How Social Selling platforms are enabling women-preneurship in India?

Women in India are inseparable from the nation’s dream of emerging as an economy worth USD 5 trillion. While in the previous years, a woman’s labour was restricted to the household, today’s women did not inherit the silence of their mothers and grandmothers. Empowered with access to education and a ready digital infrastructure that is up for grabs, today’s women are making their mark and emerging as successful business persons.

Let’s dive deeper and understand how, with access to the internet and social selling, women in India are emerging as successful entrepreneurs.

Rise of e-commerce empowering women entrepreneurs

With the rise in the popularity of e-commerce, women entrepreneurs have been successful in tasting commercial success. One can frequently observe women-run enterprises claiming its share in a male-dominated industry, especially in different business segments like handicrafts, apparel, cooking, and baking, amongst others.

Online mediums present a conducive environment for women to generate avenues for commercial success. Without heavy investments on the infrastructure etc., women entrepreneurs can simply test their product offerings. Without a need for a physical set-up, aspiring womenpreneurs can simply operate from their houses or co-working spaces and scale up their online ventures.

With more than 530 million internet users in India, women entrepreneurs have access to immense market potential. Furthermore, the sale of their produce is no longer restricted to set geographical parameters. Owing to e-commerce enabler platforms helping with customised online stores, digital payments, product listing, etc. women entrepreneurs are now able to sell their products across national and international borders, without intensive investments in business development.

Social selling platforms to the rescue

Digital mediums have not only given a voice to the female narrative; the rise of social selling platforms has also opened up a greater avenue for women entrepreneurs to market and promote their products. Working from home professionals and business owners can now utilise their network on WhatsApp or Facebook etc. to promote their products. Furthermore, social selling platforms make it easier for interested users to buy and pay online.

And that’s not all! Some of the leading social selling platforms are championing the cause of women entrepreneurs, especially the ones hailing from tier 2 markets and beyond. For instance, an offline-to-online platform helps women offline entrepreneurs to come aboard the online world and leverage its massive outreach. By including artificial intelligence in their offerings, the O2O platforms help in automated cataloguing and tagging, with women entrepreneurs not having to enter a single detail. With support for reconciliation, logistics, and offline inventory, these platforms have come up to be one of the biggest allies for women entrepreneurs.

Jasmeet Thind, Co-founder, Coutloot

Ready infrastructure for women entrepreneurs

The times, as they say, are changing. And in these changing times, there is no dearth of opportunities or access to infrastructure for women entrepreneurs. In a post-4G era, with Digital India campaign making in-roads to the nation’s hinterlands, women entrepreneurs now enjoy access to easy connectivity. The growing digital literacy is well-supported by lowering of data tariffs and easy affordability of high-end products.

India’s daughters are now more literate and educated as well, as demonstrated in the MHRD Report from 2018, highlighting the rise in female literacy rates from 2011’s 37% to 2018’s 57%. Now that the young women have more role models, their contemporaries and senior women leaders who have made it big in the business world without giving up on the household, the same would inspire a brigade of women entrepreneurs to channelize these latest advancements in making their business a success.

In essence, the market for e-commerce in India is expected to reach USD 200 billion by 2026. Furthermore, the combined GMV value in rural India and non-metros account for nearly 60%, as per a Forrester report. To that measure, women in India, especially the ones hailing from tier 2 markets and beyond, have access to a huge opportunity. As social selling and O2O platforms continue to gain further grounds in India, a greater number of Indian women would find it easier to emerge as online entrepreneurs and successfully grow their business.