increased the satisfaction
level of users and even increased its Net Promoter Score.

 Step 1 - Visit http://my.indiamart.com

 Step 2 - Sign In with your e-mail id and password
 Step 3 - Go to Trade Offers .

 IndiaMart.com After completing the dynamic remarketing set-up in just three weeks,
IndiaMART started running dynamic ads with a manual bid strategy focused on clicks.

 Within a few weeks it had enough conversion history to change the bid strategy to
optimize for conversions.

 Buy Leads: Buy Leads is a centralized enquiry system that brings globally spread
genuine business leads to your doorstep. And thus enables you to reach out to the
authentic buyers quickly and easily.

 It also helps you review your buying pattern, your transaction history and your purchased
Buy Leads.

 Buy Leads section allows you to manage all your buy leads activity efficiently with easy-
to-use interface. EasySteps to Receive MostRelevantTrade Alert.

 Step 4 - You may here add / remove categories.

 Manage Your Trade Alerts & keywords.

Page no. 22
 TransactionHistory: This section allows you to check your entire buy leads transaction
history with some basic information such as transaction date, description, summary, total
amount paid, credit purchased, credit used and balance credit.

 Check your buy leads transaction history instantly Listings: This section helps you to
review your company and product listing. Here, you can check if your company or
products are listed in the right categories.

 It also allows you to update or suggest changes in your listing and helps you promote
products and company across multiple *s all over IndiaMART.com network. Buy leads is
application created by indiamart for the buyers through trade alerts. For that it provides
listings to the buyers, most of all it contains with directory listing and categorization of
products and MSME buyers.

 B2B exchanges are online marketplaces for businesses to buy and sell goods and
services from other businesses. They can create customer-driven value chains that
substantially reduce costs for both buyer and seller and better align the entire supply
chain with the customer’s needs.

 View transaction specific to particular date and amount.

 Help you to review your buy leads purchasing pattern  View your current credit
balance and purchased history.

 Wholesale Suppliers. Then premium listings started for suppliers who were willing to
shell out more money for better visibility. Next, Indiamart created a paper lead system,

Page no. 23
 wherein a buyer enquiry is verified by call center employees and then enquiry is sold to
suppliers for credits.

 As competition grew, so did the revenues which added up to Rs 150 crore during last
financial year. Most online ventures, apart from pure-play Small scale industries. 
SME’s Exporters or Manufacturers IndiaMart.com

 Target Audience - Business Types.

 24 online models like Face book, Twitter or Yahoo have substantial offline
operations, which is the hardest bit to crack.

 Indiamart established 75 offices across major cities with a staff of 3,000, out of a
total of 3,500 employees, just reaching out to SMEs. "Internet is only the medium,
business is largely offline. Business model.

 The company followed a Freemium (free + premium) business model, where it

offered certain services for free to the MSMEs and charged for the registration fee
for the premium services. This approachhelped to build awareness and acceptance
among the MSMEs, especially those who are not willing to avail the fee based
services without seeing the results. The free registration on indiamart enabled the
MSMEs to get an online presence and access to global market.

 Once the MSME felt happy and found value in having presence with India mart,
they had the option of upgrading themselves for a paid membership, which
entitled them an access to premium services like web catalogues, priority listing
and trusted seal rating. The company also introduce pay per lead model to the
Page no. 24
 MSMEs which provided the facility of choosing relevant business lead at India
mart website with nominal amount and continuing the same. The platform will
also avail support.

 A conservative estimate by the company reveals B2B transactions worth Rs 1,200 crores
through the portal in the current year, resulting from estimated 3000 online auction deals.
In addition, IndiaMART is confident of achieving at least 2,500 online0 catalogues of
member businesses on the portal by the end of the year, making IndiaMART.com the
largest Indian B2B portal, not far behind those largest in the world.

IndiaMART.com offers products that enable small & medium size businesses generate
business leads (online catalogs/store-fronts), establish their credibility (third party
verified trust profile) and use business information (finance, news, trade shows, tenders)
for their business promotion. India mart’s space creation for Indian suppliers in global
market.

 Auction: The new auction platform offers suppliers to register online and list their
inventory for auction on an annual subscription basis. Based on English Auction, the
seller decides on the Reserve Price, the Minimum Bid Price, Bid Increment amount etc.
for an item. Interested global buyers on the other hand, can bid on the items listed for
auction free of cost after going through the product information online.

Page no. 25
 Participating sellers and buyers can easily track their auctions online, and once an
auction is timed out, the seller is introduced to the winner of the auction to complete the
transaction. Through auction, it will now offer a more direct and interactive trading and
negotiation platform to fuel online trade across countries as well as locally. "Our new
online platform offering B2B catalogues, auctions, trade offers and other online business
support services will bring online the 'action' that was so far being initiated at
IndiaMART.com, but being finalized offline in the form of a transaction. Through online
B2B auctions, whereby sellers will get the highest price for their inventory and buyers
will be able to interact with multiple sellers at the same time for their business
requirements. Such e-marketplaces make B2B sourcing process highly efficient,
especially for industrial and international buyers.

 India MART intends to leverage this potential in favour of the large SME segment in
India engaged in exports by bringing to them global business opportunities. The success
of the B2B auction portal can be gauged from the fact form its introduction in Dec 2001
it has already earned through commissions Rs. 0.48 lakh for the last financial year. Most
of the people have their own sizing, colours, quality parameters and the deals are not in
few thousand rupees but mostly in few Lac Rupees.

 Buyers and sellers have to talk 5-10 times before they can settle on a price. For example,
if there’s an offer to buy 50,000 pairs of socks – there someone is going to make a pitch
that I can offer you one variety in 30 days for 1$, another for $1.25 or this kind for $1.3
etc, depending on quality and size.

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 So the price discovery would not take place on a B2B Market Exchange. But India mart
facilitate buyer and supplier discovery, and whether they do business depends on their
requirements. ICT usage is imperative for seamless business operations. Thus, the 'Free
for SMEs' conference would elaborate on the ICT applications and tools which are
economical and effective for different business divisions, resulting into higher efficiency
and productivity of SMEs. The conference would have eminent speakers including
thought leaders, entrepreneurs, etc. deliberate on the subject. IAMAI has started an
aggressive drive to recruit start-ups as members.

 It is a part of their long-term strategy to include all stake-holders in the digital space such
as telecom operators, venture funds, ISPs in addition to its existing constituency of online
and mobile value added services companies within its ambit. IndiaMART.com and
IAMAI had organized this first-of-its-kind conference 'ICT for SMEs' last year as well to
focus on technology-driven growth avenues for the SME sector. The hugely successful
conference was attended by over 300 stakeholders from the ICT and SME sector.

 The distinguished guests had applauded the conference for the thoughtful theme
selection and fillip intended for the SMEs through the same. This year too, the conference
shall synergize ways for SMEs to reach out to a larger base of buyers while running their
business functions optimally.

 Company has been working very closely with SMEs in order to bring them online and
also help them gauge benefits of the online medium for their business. We have been
organizing conferences and seminars in association with bodies such as IAMAI [Internet
and Mobile Association of India] and TiE, among others. These conferences have seen
strong SME attendance.

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 Company has been participating in about 260 domestic and international trade events and
tries to facilitate B2B matchmaking through these trade forums, which triggers business
networking and knowledge sharing. And the online marketplace kept a strong offline
self- promotion agenda too as they participated in 200 different trade fairs in India and
across the world each year to collect more yet suppliers and buyers.

 IndiaMART.com join hands with tenders.hellotrade.com for offering Worldwide

Tenders Information to you. Any of our members from all across the globe can subscribe
to this service and avail the benefits.

 This service keeps you updated with the latest Global Tender Notices, International
Project News, Expression on Interest (EOI), Request for Quotation (RFQ), Request for
Information (RFI), Pre-qualifications & any corrigendum issued by different
Government, Public or Private organizations from all over the world. We have a database
comprising of more than 175,000 global business opportunities and 3000 new tenders are
uploaded every day.

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 Conclusions

 Tenders are categorized up to micro level to save your time.

 Over 3000 new business opportunities classified every day.

 Promote their brand and conduct business world Search Specialoffer for
IndiaMART.commembers Flat 25% discounton any subscription plan of 1 year
period for any country or industry.

 Assists buyers and sellers to trade with each other at a common.

 Explore hidden Markets.

 Cost Effective & Lead Time
 Include a range of business solutions such as payment gateway, travel deals,
recruitment solutions, ERP solutions et al. & Reduce Marker Time.

 Paper records are completely eliminated from office management in E-

commerce because every transaction is recorded in the computer.

 E-commerce charges entire procedure of marketing management because the

attractive presentation of the products on the website and one operator on the
company computer is enough to carry on the transaction and he is sufficient to
effect sales.

 In information management receiving the feedback, suggestions, corrections,

complaints are to be processed and proper forwarding of this information is to
be undertaken for its accurate interpretation and submitting it for the decision
making.

 The use of E-commerce has changed the entire procedure of business in E-

commerece because the computers, internet connection, attractive and
informative websites are the new additions in any business.

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o Recommendations / Suggestions

 Therefore the suggestions provided in this chapter are clarifying the prospects of E - commerce.

1. Management should improve its knowledge about E - commerce process.

2. To give the training and information to customers for E - commerce process and
operating an E - commerce site.

3. To develop employee's managements skills.

4. To improve the co-ordination of producers, dealers and customers.

5. To give the quick online support to customers.

6.The similar study can be undertaken in the other companies or more companies.

7. The research can be done with a longer period.

8. Govt. Should take initiatives to spread awareness about Ecommerce in rural areas.

9. Specific strategies and programmes should be undertaken in order to create confidence

in common people so that they can freely make use of E-commerce

Page no. 30
 Limitations of the Study

 Lack of available and/or reliable data -- a lack of data or of reliable data will likely
require you to limit the scope of your analysis, the size of your sample, or it can be a
significant obstacle in finding a trend and a meaningful relationship.

 Possible Methodological Limitations

 Self-reported data -- whether you are relying on pre-existing data or you are conducting a
qualitative research study and gathering the data yourself, self-reported data is limited by
the fact that it rarely can be independently verified. In other words, you have to take what
people say, whether in interviews, focus groups, or on questionnaires, at face value.
However, self-reported data can contain several potential sources of bias that you should
be alert to and note as limitations.

 These biases become apparent if they are incongruent with data from other sources.
These are selective memory [remembering or not remembering experiences or events that
occurred at some point in the past.

 telescoping recalling events that occurred at one time as if they occurred at another
time attribution [the act of attributing positive events and outcomes to one's own agency,
but attributing negative events and outcomes to external forces and exaggeration the act
of representing outcomes or embellishing events as more significant than is actually
suggested from other data].

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 References
 Google.in
 Wikipedia.com
 www.Indiamart.in

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