INTRODUCTION: E-commerce stands for electronic commerce and pertains to trading in goods and services through the electronic

medium, i.e. the Internet or phone. On the Internet, it pertains to a website, which sells products or services directly from the site using a shopping cart or shopping basket system and allows credit card payments. E-COMMERCE IN INDIA TODAY Today E-commerce is a byword in Indian society and it has become an integral part of our daily life. There are websites providing any number of goods and services. Then there are those, which provide a specific product along with its allied services. FACILITATORS OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA: 1. INFORMATION DIRECTORIES: Portals like http://www.trade-india.com/ and http://trade.indiamart.com/maintain directories giving trade details on almost any topic, whether it is from apparel to toys, from gems to heavy machinery, or from food to employment. The products and services are listed with appropriate sub-headings to make it easy for a serious information-seeker to find what he wants. Some other similar sites are http://www.indiagrid.com/, http://indiainfo.com/, andhttp://in.indiatimes.com/. Allied services provided by them: Message boards, chat rooms, forums, etc. 2. BANKS: a. Netbanking/phone banking: This is an online banking facility available for savings account holders as well as current account holders. Some of the special Netbanking services are:

Demat accounts for sale/purchase of stocks and shares Foreign Exchange services Direct/Instant payment of bills on the account-holders behalf Financial Planning & advice Electronics Funds Transfer Loans to account-holders NRI servicesand more.

b. Credit/Debit Cards: Banks facilitate E-commerce by providing the most vital trade instrument, namely the Credit or Debit Card, without which E-commerce would be impossible. Some of the major Indian players in this field

are:http://www.hdfcbank.com/, http://www.icicibank.com/ andhttp://www.statebankofindia.com/ . POTENTIAL OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA: Microsoft Research India was inaugurated in January 2005 in Bangalore, as the sixth MSR laboratory in the world. The arrival of a giant like Microsoft itself speaks of Indias potential as a world-player in the field of Information Technology and e-commerce; and others will soon follow. Indian researchers and technicians can further the fast emerging world of E-commerce in India and take it to greater heights. The dawn of the Internet era opened up amazing new possibilities and e-commerce has emerged as a perfect amalgamation of technology and marketing acumen. India has joined the bandwagon and the numbers themselves do all the talking. The latest statistics reveal that India has been reported to have 70 million active Internet users, the count rising exponentially by the minute. However, markets involve intricate interactions involving a variety of business/organisational factors, general economic and social trends. And the actual scope of growth in e-commerce cant be evaluated without taking into consideration the aforementioned factors. For such doubts to be remedied, one may take notice of the recent industry reports. One such report, shared by ASSOCHAM, estimated the online retail industry to touch Rs 7,000 crore by 2015 (rising from the current Rs 2000 crore), with an annual growth rate of 35 per cent. Adding on to this, IAMI has facilitated data to indicate a zoom in Indias ecommerce sector, with transactions rising 50 per cent annually. Online retailing or e-tailing, which accounts for about 6 per cent of the Rs 46,000 crore industry, has taken the forefront of this rapid growth. Such strong current indications to massive changes, occurring across the entire business spectrum, have already wiped out doubts about the scope of e-commerce in India. The expanse of the tremendous ambit for the growth of Internet marketing in India being clear now, it can conveniently be stated that marketing through the Internet can be an extremely potent ball game. With copious amount of literature, thousands of articles and multiple studies conducted around ecommerce, it undoubtedly is the new mantra in the world of marketing. In justification to the aforementioned statement, there is practically no dearth of e-tailing portals and deal websites floating in the market at this moment. The basic explanation to such a boom lies in the fact that e-tail has surfaced as a boon to both the sellers and the consumers. It has garnered significant attention from consumers due to the convenience of shopping. The need to physically visit stores has, in some cases, been eliminated. Instead, you can just sit at home and order, easily browse through a host of products, conveniently compare prices and avail the best deal. Its all about saving on precious time, energy, money and get what you desire. On the flip side, it has succeeded in pleasing the sellers by providing a faster buying/selling procedure, resulting in saving a lot of time. Now, products can be made available for purchase and sold around the clock. This also provides a wider reach, defying all theoretical geographic limitations in reaching out to customers. Sellers have shown remarkable enthusiasm for this system as their need to continuously augment and keep abreast of customer expectations and desires is aptly catered to.

Not long ago, when the concept was newly induced in the Indian markets (first put to practice by companies like Dell), the average Indian was sceptical. While the west comfortably transacted and shopped through Amazon.com and eBay, the Indian markets still went after the touch-andfeel of physical products, opulent showrooms, salespersons with good etiquette and liquid transactions. But over the time, with a number of payment gateways coming into the picture and making e-transactions effortless and trouble-free and curbing security threats, people have grown comfortable with e-shopping. This to the extent that today, four out of five Internet users shop or do their pre-shopping research online, thus recording 13.5 million customers of consumer products and outnumbering 8.5 million customers of travel products. Customers today are hooked to online shopping and are not even fighting shy of deal sizes that cross Rs 20,000-Rs 25,000 while earlier, they hardly went up till Rs 2,000. Industry figures suggest that the soaring numbers in the e-commerce space are driven by the young blood and these are expected to grow tenfold, being pushed by the Gen Z. The most sought after categories for these buyers currently are: mobile & accessories, computer hardware & consumer electronics and travel products like train and air tickets. However, plenty of competition has been observed in the e-commerce market. With countless congruent e-commerce players, the winners will be those who will be able to provide a delightful experience across the entire ecosystem, will have robust business models and can scale quickly. Their reward will be to take a healthy share of the $100 billion industry in the next few years. E-commerce is the new mantra, building a splendid crescendo of excitement, and it definitely has a long way to go. Bottom of Form Barriers to Ecommerce in India Some of the infrastructural barriers responsible for slow growth of eCommerce in India are as follows. Some of these even present new business opportunities. A. Payment Collection: When get paid by net banking one has to end up giving a significant share of revenue (4% or more) even with a business of thin margin. This effectively means y parting away with almost half of profits. Fraudulent charges, charge backs etc. all become merchants responsibility and hence to be accounted for in the business model. B. Logistics: You have to deliver the product, safe and secure, in the hands of the right guy in right time frame. Regular post doesnt offer an acceptable service level; couriers have high charges and limited reach. Initially, you might have to take insurance for high value shipped articles increasing the cost. C. Vendor Management: However advanced system may be, vendor will have to come down and deal in an inefficient system for inventory management. This will slow down drastically. Most of them wont carry anydigital data for their products. No nice looking photographs, no digital data sheet, no mechanism to check for daily prices, availability to keep your site updated. D. Taxation: Octroi, entry tax, VAT and lots of state specific forms which accompany them. This can be confusing at times with lots of exceptions and special rules. E. Limited Internet access among customers and SMEs

F. Poor telecom and infrastructure for reliable connectivity G. Multiple gaps in the current legal and regulatory framework H. Multiple issues of trust and lack of payment gateways: privacy of personal and business data connected over the Internet not assured; security and confidentiality of data not in place. 9. Future of E-Commerce in India Today, we are talking about e-commerce progress level of India, the seventh-largest by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populousdemocracy in the world. Indian eCommerce space percentage is getting higher as more and more online retailers enter the market. Although this level of entry in the e-commerce market is good from a long term perspective, the challenge is that most entrepreneurs dont have the resources or capital to wait for years before they can get profits.The past 2 years have seen a rise in the number of companies' embracing e-commerce technologies and the Internet in India. Most e-commerce sites have been targeted towards the NRI's with Gift delivery services, books, Audio and videocassettes e.t.c. Major Indian portal sites have also shifted towards e-commerce instead of depending on advertising revenue. The web communities built around these portal sites with content have been effectively targeted to sell everything from event and movie tickets the grocery and computers. This is not to say that the e-commerce scenario has been bad in India as highly successful e-business like baba bazaar and India mart have proved. Indian Banks too have been very successful in adapting EC and EDI Technologies to provide customers with real time account status, transfer of funds between current and checking accounts, stop payment facilities. ICICI Bank, Global TRUST BANK AND UTI-Bank also have put their electronic banking over the internet facilities in place for the up coming e-commerce market speed post also plain to clone the federal express story with online package status at any moment in time . The future does look very bright for e-commerce in India with even the stock exchanges coming online providing a online stock portfolio and status with a fifteen minute delay in prices. The day cannot be far when with RBI regulations will able to see stock transfer and sale over the Net with specialized services. Conclusion A developing country can become industrialized and modernized if it can extensively apply IT to enhance productivity and international competitiveness, develop ecommerce and e-governance applications. An information-based society or knowledge based society is composed of IT products, IT applications in society and economy as a whole. Many countries in Asia are taking advantage of e-commerce through opening of economies, which is essential for promoting competition and diffusion of Internet technologies. Large enough to have a critical mass of 10 to 20 million users to be able to make an impact on e-commerce and e-governance. In the next 3 to 5 years, India will have 30 to 70 million Internet users which will equal, if not surpass, many of the developed countries. Internet economy will then become more meaningful in India. With the rapid expansion of internet, ecommerce, is set to play a very important role in the 21stcentury, the new opportunities that will be thrown open, will be accessible to both large corporations and small companies. The role of government is to provide a legal framework for E Commerce so that while domestic andinternational trade are allowed to expand their horizons, basic rights

suchas privacy, intellectual property, prevention of fraud, consumer protection etc are all taken care of.