‘Growth mindset, communication in local languages key to building eCommerce for Bharat’

The two-day e4m TechManch 2023 conference featured a panel discussion revolving around a conversation about the surging demand for e-commerce in Bharat. This surge is being driven by the ongoing increase in smartphone adoption, improved digital literacy, affordable data access, and escalating aspirations among the population.

The discussion titled ‘Building ecommerce for Bharat’ was chaired by Ahmed Aftab Naqvi, Global CEO and Co-Founder, GOZOOP Group. The panelists included Mansi Khattar, Head Ecommerce, Nestle, Divyesh Shah, VP Engineering, Meesho, Priyanka Gandhi, Associate Director and Head, Integrated Marketing Communications and Ecommerce Marketing, Colgate Palmolive, Sugosh Iyer, General Manager- Digital Marketing, E-commerce, Aditya Birla Grasim Industries, Tejas Chaudhari, Performance Marketing Lead- Ecommerce, Unilever and Karan Gupta, Senior Vice-President, Moglix.

Naqvi opened the discussion by inviting Khattar to talk about the recent behavioural pattern of consumers in Bharat. She replied, “From a consumer understanding or behavioural perspective on an ecommerce, ultimately what varies is the trust factor. They are coming more and more online however is it translating to a shopping mission or online shopping experience? Not as much. Online shopping is still only 30% of the total people penetrated.”

“From a shopper perspective, the quick pattern that we have seen is that it is mainly driven by convenience, combined with a balancing of value-seeking behaviour and that is what really defines Bharat. So, how do you speak to me in my language and offer me value, in terms of price or value in terms of your brand or benefits? That is broadly some of the key things you see driving Bharat today when it comes to eCommerce,” she added.

Discussing the closing gap between urban and rural consumers, Gandhi mentioned, “There is rising income, rising aspirations and ecommerce is, of course, leading to democratisation of availability. So, there is a wider set of product choices available to people. Let’s assume Bharat is tier 2-3 cities. Suddenly they have access and awareness about a lot of brands and products coupled with the fact that there is way more social media consumption, which is giving them a lot of exposure and opening up their mind. There is a desire and an ability to try new products.”

“There are three primary challenges/issues here. One is around addresses, how do you actually get to the right customer address, how do you figure that out when address specification is not great,” Shah said, talking about the problems arising with last-mile delivery. “The other problem is around attribution when things don't go well. When the order doesn't show up, when issues happen, when it’s late, how do you solve that?”

He enlisted RTO (return to origin) as the third challenge. “The user isn't at home multiple times, that location is not given by the system or sometimes users choose not to receive the package. So one needs to get sharper on address, sharper on the share of pre-paid orders because your commitment is much higher when you actually paid online versus when you have chosen COD as a delivery mechanism. So how can you make pre-paid a much more attractive option is something that helps here as well.”

Replying to Naqvi’s question ‘what innovative strategies is Unilever driving across Bharat for e-commerce’, Chaudhari said, “Inherently changing our content, keeping up to what shoppers are searching is one bit that we try to do. During the festive season, typically we have content which is vernacular in nature to reach out to the shoppers. The second thing is that a lot of platforms are innovating, and we partner with them faster. So that's our strategy, because we don't want to reinvent the wheel, we just want to steal and go ahead.”

Taking the session forward, Gupta enlisted three major areas of innovation that Bharat will drive. One is the emergence of one or more local brands which bridge the gap between top-tier brands and local brands. Two, change the delivery versus payment issue and thirdly communicate in local languages. “What Bharat will make us do is local communication, whether it's based on your local language, whether it's from an influencer who lives in your area. It will bridge the trust gap between these companies that sit in Bombay and Delhi and speak in English. So, if I need to trust them and buy from them instead of my local kirana, I need to have somebody I already trust make that gap for me.”

Agreeing with Gupta’s point on how the delivery timing and low trust on delivery and COD cancellations are a problem, Iyer elaborated, “We launched our brand Navyasa 14 months back and decided to bring in innovative opportunities on the website through customer data platform as the website was a critical part of online shopping. A CDP helps us target across users across different journey points in the funnel , thus helping us move the consumer closer to purchase and conversion."

Moving forward, Gandhi shared Colgate Palmolive’s strategies and challenges. “What I do see, as something that we will have to solve for, is when you go really deep down into rural and small towns, we may have to look at what is our supply chain model for faster supply of products to the customers as this thing evolves.”

Khattar highlighted, “India is multiple Indias together. So, how we really leverage personalization of content to speak to the consumer in the language that he wants to do is an innovation that we really need for this industry to unlock. Another important thing is we keep saying this consumer has affordability as a challenge. A big unlock, for organizations like us who have traditionally been dependent on mass distribution, is how do I reach out with my premium portfolio to this part of the market without having the risks of bad goods on mass distribution in such markets.”

Gupta also talked about how Bharat needs a lot of communication. “The core thing that we have learned and we have incorporated into our process is an increased velocity of communication with our consumer and informing him or her of every single step that I am doing and not being surprised if that communication is still not getting through.”

Chaudhari explained, “There are two types of platforms, we broadly classify, one who are on an acquisition spree, who have money to burn. There we partner for acquisition of new consumers. We play hard on our core portfolio, which basically we are strong at. And there are certain platforms which are consolidating or focusing on profitability. There we try to upsell our premium portfolio or regimes or kits and combos so that our loyal shoppers are rewarded with a bigger chunk.”

Concluding the session, Naqvi said, “One sentiment that comes out is to have a growth mindset, to have a startup mindset at heart while building for Bharat.”