Chinese ecommerce giant, Alibaba is inching closer to its goal of entering Indian ecommerce in a big way. The ecommerce firm recently tied up with Mumbai-based Allcargo Logistics’ international subsidiary ECU Line to transport ‘less-than-container load’ (LCL) shipments to India.
Delivery timeline is one the key element that determines an online shopping company’s performance. The alliance with Alcargo will ensure Alibaba’s consignments reach its Indian customers quickly. Biswanath Bhattacharya, partner at KPMG said, “As ecommerce has boomed, supply chains are getting stretched and hence companies compete on timelines. With LCL, frequencies would increase and that would mean better timelines for customers.”
While typically ecommerce logistics makes use of rail, road and air transport, water transport comes to play in case of cross border sales. More so, when the order consists bulk (volume and/or weight) items.
China made products is set to enter Indian shores on a big scale. After China’s DHgate and India’s Shopclues’ collaboration, Alibaba will also enable entry of Chinese sellers in Indian ecommerce world. Come August, one lakh Chinese sellers from AliExpress (Alibaba’s online shopping portal) will get listed on Paytm.
Paytm’s gross merchandise value (GMV) had crossed $1.5 billion (about Rs 9,600 crore) in the year ended. They expect it to be $1.5 billion more in 6 months after the deal with AliExpress materializes. Vice President-payments of Paytm said, “We are undergoing quite a complex integration with AliExpress, something we haven’t done in the past.” He added, “According to our initial estimates, we’ll be able to double our gross merchandise within six months with the help of AliExpress integration.”
Alibaba’s integration with Paytm doesn’t come as a surprise, as the Chinese ecommerce portal had bought stake worth $550 million in One97 Communications that runs Paytm. Besides Paytm, Alibaba also teamed up with cashback site, Cashkaro and renewed their plans to partner with Snapdeal with an intention to spread their reach in India.
Invasion of Chinese sellers will definitely shake-up Indian ecommerce scene. Known to make handy products at low-cost, the cross-border merchants might make the existing cut-throat online competition even more brutal. Ultimately the customers will decide, whether they tilt towards Made in India or Made in China.
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