Northern India Engineering College

FC-26, Shastri Park, N.Delhi-53

A research on e-
commerce on India
And research
agenda for the
future

Submitted by:
Nitin Kishan Sharma
MCA IIIrd Year
Enroll No- 0771564408
Code-MCA 331 Project

GURU GOBIND SINGH

 INDRAPRASTHA UNIVERSITY
KASHMERE GATE, DELHI
Abstract
Firms across the globe have adopted e-commerce (EC) in
their operations
and have reaped benefits thereof. While firms in
technologically developed countries like US and UK has
deployed EC to its advantage, whereas firms in developing
countries like India failed to follow the suit. Though it has
been widely acknowledged by the researchers that the
adoption of EC by businesses in developing countries is an
important economic indicator of growth; many firms in India
still have not realized the potential benefits of EC. This study
examines the existing status of EC in India and reviews the
available literature on E-commerce adoption in India and
puts forth opportunities for future research. The study might
serve as a starting point for further research in e-commerce
in India.

Keywords

E-commerce adoption · E-commerce in India · E-commerce

literature
review · E-commerce research agenda
1 Introduction

With the advent of Internet and its commercialization since

1994 [28, 29] a new medium of commerce popularly known
as ‘E-Commerce (EC)’ rapidly emerged in the modern global
economy. E-commerce can be defined as “the use of the
Internet and other networking technologies for conducting
business transactions” [39]. Further, EC not only involves
selling and buying online but it also involves a host of
activities spanning the firm’s value chain like promotion of
product/services on the web, integrating invoicing and
payment from customers, secure transactions, and handling
customer queries online. In short, EC is an umbrella concept
to integrate a wide
range of existing and new applications [17, 43].Based on the
type of applications; EC can be classified into three
categories;
1. Inter-organizational (B2B)
2. Intra-organizational (within business) and
3. Business to Customer (B2C)
Inter-organizational EC or Business to Business (B2B) EC can
be defined as marketlink transaction in which businesses,
governments, and other organizations depend on computer-
to-computer communications as a fast, an economical, and a
dependable way to conduct business transactions.
Intra-organizational EC can be defined as market-driven
transactions in which company becomes market driven by
dispersing throughout the firm’s information about its
customers and competitors; by spreading strategic and
tactical decision making so that all units can participate; and
by continuously
monitoring their customers’ commitment by making
improved customer satisfaction as an ongoing objective.
Business to Customer (B2C) EC can be defined as market-
place transaction in which customers learn about products
differently through electronic publishing, buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment
systems, and have them delivered differently. This study
deals with EC adoption in general which includes all the
three types of application of EC. Internet users across the
world have been increasing ever since its beginning in late
eighties (refer Table 1) enabling many EC applications
online. Though Internet has diffused profusely and has
brought a paradigm shift in the way of conducting
businesses across the globe, the diffusion of e-commerce is
not uniform among developed and developing countries. A
cursory glance at Table 2 will
reveal that though developing countries like China and India
lead in terms of number of Internet users the Internet
penetration among population in developing countries is
very low when compared to the developed countries such as
USA or Canada. As a result of the high Internet penetration
among its population, the developed countries are able to
deploying EC to its advantages, whereas developing
countries are still trailing far behind. Apart from this, other
issues such as lack of technology infrastructure, lack of
awareness, lack of skilled human resources, and the lack of
government initiatives, including various economical and
social factors are cited as hurdles that prevent pervasive EC
adoption in developing countries. On the flip side of it, some
firms in developing countries do adopt EC in spite of the
hurdles mentioned above. This study examines the status of
EC existing in India and examines the available literature on
E-commerce adoption in India and puts forth opportunities
for future research.
2 Internet and E-Commerce
development in India

The Republic of India is the fourth largest economy, with US$

3 trillion GDP in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) after
USA, China, and Japan.1 It is the seventh largest country in
the world and covers an area of 3.3 million Sq km. India has
a population of 1.028 billion in 2001, with an annual growth
rate of 1.6 percent in 20082 and the population as on July
2008 is 1.15 billion (exact figures—1,147,995,904). India has
28 states and 7 union territories. As of 2008, the GDP per
capita (PPP) of the country stood at US$ 2900.3 In terms of
GDP-composition by sector, services sector contribute 56%,
agriculture sector and Industry sector contribute 22% each.
Indian economy’s Real GDP growth (on an expenditure basis)
is forecast to slow from an estimated 7.8% in fiscal year
2007/2008 (April–March) to an annual average of 7.5% in
2008/2009–2012/2013 (see Table 3).

As per IMRB the cybercafé market has grown at higher rates,

averaging a YoY growth of 45% over the last 5 years. (refer
Table 4.) The size of B2C e-commerce Industry for the year
2006–2007 was computed to be around Rs. 7080 crores. The
market is expected to reach the mark of Rs. 9210 crores by
the end of 2007–2008, a growth of about 30% over the
current year [14].
As per datamonitor report [9], the Indian Internet access
market generated a total revenue of $2.6 billion in 2007,
representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of
38.2% for the period spanning 2003–2007. In comparison,
the Chinese and Japanese markets grew with CAGRs of
19.7% and 18.7%, respectively, over the same period, to
reach respective values of $14.1 billion and $13.7 billion in
2007. Further, the market consumption volumes have
increased with a CAGR of 55.7% between 2003 and 2007, to
reach a total of 108.7 million users in 2007. The market’s
volume is expected to rise to 322.4 million users by the end
of 2012, representing a
CAGR of 24.3% for the 2007–2012 period. It is further
estimated that India generates a 6.3% share of the Asia-
Pacific Internet access market. In comparison the Chinese
market accounts for 33.8% of the regional market revenues.
2http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Census_Data_2001/India_at_
glance/glance.aspx. Accessed on 10th February,
2008.
3https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/in.html. Accessed February 2009.

4http://www.trai.gov.in/achievments/achievment.pdf.
Retrieved January 2008.
5Definition: The term “Information and Communication
Technologies” (ICT) refers to technologies designed to
access, process and transmit information. ICT encompass a
full range of technologies—from traditional, widely used
devices such as radios, telephones or TV, to more
sophisticated tools like computers or the Internet. The mix of
technologies used should be determined mainly by the
specific local context
and demand.
6NASSCOM stands for National Association for Software and
Services Companies. NASSCOM® is the
premier trade body and the chamber of commerce of the IT-
ITeS industries in India.
7http://www.nasscom.in/Nasscom/templates/NormalPage.as
px?id=53404. Retrieved 14th February
2008—The Strategic Review 2008, NASSCOM Report.
8http://www.nasscom.in.Source: NASSCOM, Indian IT
Industry—Fact Sheet, February 2007 related service exports
(NASSCOM definition of ICT related services includes
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services, Information
Technology (IT) software and services) grew by 34.6 per cent
(CAGR) annually between 2000 and 2006, from US$ 4 billion
to US$ 23.6 billion respectively. It is estimated that the
export value could reach US$ 60 billion in 2010. Gartner
industry research firm has estimated India’s Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) market to reach $24.3
billion by 2011, with an annual growth of 20.3 per cent.
9 With the positive climate for ICT growth, India is struggling
to make inroads in terms of successful EC adoption. Hence it
is very important for a developing country like India to
examine the issues encompassing EC adoption, which would
help the widespread adoption of EC across the country and
reap the benefits there of.
3 Literature review

Firms across the world have implemented EC and have

reaped the benefits that accrued due to the EC adoption.
Some of the benefits include improvements in operational
efficiency and revenue generation by integrating e-
commerce into their value chain activities [5], access to
wider range of markets [4, 12, 13, 32], greater potential for
partnership with suppliers and vendors [18, 38], improved
customer services [2, 6, 38], 24 * 7 accessibility [10, 23],
flexibility in administration and partnership [4], information
update [3, 33, 38], lower transaction costs [2, 7, 25, 38],
product/service differentiation [4, 6, 19], ability to enter
supply chain of larger companies [11, 19], so on and so
forth. Though adoption of EC provides various benefits as
mentioned above and also, it has been widely acknowledged
that the adoption of EC by businesses in developing
countries is an important economic indicator of growth [26,
40], many firms in the developing countries like India, China
or South Africa still have not realized the potential benefits
of EC.

3.1 Review of EC adoption literature in India

Keyword search on “E-Commerce adoption in India” “e-
business in India”
“E-Commerce and India” and “e-business and India” in
various databases like EBSCO, ProQuest, and Emerald
Management Xtra found the following ten e-Commerce/e-
business research articles done in Indian context. Table 6
provides overview of the studies discussed below.
Raven et al. [30] compared India and
China’s approaches in adoption of e-business. Based on the
literature survey and secondary data, the study analyzed
various factors influencing the growth of e-businesses in the
two countries. The factors examined include government
policy and focus, existing technology infrastructure
regulatory environment, experience and understanding of
business operations, and culture, among others. The study
concludes that China appears to be ahead of
9http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india-tech-market-pegged-at-
243-bln-by-2011-gartner/58372-11.html.
India in the infrastructure, but India is ahead
in e-readiness. Further, it states that both countries are
poised for rapidly increasing e-business, however, problems
of poverty and inequality between urban and rural
connectivity must be resolved to really take advantage of e-
business in both the countries.
Malhotra and Singh [24] studied the
determinants of Internet banking adoption by banks in India.
Panel data of 88 banks in India covering the financial years
1997–1998 to 2004–2005 was collected through CMIE
(Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) database. Logistic
regression analysis was used, the dependent variable is
categorical
with a value of 1 if a bank adopted Internet banking during
the study period
and 0 otherwise. Independent variables included in the study
are firm size, firm age, bank deposits ratio, average wages,
expenses (fixed assets & premises), ROA (ratio of average
net profits to average assets), market share, average
number of branches, percentage of banks adopted Internet
banking.
The results of the study prove that Bank type
(Private), firm size, bank deposits ratio, firm age, market
share, average number of branches, percentage of banks
adopted Internet banking and expenses, are found
to be significant in adoption decision. Wage and ROA are
found to be insignificant. This study contributes to the
empirical literature on diffusion of financial innovations,
particularly Internet banking in Indian context. Most of the
study on adoption of technology was related to developed
markets like US and Europe, this study is an important
contribution to evolving literature as it dealt the problem of
technology adoption in developing country context.
 Study by Tarafdar and Vaidya [36] examined the
factors that determine the organizational inclination to adopt
E-Commerce (EC). The study proposes a framework based
on the qualitative data on four financial firms in India
collected through multiple case study design. Face to face
interview was used to collect primary data and existing
database, company documents, press reports and websites
are used to collect
secondary data. The framework describes two broad factors
—leadership characteristics and organizational
characteristics—to explain the influence of organizational
factors on the propensity to employ EC technologies. The
study found that both leadership and organizational
characteristic influence EC adoption. It establishes that
leadership characteristics influence adoption of EC
technologies in centralized organization and organizational
characteristics influence EC adoption in de-centralized
organization. The study also found that characteristics of
Information Systems professional
and organization structure influence EC adoption.
Another study by Tarafdar and Vaidya [36],
analyzes organizational and strategic imperatives that
influence Information System (IS) assimilation in Indian
organizations. IS assimilation here refers to the extent to
which a system or technology becomes diffused in
organizational processes. The study is based on multiple
case study method. Data on nine firms which have deployed
IS was collected through face to face structured interview
involving middle managers, senior managers of IS and other
departments. The study examines the nature of the system
present—data processing/transaction oriented, operational,
strategic—and how these systems affected key operational
processes. Strategic imperatives are examined by analyzing
the environmental factors—presence or absence of
government regulation, pressure from customers, suppliers
and competitors, and strategic stance—whether product and
process changes, and the consequent IS deployment were
proactive or reactive.
 Organizational imperatives were investigated by
qualitatively assessing six factors— top management
support; IS department knowledge of business, technology
and involvement in IS deployment, IT literacy of managers,
management style; presence of IT champions and
availability of IT resources. Data was analyzed across-case
and within-case. The study identifies three categories of
organizations—innovative IS users, enlightened IS users and
reluctant IS users—with respect to IS assimilation, and
describes strategic and organizational factors characteristics
of each group. The study also traces the evolution of the IS
application portfolio in each of the studied firms and
analyses accompanying changes in strategic and
organization factors. In short, the paper presents an
integrated and first level analysis of strategic and
organizational imperatives that have influenced the
assimilation and evolution of IS in Indian organizations.
Viswanathan and Pick [42] examined the
issue of e-commerce in India and Mexico from the framework
of developing countries as suggested by Tallon and Kraemer
[34]. The framework included critical factors that might
impact the diffusion of e-commerce. The factors are
government policy, legal framework, technology
infrastructure, relationship with developed economies and
extent of e-commerce usage by individual, corporate and
government. The study’s primary focus is on India. Mexico is
analyzed more briefly, and compared with India based on
common international datasets. The analysis and the data
presented in this paper represent a synthesis of data from
secondary research and data from interviews conducted with
senior executives in the IT industry in India and Mexico. The
study suggests that substantial efforts have to be made to
invest in telecommunications infrastructure, and to create a
culture of electronic payments and e-commerce usage that
will support economic growth.
Lal [22] examined the determinants of the
adoption of e-business technologies by manufacturing firms
in India. Data was collected using questionnaire as survey
instrument on 51 firms located in New Okhla Industrial
Development Area (NOIDA), India. The main objective of the
study is to identify and analyze factors that discriminate
advance users of e-business technologies from others. The
paper used forward stepwise multivariate discriminate
technique to identify the discriminants of three
types of firms, that is, offline, online and portal using firms.
Offline firms include the firms that use electronic mail
systems for business activities, online firms include all the
firms with dynamic web sites capabilities, and portal based
e-business firms are the one that uses latest technology. The
variables used in the analysis include managing directors’
educational qualifications, technology collaboration,
bandwidth, wage rate, firm size, export intensity, profit
margin and perceived usefulness measured by efficiency in
business transaction and competitiveness. Wage rate and
scale
of operations emerged as significant discriminates of
advanced users of e-business technologies. It was also found
that firms that are more internationally oriented utilize high
bandwidth, that is, the study establish positive association
between types of e-business technology used by firms and
bandwidth. Study suggests that in order to boost the
diffusion of Internet, the country should legalize
audio/video/data communication
on existing high frequency medium such as video cables.
Also it suggests
creating proper local, national and global information
infrastructure to derive maximum benefit from Information
Communication and Technology (ICT) revolution.
 Kuthiala [20] discusses the opportunities and
challenges that India faces in adoption of e-commerce. The
study is exploratory in nature and based on secondary data
obtained from various sources. It outlines the prospects of e-
commerce adoption and potential gains that India can make
in the global business by e-commerce adoption. It discusses
that India stand to gain from shifting to e-commerce.
Quoting the NASSCOM study done in 1999, the study states
that India has the potential to create ebusiness worth $1.5
billion by 2004 and around $10 billion by 2008. Lots of
opportunities exist for small and medium enterprises to
make use of opportunities offered by
e-commerce. Finally it urges government to take initiatives
in promoting e-commerce enterprises, in providing secure
online transactions, and suitable legal environment.
Dasgupta and Sengupta [8] paper on e-
commerce in Indian insurance industry discusses the
features of e-insurance in comparison with the traditional
offline insurance service. The authors put forth that e-
insurance offers benefits such as reduction in search cost
and hidden cost, price comparison for customers, and
benefits such as opportunity to have niche market, first
mover advantage and product bundling for insurance
companies going online. Further, it discusses that status of
e-insurance in
India is still formative stage, but stands to gain particularly
from the rural markets since the availability of insurance
agent is very less compared to urban markets. The study is
conceptual in nature and offers insights based on market
reports and data from secondary sources.
 Vishwasrao and Bosshardt [41] used a
theoretical framework developed by Katz and Shapiro (1987)
to examine the ongoing technology adoption behavior of
foreignowned and domestic firms. Firm level data on 1400
medium to large Indian firms from 1989 to 1993 was used to
test the model. Probit and Poisson estimation was used to
analyze the data and model. Variables included in the study
are no. of collaboration, nature of collaboration—foreign or
otherwise, firm age, total assets, total sales, net
profit, herfindhal index, R&D expenditures by industry as
percentage of sales. Results of the study throw some
interesting light on technology adoption behavior of foreign
firms. In general, it shows that liberalization happened in
India after 1991 has positive impact on technology adoption,
but it is found that foreign firms are quick to take advantage
than domestic firms. R&D expenditure is found to be not
significant for technology adoption, firm size (large firms are
more likely to adopt) and age of firm
are found to be significant. Also it is found that foreign firms
adopt new technology when profits are down, and doesn’t
adopt technology in competitive markets.
Lal [21] studied the determinants of adoption of
Information Technology (IT) in India. The study was based on
59 electrical and electronic goods manufacturing firms
situated in NOIDA. Semi-structured questionnaire were used
to collect the data. The study examined the factors
influencing the degree of IT adoption by firms. The factors
included are entrepreneur characteristics measured by
entrepreneur’s qualification, importance given to market
share, R&D and quality consciousness, firm’s international
orientation factors measured by import and export intensity,
work force skill and firm size. The sample firms were divided
into four categories depending on their intensity of IT use,
these are:
(1) non-IT firms (firms that do not use IT tools);
(2) low-level of IT users (firms using only MIS for office
automation);
(3) moderate level of IT users (these firms have adopted
CAD/CAM in addition to MIS); and
(4) high level of IT using firms (firms that have adopted FMS
in addition to
CAD/Cam and MIS).
Ordered probability model (PROBIT) was used
since the dependent variable is categorical and follows
ordinal ranking scale. The estimates were obtained by
maximum likelihood method. The study found that
entrepreneur’s qualification, importance given to market
share, R&D, export intensity, work force skill and firm size
influence the degree of adoption of IT by the firms. Apart
from the studies mentioned above, there are quite handful of
research reports and survey based studies done by Internet
and Mobile Association of India [14], IMRB International [15],
Datamonitor [9, 27], and Internet and Online Association
[16] which presents with quantitative figures, the status of e-
commerce existing in the
country.

3.2 Implications and limitations

While the studies and research reports discussed above have
given the needed initial push and awareness about potential
benefits of e-commerce adoption, still government, firms and
individuals alike have not been able utilize the opportunities
that e-commerce has in store. Further only handful of EC
studies exists in Indian context unlike in developed countries
like US or UK. A cursory glance of Table 6 reveals that most
of the studies are conceptual in nature, and mostly based on
secondary data sources. Given the lack of literature on EC in
India, these studies have greatly contributed
in understanding better the status of EC existing in India and
have served
as point of departure for future research. But the subject as
such hasn’t received its attention due in Indian context.
Main limitations of the conceptual/case based
studies mentioned above are that the conclusions are based
on exploratory findings and from previous literature and
hence need to be supported further by similar case studies
in different setting or by statistical testing. Also there is
dearth of theoretical model or validated instrument to
understand the issues encompassing the EC adoption in
Indian context. Given the complex nature
of phenomenon—here e-commerce—and numerous factors
(technological, managerial, cultural, social, economical and
institutional) affecting the adoption decision, it provides
ample opportunity to conduct further research either to
support the findings or bring in new insights to help
managers, policy makers and people to understand better
the phenomenon of EC and reap the benefits that it could
offer.

The next section put forth the research agenda for

the future.

4 Research agenda for the future

In all, numerous opportunities exist for India in order to
expand the scope of
e-commerce research and to benefit from the same.
Individuals, organizations, policy makers and government
alike are poised to gain from insights that could be offered
by research on EC. Some of the issues that could be worth
researching are:
• Theoretical model for EC adoption from India’s stand point
could be developed and could be empirically validated
across different firms’ size, and different industry sectors like
automotive, financial, retail so on and so forth.
• Further EC adoption factors might vary based on
organization type (public, private or government owned);
organization size (small, medium, large and SMEs). Hence
research could be carried out to reveal the same and
document the difference in approaches and motives behind
EC adoption by different type of firms.
• From the EC research done in developed countries, it is
found that government policy and support is one of the
critical factors in ensuring wide spread adoption of EC in a
country. So role of government and related issues should be
captured to aid the government in taking necessary steps to
ensure the same.
• Studies could be done specifically concentrating on rural
firms and their inclination to adopt EC and to identify critical
success factors for rural sector to reap the benefit that EC
has to offer.
• Also individual user perception about utilizing various
applications of e-commerce like online buying and selling,
Internet banking, stock trading, various bill payments
services can be researched. The antecedents and
consequents of individual usage might throw light on
motives behind their online usage pattern. The firms can
accordingly deploy their strategies to lure the consumer to
buy products/services online.
• A comparative study on adopters and non-adopters might
well unfold facilitating and inhibiting factors for the firms to
go online. The same study can be repeated for different
sectors to find whether the motivating and demotivating
factors vary across different sectors.
• Further role of Culture, trust and individual values in EC
adoption can be researched at individual level and
organizational level.
• Furthermore, impact of EC adoption on firms’ performance
can be studied to clarify and capture how far the EC
adoption has improved the firm’s bottom line.
• Also there are many validated theoretical framework on EC
adoption like Diffusion of Innovation [31], Technology–
Organization–Environment [37] done in developed countries
context, the applicability and validity of those models could
be assesses from businesses in India.
5 Conclusion
It is quite understandable from the facts presented so far
that a little research on e-commerce adoption exists in
Indian context. With the Internet users in India well beyond 1
billion [9] in 2008 and increasing year on year, there are lots
of benefits that this Internet based e-commerce will bring to
the fore. To mention a few benefits, organizations can
achieve cost reductions, can improve their revenues, and
can provide enhanced services by incorporating EC. For the
individuals, online buying/selling can save time, search costs
and can avail best offers/discounts associated with purchase
of products/services.
Also given the facts that India’s economy is
growing steady at a GDP of 7.5%, size of B2C E-commerce
growing at an annual rate of 30%, IT sector revenue
expected to cross USD 73–75 billion in overall software and
services revenue by FY2010 and telecommunication sector’s
impressive growth with 300 mn wired and wireless telephone
subscribers, the country has lagged behind in the application
of EC. The growth of EC could provide a major contributor for
economic growth in India. Drawing a leaf from the pages of
organizations in developed countries that has effectively
realized the benefits offered by EC, it is time that India
should jump in to the bandwagon and follows the suit before
being left behind.
From the literature review, it can be understood
that so far scant attention has been paid to the EC research
in India, more and more research on this field in the areas
outlined in the previous section will surely make the firms to
appreciate and realize the advantages of EC adoption. Thus
the paper aims to put forth that there is more to
organizations/individuals and country as a whole to be
benefitted by wide spread adoption of EC by firms across the
country. India has positive climate for the growth of EC in
terms of good telecommunication network, increasing
Internet users, reasonably good technology infrastructure,
but still has not realized the potential of
EC. One way to achieve the widespread adoption of EC by
firms is to understand the factors and issues influencing the
EC adoption and thereby taking necessary measures to
counteract the same. In short, a problem well understood is
half solved and research is one sure way to achieve it, if not
the only way.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Mrs. Pallavi Madam for her
able guidance and invaluable suggestions
 in completing this paper. My thanks are
due to anonymous reviewers for their
valuable comments.

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INDEX

S.no Particulars Remarks Sign