The Indian Government’s ‘Background Material of Cabinet Decision on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Retail’, makes no mention of ecommerce sector in the country. However, India’s Commerce, Industry and Textiles minister Anand Sharma had said that the government will look into the online retail business.

AlooTechie spoke to some of the largest ecommerce players in India to get a sense of whether the new norms, if applied to ecommerce, would have an impact on their businesses.

Sachin Bansal, Co-founder and CEO, Flipkart.com has welcomed the developments in the sphere of FDI. “We believe this will go a long way in improving efficiency in supply-chain and also invite investment in relevant areas. It will bring down the overall costs in the system – leading to larger benefits for the Indian consumer. As far as the e-commerce sector is concerned, we are already witnessing significant investments in supply-chain and technology and we expect this to get a further boost going forward,” Bansal said.

Voicing his thoughts on the same issue, Sundeep Malhotra, Founder and CEO, HomeShop18, which also runs ecommerce portal HomeShop18.com, said that India is on the move and the Indian youth has aspirations. “It is imperative that as a nation we take cognizance of this mood and deliver on employment, affluence and lifestyles. FDI in retail enables this by bringing in key resources such as capital, technology and know how. We should expect this to result in a more efficient retail sector, a more widespread organized retail enabling the consumer in all parts of the country to participate in consumption and finally, in passing on the benefits of efficiency by bringing high quality products at cheaper prices. The unleashing of FDI in retail will benefit every stakeholder in the supply chain – from the small farmer to the end customer and the exchequer. The ecommerce industry will have access to quality products, advance infrastructure in warehouse and logistics as a result of FDI investments in India,” Malhotra said.

Speaking on plans in facing the competition if the foreign counterparts enter India directly, Sachin Bansal of Flipkart said that ecommerce in India is at a very nascent stage and the growth will escalate with the entrance of serious global players. “We do not see this impacting Flipkart’s plans to a great extent. We have met all the benchmarks that we had set for ourselves and will continue to do so in the near future,” said Bansal.

According to Bansal, customers are becoming much more discerning and demand a high quality of service in everything – from choice and discounts, to product quality, flexible payment options and even post- delivery servicing. “The challenges posed by the market in India are unique - from supply-chain and logistics to warehousing and payments. Any company which is starting operations in this country will have to invest time and resources to overcome similar problems. We are confident of retaining the leadership position we have established in the ecommerce space. Our strategy has always been to maintain an intensive focus on providing the online shopper with a superlative experience at Flipkart – from the time the order is placed till post-delivery customer support,” added Sachin Bansal.

Sundeep Malhotra of HomeShop18 said that global players entering the Indian markets will enhance the scope for ecommerce in the industry and will also build confidence of customers in the virtual shopping industry. “It will also help in expanding the product/service portfolio by e-retailer and we will also see significant investment in the customer satisfactions process,” added Malhotra.

Some of the investors who own stakes in Indian ecommerce companies, we spoke to, said that the FDI policy doesn’t change anything in their strategy of investments and the for the ecommerce players nothing really changes in their current form.

Indian ecommerce players are happy to welcome more competition but they need to have more clarity about the policy and what impact it can generate on their businesses. The industry is in its growth stage and will probably get more exciting in coming years and hence the only thing it doesn’t need now is an unclear policy from the government.