Category: Featured News

Gartner report shows the growth of India’s digital commerce market

India is quickly becoming one of the world’s leading mobile commerce markets. Overall, digital commerce is growing quickly throughout the country, with consumers beginning to favor shopping online rather than visit physical stores. This is due to the convenient nature of e-commerce, and more consumers are beginning to rely on their mobile devices to get their shopping done. A new report from Gartner highlights the growing power of the digital commerce market in India.

More consumers are beginning to use their mobile devices to shop online

According to the report from Gartner, the Indian digital commerce market has reached $7 billion. While digital commerce represents less than one percent of total retail sales in the country, this market is growing very quickly. The market is still in a nascent stage in India, with relatively low Internet penetration slowing the adoption of online shopping. The market has grown by 40% year on year, with business to business commerce leading the way. Notably, mobile commerce is the primary channel powering the growth of the market.

Low Internet penetration is slowing the adoption of mobile commerce

Consumers appear to favor shopping with their smartphones and tablets, as they can get their shopping done no matter where they are in the country. In 2014, more than 40% of all digital commerce transactions came from mobile devices. By the end of this year, more than half of these transactions are expected to come from smartphones and tablets, according to Gartner. The convenient nature of mobile commerce is one of its most attractive features, and more retailers are beginning to embrace the mobile space in order to effectively connect with consumers.

Retailers are embracing the mobile world

As mobile commerce continues to grow, retailers are likely to become more mobile-centric, offering new services to online shoppers. Financial institutions are also embracing the mobile space, introducing new applications that allow consumers to manage their finances with their mobile devices. India is expected to become one of the most prominent mobile commerce markets in the world in the coming years.

The “favorites” that had previously been represented by a star icon are now heart shaped “likes”

Twitter has been undergoing a number of changes – some larger than other – in order to boost its social media marketing and user growth that has been waning over the last while, and its latest effort has been a cosmetic one.

The little yellow star that was once meant for favorites has been changed into a little red heart for likes.

According to Twitter, itself, the reason it made the change was that the star icon was potentially leading to confusion among its users. However, the heart icon is more universally recognized around the globe as indicative of something that you like or love. However, this change has not necessarily been generating a tremendous number of heart shaped responses from the actual users of this network and it is unclear as to what impact it will have on social media marketing on that platform.

The hope is that tweeting and social media marketing will occur with less confusion using hearts and likes.

Many people have been complaining that it wasn’t the star but the change that has been the most confusing. The reason is that they felt the star was unique to Twitter and that users were able to figure out what it was for and when to use it. However, the heart is found all over other social media platforms and is used for different purposes. For example, it is an emoticon/emoji in Facebook and Instagram. By changing to the heart, some users have complained that Twitter is reducing its uniqueness.

Twitter, as a whole, can be rather intimidating for a brand new user. The entire concept often feels mysterious to a person who is only just beginning. However, it usually doesn’t take long to figure out and it is hardly something that requires vast tech degrees, say users who have tweeted their frustration about the change. That said, they pointed out that among all the features in Twitter and its social media marketing that can be considered the most confusing, the little star for “favorites” was hardly the greatest offender.