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<ul><li>The pandemic and lockdown period has brought many new learnings for all businesses, and e-commerce has undoubtedly been one of the sectors with the biggest takeaways.</li><li>As we enter a new year, we reached out to e-commerce platforms to understand what role it would play in 2022.</li></ul>The e-commerce segment has been witnessing a good growth over the last few years and has been showing no signs of slowing down in India. And why would it? Hasn’t shopping become so much easier now? We can buy anything, from groceries and perfumes to expensive jewellery, from the comfort of our homes. The pandemic further brought fundamental and long-term changes in the way people shop and make their purchase decisions. It has accelerated the industry’s growth in the country as historically offline shoppers also downloaded ecommerce apps onto their phones to shop from within the safety of their four walls. The past year and a half has brought millions of new e-commerce users, including from smaller cities and towns who now are comfortable with buying online. The industry has witnessed an uptick of 77% between 2020 and 2021 and Tier II, III cities are transacting more than ever, said a recent report by Bobble AI. This trend has pushed e-commerce platforms to embrace a wide range of regional brands and local sellers, which offer a compelling value proposition to consumers. With increasing internet penetration, e-commerce players are expecting new growth from Tier II, III and beyond, which will cumulatively contribute to $150 billion of e-commerce as per RedSeer Consulting’s report. The Indian market is expected to surpass the US to become the second-largest e-commerce market in the world by 2034, revealed another <a href="https://www.ibef.org/industry/ecommerce-presentation">report</a>. It is poised to reach US$99 billion by 2024 from US$30 billion in 2019, expanding at a 27% CAGR, with grocery and fashion becoming the key drivers of this incremental growth. As we enter a new year and e-commerce further expands its presence deeper into the country, we speak to a few e-commerce platforms to discuss what lies ahead, where would the second phase of growth come from and trends that would dominate the industry. Here’s what they had to say: <keyword id="1922572" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="manish-taneja" source="Orion">Manish Taneja</keyword>, Founder and CEO <keyword id="1688931" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="purplle-com" source="Orion">Purplle.com</keyword>: The year has witnessed major growth in the beauty ecommerce industry, ushering in the next year with great potential. In 2022, the emergence of virtual reality tools will fuel the industry. Offering virtual beauty experiences that seamlessly merge with an omni-channel approach will be the norm. Over the next year, we at Purplle will invest heavily in technology and data science advancements to further personalize customer experience. Natural, transparent beauty products, effortless shopping with shorter delivery times, data-based product development, and value-driven experiences, are some of the other trends that will emerge in 2022. Bharati Balakrishnan- Country Head and Director, Shopify India: The Indian ecommerce market will continue to evolve in 2022, with D2C brands taking centrestage, driven by growing consumer demand and local brands increasingly making ecommerce a priority. On the one hand, the new shopping habits formed over the past 18 months will become an important factor: consumers have embraced online shopping and are actively choosing small, independent brands. This means that D2C brands are here to stay, and we anticipate the emergence of a new generation of proudly Indian brands across food, fashion and lifestyle. Simultaneously, traditional brands and retailers who dominate offline are evolving to meet the demands of the new consumer - they are building to provide a consistent experience to their consumers across online and offline, and would like to use their own online stores to truly extend their brand promise to existing and new customers. It’s an exciting time to be a consumer brand in India Amit, CEO, <keyword id="9798181" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="olx-autos-india" source="Orion">OLX Autos India</keyword>: Rise of the prosumer: The many faces of personalisation With the majority of buyers now clearly preferring online shopping over the traditional format of in-store purchasing, the new trend is inclined towards the forward-thinking, influential and proactive prosumer. Personalisation of the products according to customers preference will be key in 2022. E-commerce marketers will need to integrate personalizing products through advanced technologies in order to provide tailor made and seamless customer experiences. In a cookie-less world, contextual marketing has reared its head in a big way. Targeting consumers has come of age - from category, to keyword, to semantic contextual targeting, now. Many more trends like crypto payments, and dynamic pricing will grow for pure-play retailers. But it is personalization for the prosumer that will chart the way forward. <keyword id="2227756" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="prabhkiran-singh" source="Orion">Prabhkiran Singh</keyword>, Founder CEO, Bewakoof: Live video commerce, Virtual trial rooms (or AR/VR driven fit assists), customized lifestyle products and 3D animated UX interactions are the key trends we expect to disrupt shopping experience in the coming year. Video or content commerce would be largely driven by influencer or user generated content. To drive scalability, there will be multiple SAAS companies launching solutions to simplify handshakes between brands and influencers in content acquisition, ingestion and performance driven payments space. Early movers in the space are Myntra Studio, <keyword id="8861782" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="trell" source="Orion">Trell</keyword> and Bewakoof Bshots. With large VC investments going into the Web 3.0 and metaverse space, a lot of the product cataloging problems around accurate sizing or fit assessment would become more trivial. We will see brands launching virtual trial rooms, 3D product shoots and fit assistants to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping experience. 3 out of 10 customers who shop on our platform would like to customize their product design and sizing. We see this as a growing trend that multiple brands will adhere to in the coming year. 3D and animated content will become a UX trend in the consumer internet industry. Animations used to be a hindrance to many designers and developers as they may slow the loading speed of websites or apps and it is data consuming. With 5G scaling up and 4G becoming a norm across the country, designers will chose to use more animations. Kashyap Vadapalli, Chief Marketing Officer &amp; Business Head, <keyword id="864887" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="pepperfry" source="Orion">Pepperfry</keyword>: ‘MarTech’, which essentially means amalgamation of marketing with technology, is the future of commerce where brands will run marketing in a digital and connected ecosystem to offer an immersive experience to their customers. With the advancement of technology in marketing, consumers are constantly looking for an enhanced buying experience. Thereby meaning, from 2022 onwards we will witness more technology integrated experiences like development of offline Virtual Reality shopping rooms for consumers. Since VR offers an immersive 360-degree perspective, products in virtual design, especially big-ticket items like furniture can be easily a luscious offering for customers who want an interactive experience with the product before making the decision, therefore, simplifying the buyer’s journey. Going forward, I believe, Martech will play a dominant role in the strategic priorities and investments of brands, pushing marketers to embrace digital operations and integrated customer experience. <keyword id="12792513" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="shubh-darpan" source="Orion">Shubh Darpan</keyword>, VP- BI &amp; Analytics, Cashify: From the trends we have seen over the past couple of years, we at Cashify believe that the demand for refurbished mobiles is here to stay. It started with the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns when having a mobile became a necessity. Refurbished devices such as smartphones, laptops, tablets, etc. were seen to be preferred by the Indian consumer. Mainly because of the economic aspect of it, the refurbished market has seen an upward motion in India. Moreover, with the shortage of chipsets, there have been fewer smartphone launches in recent times. This too has been a factor in pushing consumers towards refurbished mobiles. Refurbished smartphones offer an optimal and sustainable solution to today's tech-dependent world and we can see it going a long way. Gitanjali Saxena, Business Head - Global Luxury, Tata CLiQ Luxury <div type="image" title="Gitanjali Saxena, Business Head - Global Luxury, Tata CLiQ Luxury" msid="88446509" hostid="261"></div> Inherently, shopping is a social experience. As people continue to spend an increasing amount of time online and on social media, online shopping, which witnessed a huge boost because of the pandemic, is now also becoming social. Social shopping, which is already booming in countries like China, has been gaining momentum in India and will be a leading trend in the coming year. Engaging and immersive formats of selling, such as live commerce, will be at the forefront. In addition, AR and VR will play a crucial role in enhancing the online shopping experience, enabling more personalization, and targeting niche customers. Some of the biggest brands in the luxury fashion and beauty industries are working closely with social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to leverage their capabilities of live streaming, in-app shopping, and augmented reality to offer an experience that every luxury customer desires. Snapchat has harnessed the power of technology and introduced an augmented reality lens that allows for a virtual try-on of products. Convenience, personalization, and a sense of community are some of the drivers fuelling the growth of social shopping. The advancement of technology is unlocking a slew of exciting opportunities in social shopping, including user-generated content, virtual product try-ons, direct interaction with brands and peers, and instant gratification. E-commerce platforms will reimagine their strategy to integrate social shopping elements by introducing innovative and engaging formats to bolster their reach and engagement with customers. With social shopping, e-commerce platforms can revolutionize the way people shop on their platforms by presenting a new way of shopping.

Ecommerce: The trends to watch out for in 2022

Leading online travel agents like <keyword id="132652" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Cleartrip">Cleartrip</keyword> and <keyword id="143718" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Yatra-com">Yatra.com</keyword> have claimed that the new <keyword id="6359833" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Goods-and-Services-Tax">goods and services tax</keyword> (<keyword id="6354679" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="GST">GST</keyword>), which will be rolled out from tomorrow onwards, will not have much of an impact on flights or hotel fares in the coming months. GST council has decided to tax both economy and business class fares at marginally different rates as compared to the present charges. Also, hotel tariffs for mid-market and budget segments are also not going to have a significant change. This has led to travel agents deciding to continue their discounts, sales and other incentives even after GST. "It's fairly positive for aviation and budget hotel segments. Overall, it's a mixed bag and that's good news for us. Economy class effective tax is coming to about 5% which means a marginal reduction. There is a marginal increase in business class fares from 9 to 12%. Overall, we don't see the discounting intensity coming down," <keyword id="396767" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Amit-Taneja">Amit Taneja</keyword>, chief revenue officer at Cleartrip told <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/travel/no-big-impact-on-airfares-hotel-rates-travel-agents/articleshow/59377805.cms">ET</a>. "There's nothing much that will change post GST for consumers. Economy fares may go down slightly. Business class will also increase by 2-3%. Hotels should not have much of an impact on the consumer side. We do not expect the pricing aspect and promotions to get impacted much, post GST," said <keyword id="332366" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Sharat-Dhall">Sharat Dhall</keyword>, COO, B2C, Yatra.com.

GST won’t have much impact on airfares or hotel rates, say travel agents

With Indian summer’s all set to make a comeback, domestic travellers are packing up their backpacks en route <keyword id="826" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Goa">Goa</keyword>, yet the hoteliers of India’s most popular beach state look gloomy. Blame it on Russian President Vladmir <keyword id="6355086" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="putin">Putin</keyword>'s interventions in Ukraine, <keyword id="6358826" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Russia">Russia</keyword>’s annexations of <keyword id="359731" type="COUNTRY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Crimea">Crimea</keyword> and a sharp decline in oil prices, all of which have contributed to a plummeting rouble. 
 As The Economic Times reports, Goa gets the largest chunk of its tourist inflows from Russia. This number fell 30-35% in 2014 from 162,746 in 2013, when it had risen by 16% on year, according to Ameya Abhyankar, director, <keyword id="178753" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Goa-Tourism">Goa Tourism</keyword>. 
 
A reflection of their spending power is that total foreign international tourist arrivals to Goa actually grew 4.3% on year to 513,592, albeit slower than 9% in 2013 over 2012. 
 
"December 24-January 10 is the period when the hotel usually receives a lot of Russian tourists, with Russian Christmas falling on January 7," Siddharth Savkur, general manager at Alila Diwa, Goa, a luxury boutique resort told the financial daily. "That contributes almost 10% of the hotel's annual revenue. So when you have a shortfall in this window, then a small drop in the room nights will have a big impact on the hotel's overall sales,” he added. 
 
Five-star deluxe spa Resort Rio dropped rates to Rs 8,200 from Rs 11,344. The Leela cut corporate rates by 5-6%, a senior executive told ET. 
 
 
The Leela, in a bid to compensate for the loss tried wooing people from other countries like "British, German, French and Swiss". Shridhar Nair, general manager informed the ET that overall occupancy in October-March is down 8% from a year ago. 
 "We have seen an average drop of 10%-15% in hotel pricing, compared to last year, because of a slowdown in foreign tourist arrivals," said <keyword id="396767" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Amit-Taneja">Amit Taneja</keyword>, chief revenue officer at Cleartrip, adding that the travel portal doesn't usually see offers of this kind. "<keyword id="6368036" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Hotels">Hotels</keyword> have now been looking at ways to drive domestic traffic, giving special offers to induce last-minute bookings." 
 
Slashing the rates over the past few months have lured young travellers and corporate tourists but that didn’t benefit the establishments much. 
 
"Even the premium hotels like us had to drop the tariff by at least 11-12% during the October-December period, which is the peak season for the market," said the director at Shrem Resorts, which owns the Novotel Hotel and Grand Mercure Hotel in Goa. "Goa is a price-sensitive market, especially north Goa. We are working on value offers and packages to lure domestic customers during the summers," she added. 
 
"Domestic travellers will not fully compensate for the demand since charter-flight tourists typically spent longer holidays (15 days) compared to the domestic tourist (four-five days)," said Mohit Gupta, head of online business at Makemytrip, adding that by April 2016, there will be 500 more five-star rooms in Goa. 
 
(Image: India Times)

Know why Putin’s political decisions are causing panic in Goa

<keyword id="6357120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="PayTM">Paytm</keyword>, the Noida-headquartered digital payments solutions company has made some top-level additions to its payments bank arm, with <keyword id="3363917" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ruchita-Taneja-Aggarwal">Ruchita Taneja Aggarwal</keyword> and <keyword id="3363918" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Priya-Karnik">Priya Karnik</keyword> from Citibank India being hired as head of banking operations and head of product development for banking operations, respectively. 
 
Aggarwal worked as the director of treasury and trade solutions and Singapore head for regional product sales at Citibank, while Karnik was director of treasury and trade solutions, regional implementation. 
 
With these appointments, the payments arm of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Alibaba-to-enter-in-India-via-Paytm/articleshow/51490871.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Alibaba-backed</a> company has got its leadership team across FMCG, consultancy, banking and e-commerce businesses before its banking services roll-out in August. 
 
Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Alibaba-India-logistics-companies/articleshow/52235513.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Indian logistic companies look forward to partnering with Alibaba for its India entry</a> 
 
It was earlier this year that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Paytm-payments-bank-to-be-headed-by-former-RBI-and-PwC-executive-Shinjini-Kumar/articleshow/51056601.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Shinjini Kumar</a> from RBI and PwC was hired for Paytm’s payments bank, which was followed by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Amazon-India-Fashion-head-quits/articleshow/49014573.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Vikas Purohit</a> from Amazon, Kshitij Sanghi from McKinsey, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Know-everything-about-Paytms-Project-Pokhran/articleshow/50528221.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Varun Khullar</a> from ITC and Vipin Surelia from the RBI, who were all taken in as VPs of various verticals. 
 
Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Paytm-in-parking-lots/articleshow/52142106.cms" target="_BLANK￿￿￿￿">Go cashless: Paytm ties up with 500 parking lots to let you park cars without cash</a> 
 
"It is no secret Paytm is expanding and diversifying at an exponential rate. Joining the organisation gives me an unparalleled opportunity to work with some of the most well-known industry thought leaders who are trying to build something new and unique," Karnik was quoted saying. 
 
Amit Sinha, vice president at Paytm said, "We are committed to keep enhancing our services and product portfolio. We are confident that with (Aggarwal and Karnik) on board, we will be able to drive greater growth and success."

Former Citibank executives to lead banking operations at Paytm’s payments bank

Those who book tickets early might not always get to fly cheaper. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Airlines+">Airlines seem to be reducing fares closer to the travel date</a>, an analysis of tickets on offer for <keyword id="6354692" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> on six key sectors showed that fares quoted on October 17 for travel were more costly when booked 30 days in advance than 10 days. 
 In recent times, these select trunk routes have seen capacity addition. "With the added capacity on the top metro routes, and lower load factors in the first half of October compared to last year, <keyword id="44023" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="airlines">airlines</keyword> have reduced fares closer in to get more people to fly," chief revenue officer at online travel portal Cleartrip, Amit Taneja said. 
 
Moreover, the lower fares benefit customers. Airlines have witnessed higher overall revenue as the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=lower+fuel+prices+">lower fuel prices</a> enable them to operate profitably even at low fares, according to Taneja. 
 
From this year, airlines have added about 18% seats in sync with over 20% growth in passengers that the domestic market registered between January and August. Overall, airlines offer about 300,000 seats on domestic sectors. 
 About 63 flights operate from Delhi to <keyword id="6358070" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mumbai">Mumbai</keyword> and vice versa. Other city pairs like Bengaluru-Mumbai and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Mumbai-Hyderabad+">Mumbai-Hyderabad</a> have 32 and 21 daily direct flights, respectively, and many more flights with stopovers. Pune and Chennai and Kolkata-Bengaluru have seven and 12 flights, respectively. 
 Industry experts are of the view that airlines are reducing fares closer to the departure due to lower bookings. "The reason we are not seeing a lot of <keyword id="832834" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="advance-bookings">advance bookings</keyword> is because people are spending less. Less expenditure by people is due to the economic situation, which is not in the best of health," said Ajay Prakash, former president of Travel Agents Federation of India and a travel agent. 
 
Prakash is of the view, the demand for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Mumbai-Hyderabad+">advance bookings</a> is still not high despite airlines offering lower fares on the back of cheaper fuel. The airlines are also offering cheaper last-minute fares, as much as 47% lower than that last year over the recent long weekends. 
 
When it comes to airfares, dynamic pricing seems to be an evolving concept. What's required is transparency, so that consumers know when to avail the best rates. A rule of thumb used to be to book six weeks ahead and avoid weekend schedules. 
 
(Image: Indiatimes)

For better flight deals, go for last-minute bookings

This may sound little bizarre but it is true. Airfares were cheapest this year in 2015 as compared to last three years. 
 
As per airlines and travel firms, ticket prices were 40 per cent cheaper when compared to past three years. 
 "The reason for this is primarily two - the decline in fuel costs being passed on to passengers and the advent of new carriers which has led to an increase of supply in airline seats as well as competition," Amit Taneja, chief revenue officer at <keyword id="132652" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Cleartrip">Cleartrip</keyword> told ET. 
 
According to the Cleartrip survey, average annual ticket prices for the current financial year ranged between Rs 5,857 and Rs 4,018. 
 
In past few years, airliners have been aggressively rolling out deals to attract fliers. According to a survey by GoEuro, Indian local ticket prices as a fraction of what is charged in Finland, Switzerland, Austria and Estonia, apart from much-developed markets such as the US and UK. 
 From <keyword id="6358032" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="SpiceJet">SpiceJet</keyword> to <keyword id="2467342" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vistara">Vistara</keyword>, airlines changed tracks to gain more consumers and fill their flights. 
 
Another factor why airlines lowered prices was cost of jet fuel. The per kilolitre rate at Delhi airport, India's busiest, is currently 26 per cent cheaper than December last year, 40 per cent cheaper than 2013 and 34 per cent cheaper than 2012.

If you are thinking airfares were sky rocketing in 2015, this news is for you!

In a bid to bump-up their businesses, Indian hotel and travel companies are now offering last-moment booking services. The special deals majorly are to make-up for the current fall in the sales, discloses an Economic Times report. 
 These last-minute bookings or check-ins made within 48 hours provide 10-50% of the total hotel bookings in India. Over one third bookings made in Lemon Tree Hotel’s last-minute check-in are 20-25% of Park Hotels. <keyword id="240533" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sarovar-Hotels">Sarovar Hotels</keyword>, however, witnessed a 50-60% growth in this category in the last one year. 
 Patu Keswani, chairman and managing director of <keyword id="136437" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Lemon-Tree-Hotels">Lemon Tree Hotels</keyword> says, "In the current environment, where all India occupancies are around 60 per cent, the last-minute bookings are very significant." 
 Dilip Puri, managing director (India) and regional VP (South Asia) at <keyword id="128636" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Starwood-Hotels-Resorts">Starwood Hotels &amp; Resorts</keyword> said that around 20% bookings at a hotel chain tend to be made at the last minute. "We are seeing consistent growth in the use of mobile phones to make hotel reservations," he further said. 
 Industry professionals believe that <keyword id="4758225" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Last-minute-booking">last-minute booking</keyword>s assume more significance for hotels during off-season. For instance, during monsoon, when people travel lesser and there is a drop in travel business. Last-minute booking boosts occupancy by 15-20% and here is what hotels basically do. They offer attractive deals like up to 60% discount or special packages just to perk-up occupancy. 
 "Being a perishable inventory for hotels, the revenue from room nights unsold is lost forever," said Amit Taneja, chief revenue officer at travel portal <keyword id="132652" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Cleartrip">Cleartrip</keyword>. 
 
For travel portal Goibibo, 55% of hotel bookings are reserved for last-minute check-ins. "This number used to be 20 per cent a year ago," said Ashish Kash yap, group CEO, Ibibo. 
Image: indiatimes

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