India's eB2B market pegged at $100 bn GMV by 2030

The growth of the swanky, plush malls and hypermarts across many parts of the country notwithstanding, India's retail market, by and large, is still driven by the unorganised general trade (GT) channel and it is growing continuously. If things move the way, it is being envisaged, the overall size of India's unorganised GT channel is expected to be double- from $0.7 trillion to $1.4 trillion by 2030. That's not all. The B2B GT opportunity in India will reach close to $1.2 trillion by 2030, with eB2B coming up as a promising digital procurement solution, if the latest study by Redseer Strategy Consultants is to be believed.

This has to be seen in light of the fact that a majority of the India's population still resides in more than 8000 towns and 665k villages across the country. And there are multiple barriers to organized brick-and-mortar adoption in general trade channel. Looking at globally, India holds the largest share- 84 per cent- in general trade, when compared to developed countries including the US and the UK.

Talking about the eB2B market, India's B2B e-commerce market is one of the fastest growing in the world and various international benchmarks indicate that the eB2B market will reach $90-100 billion GMV by 2030, driven by multiple favourable factors. Interestingly, retailers, brands and manufacturers have already realized eB2B market's potential and are betting big on it to shape the way they do business. In order to access under-served markets, brands are turning increasingly to eB2B, either as an addition to their current distribution network or as a replacement for ineffective traditional distributors.

While there may still be low adoption of eB2B in lower city tiers and small stores and it may still be at an early stage in those areas right now, there is no doubt whatsoever that eB2B is emerging as a strong digital procurement solution.

Again going by the Redseer study, eB2B has already captured a fair wallet share of the offline market, and retailers are confident about increasing their spending soon. Nearly 50 per cent of the non-users are willing to shift to eB2B platforms in the coming year. Actually, India's eB2B market has scope for multiple models but, multi-category play with wide category coverage and national coverage is likely to win. The eB2B market is projected to reach $90-100 billion GMV by 2030, thanks to a humongous opportunity.

A number of sector analysts think that going forward, one will see a shift from unorganized trade to organized digital trade while rallying for emerging brands to scale in India, making eB2B a de-facto channel for brand marketing and ad spend, and a holy grail for retailer insights and data intelligence. All this and more will enable stable growth for eB2B at scale. So much so that at scale, there would be little wonder if the eB2B platforms have an ROI of more than 50 per cent, which is much higher than offline retail as well as cash and carry formats. Therefore, when it comes to India's retail sector, eB2B is the way forward.