Lessons from the Indian e-commerce market.

Byline: Mehwish Aslam

Although Pakistan and India have a difference in infrastructure and regulations, the overview of the e-commerce economy in India can serve as a case study when applied to Pakistan. According to reports the digital payment market of India accounted for almost Rs 2,162 trillion during 2019 till 2020. The current base of unique mobile payment users were almost 160 million, which will increase 5 times more by the year 2025 to reach the 800 million target.

When talking about statistics for Pakistan, the Internet banking users were up to 3,983,235 while the Mobile Phone Banking users were 8,451,997 in total. It is expected that the 1,707 e-commerce merchants that registered with banks are to increase to a total of almost 2,164 by 2021. Although there is still considerable amount of potential as both markets are in the developing stage. Although Pakistan has a small number of phone banking users, they still were able to bring about a 23 percent increase in volume and 25 percent increase in value since the number of e-banking transactions increased.

When we talk about the many factors that fuel the retail market growth in India, we reflect on the Internet penetration in the country has increased, which led to more international retailers to start operating in India and the share of the organized retail market is expected to increase from 12 to 25 percent from 2017-2021. Flagship initiatives and initiatives like Start-up India and Digital India have been made to boost the...