India’s e-commerce sector bucks the trend since it boosts hiring amid Covid-19
India's e-commerce sector is emerging as a bright spot within an otherwise battered economy, with the sector promising to create a large number of jobs as its mobile phone-savvy customers increasingly opt to shop online amid rising Covid-19 infections.
Technology as well as delivery and logistics companies are among those on a hiring spree because they prepare to take care of the expected rush of online shoppers.
“We are fully ready,” says Nakul Singh, the co-founder of ANS Commerce, a business solutions company, enabling businesses to market their merchandise online. “We've hired additional manpower and we're obtaining the training sessions done.”
The market share of offline has considerably moved to online
The company has added more warehousing space in key cities such as Mumbai, New Delhi, and Bangalore, and has boosted its workforce by 30 per cent. Many of these roles are short-term gigs to take care of the holiday rush amid the yuletide season, but ANS Commerce plans to retain some as it sees continued growth of the e-commerce sector.
Indian consumers, who traditionally depend on their brick-and-mortar neighbourhood stores and vendors because of their daily and festive shopping, have flocked to websites on the internet amid the pandemic. According to a survey by Capgemini in April this season, nearly 64 per cent of Indian consumers said they prefer to shop online over physical stores in the six-nine month period due to pandemic-related restrictions.
With confirmed infections now totalling a lot more than 6.4 million in the united states - making India the second-worst damaged country behind the united states - this trend could possibly be here to stay.
Mr Singh explains that hiring at the moment is merely logical, as companies are looking to capitalise on the buyer trend of online purchasing.
A substantial part of “offline” purchases has recently “moved online”, says Mr Singh. “Plus there's a pent-up demand among consumers.”
Offline retailers are also trying to catch up with their online competitors. Anticipating strong demand, these companies are also boosting their online existence and offerings for the festive period. Some are revamping their web stores, while some are selling on the internet for the very first time. The yuletide season in India are certain to get into full swing this month, and peak with Diwali in November - a period when people traditionally spend additional money purchasing everything from sweets to televisions.
“The marketplace has been going right through a whole lot of negative sentiment as a result of Covid-19 during the last half a year,” says Samarth Agrawal, co-founder and leader of MaxWholesale. “A whole lot of brands are strategising to utilize the festive season” to try to get their customers spending again, he adds.
All this of course requires more manpower with regards to storage and delivery of products for sale online.
A written report by consultancy RedSeer estimates daily average e-commerce shipments will grow 1.8 times more than last year to attain 22 million in this yuletide season. It projects e-commerce and logistics firms in India will create some 300,000 jobs for the time, with permanent workers creating about one-fifth of the full total number. These positions are mostly supply chain roles such as for example delivery staff, warehouse staff and in customer support.
Such jobs are essential to revitalise India’s labour market, that was badly hit by the pandemic-induced nationwide lockdown that came into effect just hours after being announced by the federal government in March. An incredible number of labourers were left without work and India's gross domestic product contracted 23.9 % in the April to June quarter compared to the same period this past year, according to official numbers.
Although lockdown restrictions have eased substantially over the past few months and more businesses are reopening, economical activity and consumer demand remain far below normal levels as the pandemic continues to spread rapidly across the country.
Overall, employment opportunities remain weak. Data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a Mumbai-based independent think tank, shows that unemployment numbers stood at 28.4 million in September. But hiring in the e-commerce and logistics is providing some relief.
Source: www.thenational.ae
