Among the mobile phones, tablets, clothes and jewellery listed on Indian e-commerce Web site eBay was an unusual item up for sale last week.
A seller had listed a “milk giving black young buffalo, 20 litres per day.” The “Item condition” was described as “Used.” Delivery would be free, by national courier. There was even a seven days' exchange offer thrown in.
Rural penetration
Only a few visitors to the site got a glimpse of this delightful listing before it was pulled down by the company, as animals, including livestock, are prohibited from being sold on eBay under the company's Seller Policy.
eBay India did not want to talk about where the listing was posted from as the company did not want “a prohibited item to portray the rural penetration” that the Web site has made. However, the fact is that awareness of e-commerce has grown to the extent that a livestock-owner somewhere in the country chose to put up his buffalo for sale on an e-commerce Web site. The bid price started at Rs 36,000, the buffalo costing as much as some of the very high end mobile phones on the Web site.
“That was clearly a one-off thing, but really indicative” (of the reach of e-commerce today), said Mr Abhimanyu Lal, head of Category Management at eBay India.
He says eBay is accessed by 99 million users in India across 3,311 locations; of these 1,267 of these locations are classified as rural areas.
Key driver
Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities are now firmly on the eCommerce map, and currently the key driver is access to products not available in those smaller places, said eBay citing from a market survey it had done for 2011. One out of every 10 purchases made on eBay, and one out of every 20 sales made on the site, is from rural India. Tier 2 and tier 3 cities contribute 40 per cent of transactions on the Web site and rural India 9 per cent.
Many small places do not have retail points for various lifestyle items and rural India tends to buy these things on the Net. Electronics sells very well in the North-East, for example, said Mr Lal.
In fact, consumption is rising so fast that distribution is not able to keep up.
eCommerce presents a great medium to overcome distribution inefficiencies, said Mr Lal.
Wireless Internet and further maturity of logistics networks would accelerate the growth of rural eCommerce. There are several small businessmen and entrepreneurs who are selling their products and even exporting them through eBay, said Mr Lal.