BENGALURU: The Government E-Marketplace (GeM) is now catching up with e-commerce giants such as Amazon and Flipkart, as GEM attained an annual procurement of Rs 1 lakh crore in FY22. This is a 160 per cent increase compared to FY21.
The Economic Survey 2022-23 says apart from GeM, the Digital India programme and UPI have contributed to the growth of e-commerce in India.
Both in terms of order volume and valuation, e-commerce start-ups have been witnessing the most successful years. As per the Retail and E-commerce Trends report released by Unicommerce and Wazir Advisors, overall e-commerce order volume witnessed a growth of 69.4 per cent YoY in FY22, driven mainly by consumers from tier-II and tier-III cities in the last two years.
GeM has also taken many steps to onboard products of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), tribal communities, artisans, weavers, and MSMEs. About 57 per cent of the total business on GeM has come through the MSME units, and female entrepreneurs have contributed over 6 per cent.
According to the Global Payments Report by Worldpay FIS, the e-commerce market in India is projected to grow at 18 per cent annually through 2025. The expansion of e-commerce to newer segments like grocery, fresh-to-home fruits and vegetables, and general merchandise has contributed to the expansion of the customer base beyond traditional buyers.
The survey also says that the recent initiative of the launch of Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is also playing a significant role in democratising digital payments, enabling interoperability, and bringing down transaction costs.
ONDC provides better market access to sellers and helps bring the country's remotest corners into the e-commerce framework by empowering them with digitisation. Both the ONDC and Account Aggregator framework, will open up further avenues for e-commerce market access and credit availability for smaller businesses and strengthen the expected economic growth in the medium term. ONDC started its beta testing process in Bengaluru in September.
The open network system will make the e-commerce landscape more inclusive, accessible, and experience-driven for all consumers and sellers, especially for small businesses that will exercise more freedom in business decision-making, the Economic Survey added.