Why South India is the Biggest Market for E-commerce A large majority of south Indian people prefer to shop online rather than spending time and shopping from retail stores.
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Well, we all know that south India is the hub of information technology (IT) business in India, and Bangaluru, Coimbatore, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, and Hyderabad are amongst the main IT hubs in the southern part. Plus the literacy rates in the southern states are higher than other Indian states. These facts clearly indicate that the majority of people in south India are well-educated and tech-friendly. So as southern India has a higher percentage of educated folks, for this reason, educated folks are faster in trying out and adopting latest technologies.
Online shopping has become increasingly popular over the years but the practice of buying or selling products and services online is very common in south India. A large majority of south Indian people prefer to shop online rather than spending time and shopping from retail stores. And when it comes to payment, COD (cash on delivery) is the most preferred payment method across India.
Interestingly, south India has the largest consumers in electronics and books categories. Most of the products brought online in south India are electronics and books followed by apparel and beauty products. Though overall electronics and apparel are the biggest categories in terms of online sales. In terms of product categories, it has been observed that people search more in electronic category followed by apparels and accessories categories.
As per a national survey, it has been revealed that Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, and Delhi too, are some of the top e-commerce hubs in India. But in particular, the urban regions in South India are Bangaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, and Coimbatore which are also the popular e-commerce centres.
As far as Bengaluru city is concerned, which is also called the 'Silicon Valley of India has numerous passionate gaming enthusiasts. People here love to but gadgets, gaming products, their love for technology is boundless. The city is not just full of tech-freaks, but it also has the most photography enthusiasts followed by capital city Delhi and Mumbai.
While Chennai, which is the major commercial, cultural and educational center in India and one of the four metropolitan cities of India, has the most avid readers of the country. As per a survey, people in this city prefer to buy books across a range of genres.
Whereas, Hyderabad people are more into music, therefore hyderabadi people purchase products from musical instrument category more. People here prefer buying guitars, headphones, speakers, etc. while some people also show interest in fashion and beauty cosmetic categories too.
For an e-commerce industry as a whole, it has been witnessed that businesses are doing better in south India as compared to other zones and there are various reasons for it. The basic reason is that, there is less issue of order cancellations at the last moment as compared to other states (mentioned above). Literacy rate plays a huge role here, because when people are educated they become more comfortable with internet usage and can sensibly use internet and smartphones for online purchases a compared to those who are less techie and less knowledgeable. With this, return and exchange cases also go less. Inaccurate addresses are some other reasons that is why products never get delivered on time to a shopper. Plus, there is nil product snatching case in south India. All of these reasons make south India the biggest market for e-commerce.
