Small towns fast catching up on online shopping: Report

Small towns such as Jamshedpur, Mysore and Nasik are fast catching up with the metros in online shopping, with phones and TVs attracting the largest number of buyers, says a report. About 65 per cent of the growth of e-commerce will come from Tier II and Tier III cities, the report by ShopClues said on Tuesday.

"While New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai continue to rule the roost as top cities for e-commerce, a spate of small towns like Jamshedpur, Mysore and Nasik have made it to the ranks of 'Top Emerging Cities in 2013'," it said in a release. These towns are not far behind from their metro counterparts when it comes to logging on to the Internet to shop for their favourite brands, the e-commerce firm added.

The study is based on 1.4 million transactions conducted on the ShopClues website between January and July 2013. Entry-level phones, smartphones, LED TVs emerged as top categories, the report revealed, adding that gourmet foods and pet grooming are the emerging categories. "A lot of factors are encouraging the current boom in e-commerce as the rise in penetration of smartphones, better internet infrastructure, education and income level are a few prominent ones. We are seeing a lot of demand of goods from Tier II and Tier III cities," ShopClues Founder ~~amp; CEO Sandeep Aggarwal said.

Organised retail is hardly a pan-Indian phenomenon and large chains make up less than 10 per cent of the market. As a result, small towns often do not have access to merchandise available in metros. This leads them to log on the Internet to find and order the product of their choice, he added. Top 10 cities for e-commerce are New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune, Kolkata, Noida and Ahmedabad, the report said.

While, the top 10 emerging cities are Jamshedpur, Mysore, Nasik, Puducherry, Udaipur, Patiala, Anand, Dehradun, Mangalore and Durgapur, it added. "It is estimated that approx 65 per cent of the growth of e-commerce will come from Tier II and Tier III cities," it said. The report added that 20 per cent of the traffic in e-commerce is from mobile devices and it is expected to reach 45 per cent by 2016.