The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) secretary general DS Rawat has said that the market size of ecommerce industry is expected to be Rs 46,520 crore by December 2011, with 81 per cent travel transactions and 6 per cent product purchases. Rawat was speaking at the conference titled "Ecommerce: Next Phase of Growth" organised by ASSOCHAM.

“India is poised to be one of the top ecommerce hubs in the near future as number of internet users boom. This will bring in a new revolution in retail industry,” Rawat said adding the size of ecommerce globally is about 700 billion dollars.

Accelerated innovations have expanded the online retail market to 241 billion dollars in Europe, 176 billion dollars in the United States, 76.4 billion dollars in China and 10.3 billion dollars in India. DS Rawat further said that at present, small towns contribute 40 per cent of all ecommerce transactions due to increasing broadband penetration.

According to BN Satpathy, Economic Advisor, Department of Information Technology, Government of India, said, “With a booming retail market and over 100 million internet users in the country, ecommerce is likely to enter a high growth phase in coming years. Travel will continue lead the online trade of goods and services in India and globally as new business models emerge in ecommerce space.”

Satpathy added that the Indian industry needs to build up some macro-data, which will help government to understand the scope of growth for e-commerce in the country. "We have to build some macro-data. If we are able to have this kind of maximum data then the policy makers will be able to access the state of ecommerce in India and also understand how much it can grow in the next three years. The government will surely support the growth of e-commerce in India after understanding the basic details." he said.

Bikky Khosla, CEO, TradeIndia.com, said, “Although the growth has just started picking up slowly and steadily in India, there is enough scope for India to become a major ecommerce hub in the near future.”