A Review of E – Commerce in India: The Past, Present, and the Future

Electronic Commerce or E - commerce nowadays has become a home affair for every one of us. From merely being a marketing platform to one touch buying and selling, the E - commerce market in India has undergone tremendous growth. The objective of this paper is to identify and examine the factors responsible for the E – commerce boom in India and to recommend strategies to accelerate the growth of E – commerce industry. We examine the historical trends and provide evidence on how the Indian E – commerce sector is positioned for an exponential growth. Through the literature survey, we identify the emerging markets, trends and impact of COVID – 19 on the industry. From this analysis, it was found that the focus till date has only been on the demand side of the E – Commerce sector - to generate the demand. With a great success towards that direction, we identify the need to shift our focus on interventions/support to the supply side of the sector. Based on historical trends, a set of strategies have been recommended to the policy makers, using which the growth of the sector can be accelerated.