E-commerce provide up to 50000 jobs in India in future

NEW DELHI: As foreign and domestic e-retail majors such as Amazon and Flipkart expand their businesses aggressively, hiring activities are expected to grow by over 30% in the sector and may help create up to 50,000 jobs in the next 2-3 years.
According to leading human resources consultancy Randstad India, the hiring in this space is likely to rise by 20-30% in next few years on the back of entry of domestic online start-ups and e-commerce MNCs into Indian marketplace, as also because of setting up of back-office operations for various global businesses.

Another HR firm Unison International says that hiring has been rather slow in the e-commerce space over last couple of years, but recruitment may grow rapidly now by 33% over the previous year as various retail brands are also bringing in their business online.

As per findings of Jigsaw Academy, the e-commerce industry may create 15,000-50,000 jobs in the next three years for data analysts professionals alone.

The sector recently saw one of the largest merger deals between homegrown e-commerce majors Myntra and Flipkart, while another domestic firm Snapdeal has also got new investors.


"The deal will only make Myntra's fashion business stronger and we will target more aggressive scale - to this end, our hiring will continue to be extremely aggressive but selective," Myntra VP-HR Pooja Gupta told PTI.

"We are working also to make HR more Technology and Analytics driven and that focus will continue," Gupta said.

According to global major Amazon, which is seen as one of the major competitors for the domestic e-commerce player, the "the industry is growing rapidly and there is still a huge potential for growth".

"Likewise, we have grown exponentially over the last 11 months and will continue to see growth. Our hiring will continue to match this pace and grow accordingly," Amazon says.

HR consultancy MeraJob India's CEO Pallav Sinha said that the sector is "clearly poised for explosive growth".

"While private equity investments in e-commerce companies is one of the reasons for the expectation of this growth, the primary drivers are - proliferation of mobiles; development of digital payment platforms and social media usage.

"Hiring in e-commerce is therefore poised for growth that could match the job creation rate in mobile telecom in early 2000's. Fiscal 2014-15 would be the tipping-point in this hiring growth in India," Sinha said.

In terms of remuneration, e-commerce has emerged to be paying better than the retail while compensation packages for data analytics professionals is higher than banking and financial firms as well as IT BPO sectors, experts said.

"With global e-commerce giants entering India, demand for talent will increase along with compensation for top executives," Randstad India's Uppaluri said.

"The management and technical roles recruited from top B-schools and engineering campuses, have a starting package between Rs 8 to 12 lakhs per annum while senior executive compensations range from Rs 50 to 75 lakhs with attractive employee stock options plans (ESOPs)," he added.

Unison International MD Udit Mittal felt that the salary was more for this sector against the traditional retail "majorly because a lot of people who take up job in e-commerce are taking a higher risk as we never know if the e-commerce business model they are working towards will fly or can backfire".

"Traditionally data analysts in the BFSI sector are paid the highest salaries but e-commerce players are the new entrants, they are building their analytics capabilities and in a bid to get the right analytics talent, are offering lucrative salaries to analysts across levels," Vohra said.

Status of e-commerce industry may reach $70 billion by 2020

There is a common saying about the Indian retail consumers' "can't touch, won't buy" mentality. However, this is gradually changing with the rising trend of online shopping.

India's e-commerce business jumped by more than 80 percent in 2013 and the momentum is likely to continue for at least the next five-six years, the founders of the country's largest e-commerce firm, Flipkart, say

Flipkart co-founder and chief executive officer Sachin Bansal said the e-commerce business in India is expected to reach around $50-70 billion by 2020 on the back of a fast growing internet-connected population and improvement in related infrastructure like payment and delivery systems.

The size of India's e-commerce market in 2013 was around $13 billion, according to a joint report of KPMG and Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). The online travel segment contributed over 70 percent of the total consumer e-commerce transactions last year.

Bansal said online retail, also known as "e-tail", will lead the industry's growth in the coming years.

"Consumer mentality and shopping patterns are changing very fast. Online shopping is going to become mainstream in the coming five-six years," Bansal told IANS in an interview.

He said smartphones would be the biggest online shopping driver in the coming years.

"Over half a billion Indians will switch to smartphones in the next five-six years. That's going to be a big driver of e-commerce in India," Bansal added.

According to Bansal, online shopping is becoming increasingly popular in smaller cities.

"Tier-II and Tier-III cities are opening up very rapidly. By 2020, you will have e-commerce penetrated everywhere, whether it is smaller cities or rural areas," said Bansal.

Alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, Sachin and Binny Bansal co-founded Flipkart in 2007. They claim the company now controls nearly one-third of India's online retail business and has over 1 crore (10 million) registered users.

"By 2020, our target is to be a $20 billion company. We are thinking really big. We are investing a lot on technologies, especially on mobiles and the supply chain," said Binny Bansal.

"We have raised a good amount of funding this year. We are well funded for the foreseeable future. However, we will continue to raise funds as and when required," he said when asked about funding for the company's expansions.

Flipkart has raised nearly $550 million since 2009 from venture capitals like Tiger Global, Accel Partners, Iconiq Capital and Naspers Group.

Sachin Bansal emphasised on the need for implementing a uniform goods and services tax (GST) as this would help boost the e-commerce business.

"Right now it's a bit complicated for sellers to ship products across India because taxes vary from state to state and it is also calculated differently. GST will really be a help for the industry," he said.

He pointed out that despite high growth in recent years, India's e-commerce industry is still in a nascent stage. Online shopping accounts for less than one percent of the total shopping in the country. Total global online sales reached $1.22 trillion in 2013. In China alone it was around $200 billion.

Just around 12 percent of Indian population is into online transactions against more than half of their Chinese counterparts. This proportion is much higher in the developed countries like the US, where the figure is 64 percent.

Internet connectivity and other logistics infrastructure are still a big drag. This makes servicing in smaller towns a bit challenging, said Bansal.

According to the KPMG and IAMAI report, only around 10,000 out of the more than 150,000 pin codes in the country are covered by courier companies. The penetration of courier services is critically important to boost online shopping as deliveries are mostly done through them.