Monday, May 14, 2018

A Realistic View on Growth of Online Business



Online business has been developing very well in the Westernized World and it is going to stay there. Traditional Eastern sector of the World is much larger than the Westernized masses, indicating a huge potential for growth of online business. It is an optimistic view but not the realistic one.
Online business needs more trust between sellers and buyers than that needed for traditional direct transactions. Therefore, it is not the population, potential or possibility of the market that matters for growth of online business but it is the mutual trust between buyers and sellers that works in online transactions.
Business people of the Western World have proved themselves fit for reliability, hence they are reaping good harvests on entering business online. This is not the case in the Eastern sector of the World which is highly segmented, hence need be understood segment-wise.
First level of segmentation is urban-rural, wherein rural segment, making about 60 percent of total Eastern market size, is totally blind for developing online business. Online business community has been very realistic in keeping this segment out of their view of the market, so far.
Second level of segmentation is born out of economic levels of people with vast diversity. About 30 percent of urbanized population comprised mainly of business-people, government employees and employed in the West or in prosperous Middle-East countries, have easy-going lifestyles for being richer than the rest of the population, hence make the real potential for developing online business. For various reasons like easily earned money (Government employees), being too-much busy in their routines (business-people), having rich inheritance, etc this segment hardly bothers for even trust-worthiness of businesspersons they deal with. They even don’t mind if cheated in some transactions for their consideration of cheating being a part of human life.
In some Asian countries with thick population density, like India, even rich-urbanized segment makes a huge market for initial growth of online business, but is not going to be enough forever. Saturation would become visible sooner than that may be expected now. It is therefore needed right now to understand what blocks the way of online-business growth into other segments of human population. For this study ahead, the focus would be on India as representative of the Eastern World.
Coming back to trustworthiness of businesspeople, it is in for dipping deeper than already existing low level. Since growth of business-houses has been through illicit supports of politicians in power, character of politicians has been inspiring them to be likewise. I take up a direct experience of mine to exemplify my above-said viewpoint. My friend in USA suffered some inconvenience in her online connectivity due to renovation work in that area by the service providing Company. To compensate for the inconvenience, the Company offered discounted rates for two months for their services to all their customers in the area. In India, I have been a customer of Jio Digital Life for about a year. Through my four recharges during this period, I have been paying for unlimited voice calls but not even a single voice-call has been materialized through their networking service for which I subscribe to Vodafone service which works only after my reaching rooftop of my home. I reported this matter to Prime Minister’s Office in February 2018 for their blind support to Jio, they forwarded my complaint to Bombay office of Jio. A Jio representative spoke to me assuring improvement in their services soon, but the status of service remains the same even today. How can I ever trust Jio people in my life.
In India, though no business sector can be said to be working reliably, Mobile Phone services, Medicinal and Health products, and Dairy Derivatives are the worst hit sectors by character crisis in businesspeople of the country. These products and services are available in acceptable quality only for super-rich customers who don’t bother for price-tags. Whole population can’t be that way, hence the crisis of trustworthiness is going to stay forever blocking expected growth of online business.
It is for warning the individuals relying on growth of online business, that they must be well-prepared with an alternative much before the said saturation in online business hits them.

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