Political:

The government’s relaxation of rules with respect to business entities and their
functioning has provided a boost to e-commerce and the overall ease of doing business
in the country. Amazon recently opened its largest campus in Hyderabad, it getting all
necessary approvals in a record 11 days.

The government of India’s Make in India campaign has led to an increase in the number
of indigenous sellers in the e-commerce marketplace. The e-commerce platform
provides a very productive and efficient platform for these sellers. Seeking these
indigenous sellers who were restricted by investment and scale the e-commerce
platforms provided a platform for them to grow in the initial stages. The e-commerce
platform also benefits from an increase in the variety of products in their platform.

Thanks to the unprecedented promotion of digital movement by the government the

number of internet users in the country is expected to skyrocket to 829 million by 2021.
The internet economy of India is expected to double to about 250 billion dollars by 2020
from 125 billion dollars as reported on April of 2017. Thanks to this, digital movement,
India has the highest annual growth rate of e-commerce revenue – 51 percent and it is
expected to reach up to 120 billion dollars by 2020.

Economic:
The impact of e-commerce in the Micro, Small & Medium enterprises is significant as
they provide an indirect means of financing the MSMEs. For example, Amazon India
has a primary workforce of over 62,000 employees working with more than 120,000
sellers. They provide employment and training to an estimated 200,000, and the
cascading effect this has is conducive for economic growth.

Small and medium businesses have been pushed by amazon to export, resulting in
over 1 billion dollars of exports. This is expected to grow past 5 billion dollars over the
next three years.

E-commerce facilitates easy flow of business among the states of the country. A seller
selling to another state has to go through multiple procedures and also have a tax
registration in the destination state. E-commerce allows a bypass for these and enables
smooth business for the same.

Technological:
Wallet addition - link with other e-commerce businesses e.g.: Oyo

The introduction of digital wallets has boosted the e-commerce sector by providing
customers with a readily accessible methods of payment. The bulk of the customers
using e-commerce portals prefer digital payments over cash on delivery, the primary
reason being the paucity of tangible cash. The major e-commerce portals like Amazon,
Flipkart have their own digital wallets system, Amazonpay and Phonpe respectively.
They also attract customers through cash back offers, discount offers and also serve as
a source of data collection by providing the spending patterns of each and every
customer to the parent company. This data is then used to find shopping patterns of the
customers in a region, enabling a variety of optimizations including that of inventory
handling for the merchants involved with the e-commerce platform reducing their costs
and contributing to economic growth.

Chatbot - to enhance customer experience

Chatbots have seen a rise in their usage in the e-commerce platform. They are
employed to enhance customer experience by providing quick resolution to the
customer queries and grievances. They have been only recently employed in the e-
commerce platforms such as in IRCTC and it is expected to be utilized in many more
such platforms in the near future. The chatbots minimize the time spent by the customer
on the website as they quickly direct the customer to the desired product among a list of
thousands of products, thus ensuring that the customer will return for the next visit.

AI in customer experience:

E-commerce portals makes use of data analytics and artificial intelligence to predict
what a consumer would purchase and provide personalized suggestions to enhance the
customer experience, indirectly marketing the products and promoting their sales. In
recent times e-commerce giant Amazon has developed Amazon Forecast which uses
machine learning to predict demand patterns of millions of its products, enabling it to
further enhance its marketing and selling potential

Environmental:

The packaging of E-commerce companies’ products is done by heavily using thermocol

and plastic which further goes as waste into the environment. The plastic may
sometimes find its way back in the water bodies, thus endangers the water based
ecosystem too.

Over the years, we have witnessed that there has been a tremendous increase in the
overall number of purchases through E-commerce sites. This has created an increase
in the number of trips made by the delivery individuals. This further results in increased
emission of exhaust gas.
Political:
Make in india
The Government of India launched an e-commerce portal called TRIFED and an m-commerce
portal called ‘Tribes India’ which will enable 55,000 tribal artisans get access to international
markets.

Economic:
1. The e-commerce industry been directly impacting the micro, small & medium enterprises
(MSME) in India by providing means of financing, technology and training and has a
favorable cascading effect on other industries as well.
2. Agarwal said Amazon works with some 500,000 sellers, and has created over 200,000
jobs in India since launching its e-commerce operations in 2013.
3. He said Amazon's push to get small and medium businesses in India to export has
resulted in more than $1 billion in exports and it expects this to exceed $5 billion in the
next three years, but red tape is holding some businesses back.
4. g

Social:
1. Amazon - introduce social networks on its platform for better customer engagement
2. Provided jobs for low skilled individuals over 1.2 million.
3. There are currently over 40,000 women in logistics and delivery roles in India,
constituting over 6.77 per cent of the total delivery pie. The hiring of women would go up
to 20-26 per cent of the total delivery jobs by 2021

Technological:
1. Wallet addition - link with other e-commerce businesses e.g.: Oyo
2. Chat bot - to enhance customer experience
3. The ongoing digital transformation in the country is expected to increase India’s total
internet user base to 829 million by 2021 from 560.01 million as of September
2018. India’s internet economy is expected to double from US$125 billion as of April
2017 to US$ 250 billion by 2020, majorly backed by ecommerce. India’s E-commerce
revenue is expected to jump from US$ 39 billion in 2017 to US$ 120 billion in 2020,
growing at an annual rate of 51 per cent, the highest in the world.

Environmental:
1. The packaging of amazon uses thermocol and plastic that goes as waste in the
environment
2. The increase in overall number of purchases has also led to an increase in number of
trips made by the delivery boy and hence contributes to increase in pollution
Legal:
 1. To increase the participation of foreign players in the e-commerce field, the Indian
Government hiked the limit of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the E-commerce
marketplace model for up to 100 per cent (in B2B models)
2. The new guidelines bar online retailers from selling products of companies in which they
own stakes. The policy states that a business having equity participation or control of its
inventory by e-commerce marketplace entities will not be permitted to sell its products on
such marketplace entities’ online platforms
In a marketplace model, the e-commerce firm is not allowed to directly or indirectly
influence the sale price of goods or services and is required to offer a level playing field to
all vendors. That services offered by the e-commerce entity are to be offered to all vendors
on the platform in a fair and non-discriminatory manner. These services include, among
other things, quick delivery, logistics, warehousing, advertising, marketing, payments and
financing.

Google enters India's eCommerce Space with Google Shopping. Google and Tata Trust have
collaborated for the project ‘Internet Saathi’ to improve internet penetration among rural women
in India