Exploring e-commerce potential in rural India: opportunities in Northern India

E-commerce facilitated online shopping is well established and populated in urban areas facilitating the buyers with lower price and delivery at their convenience. However, the type and nature of demand in rural areas is different. The supply chain is less developed along with product portfolio. Using primary data from rural areas, the study aims to gauge the penetration of online shopping in rural areas and their specific considerations and barriers to it. Applying basic descriptive statistics, the findings reveal that there is serious problem in logistics and rural people desire more agricultural products than fashion and entertainment. It has been recommended, if seeds, fertilisers and equipment are sold to the rural people, there would be a huge market to tap which is untapped till now.