E-commerce portals unable to cater to enterprise needs

BANGALORE, INDIA: E-commerce has surged in number of sectors. But, office needs have still not been addressed by the e-commerce giants although vividly we can witness the potential this sector holds.  Inevitably, enterprises and SMBs will benefit at large if this niche shoots up in e-commerce.

Abhishek Kamani, founder & CEO, Zoffio.com thinks E-commerce market is booming in India and this is probably the best time for both the enterprise side, both for established companies as well as companies that venturing into in this space.

"For the consumer it is definitely a ‘Golden Era of Choice’, where there are a plethora of options to choose from be it- fashion, lifestyle, travel or even groceries at the click of a button. Having said that, not too many E- commerce companies have leveraged the opportunities that a B2B market has to offer. In fact, every company, big or small, needs quality stationery items, printers, copier paper, IT peripherals and more. Picture this, while the demand is very high and consistent for office supplies, the market is far from being organized. Traditionally, these companies have been relying on local vendors for their office supplies which are mainly family run businesses. Due to the lack of professional suppliers, companies face problems like delayed delivery, quality issues, fake products, incorrect billing/taxation and others. The problems for purchase & facility managers do not end here, they have to also reach out to multiple vendors to order, track and procure all their office supplies."

He also adds that the office supplies market in India is pegged at $ 20 billion. Incidentally the printers, photocopiers, cartridges and many other office stuff are regarded as corporate supplies. Industry sources indicate that in India, the market for printer cartridges is pegged at over Rs 4,000 crore and is growing at over 30 per cent Y-O-Y.

Although Internet has penetrated to a large extent, digital revolution is only at a nascent stage in India. B2B market has not yet matured and only a few tech savvy companies are trying to explore the technical boons in terms of reach, convenience.

Abhishek Kamani throws some light on the prospects of the office needs and its growth in the e-commerce and few players are trying to meet the potential.

He says, "The Office supplies market in India is huge with both organised and un-organized players. However, there are not many niche players operating in the segment, while horizontal players are not able to handle huge volumes of products."

Zoffio which is a player in this niche plans to open warehouses in Mumbai and Hyderabad as well. Their expected run rate for the year end is 1000 orders per day and have sold 3.3 million products in 2014.

The company saw a quarterly revenue growth of 50 percent (CAGR) in 2014 and expects quarterly revenue growth of 35 percent (CAGR) in 2015 and in the next three years we are targeting a revenue of 350-400 cr.