Status of E-consumers in India

This research project, spread across 2 years, aims to study the status of ‘e-consumers’ while analysing the e-commerce space in India. Given the proliferation of smartphones and increasing internet access, it is critical to ascertain the importance of e-commerce, not only as a service but as a whole sector. The covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to e-commerce by at least 5 years. Thus, it is clear that e-commerce must be one of the biggest cogs in the wheel to economic recovery post-covid-19, in India and globally.

The study in that regard builds on 5 sub-projects, each analysing a different perspective on e-commerce including consumer welfare, competition assessment, multi-homing and omni-channels, and data protection and privacy concerns, among others.

Despite the growing importance of e-commerce, and its impact on consumers, there is still minimal academic literature on the status and impact on e-consumers in developing countries. Through this project, CUTS International aims to bridge this gap by producing outputs supported by both primary and secondary research. We aim to gauge consumer perspectives on the advent of e-commerce, while assessing areas which can further be improved to increase consumer welfare.