A recent joint study published in The Economic Times found that eCommerce in India is a rather treacherous landscape. According to the nine month-long research conducted by Google, consultants Bain & Company and philanthropic venture fund Omidyar Network, these are the following highlights:
- Large shift in mobile users: 50 million new regular online shoppers are online while 54 million have left the eCommerce market.
- Making money is hard: Only 28% Indian are connected to internet. Many of these potential consumers are consuming online content, but they have not yet made the transition to purchasing. Trust is also a factor when buying online. Also, most of the users are men, cutting out half of the shopping population.
- Language is a barrier: Much of the eCommerce sites in India use English or Hindi, while many new online shoppers are from lower income groups who are more comfortable with vernacular languages.
- User Experience is poor: The touch and feel experience of internet shopping, the research shows, is a crucial explanation for why so many Indians became digital dropouts.
- The majority of eCommerce shoppers are from Bharat: The new group of mobile consumers is very different from the previous group that dropped off. Content in Bharat requires approximately 11 local languages for a news station to convey their information.
While many of these issues make it challenging for eCommerce to thrive in India, a number of our customers have found success with their eCommerce companies in India. We believe there is technically more to the “User Experience” portion of this story than meets the eye. For more information on Indian device usage (smartphones, feature phones, tablet, operating system, and more) please download our free 2017 Q2 Mobile Overview Report (MOVR).
Why Image Size Matters in Indian eCommerce
In countries like India, poor data network connectivity and image heavy eCommerce sites could be an additional reason for shoppers to be dropping out of the eCommerce market. The network connectivity required to deliver high resolutions images is not sustainable for countries like India. Which is why companies like Livspace, an India furniture eCommerce site, have used ImageEngine by ScientiaMobile to compress images for optimization across all devices sizes and networks connectivity levels.
Furnspace’s biggest business challenge was high bounce rates from a predominantly desktop audience. As an Indian eCommerce company, Furnspace knew first-hand that many Indian customers use their mobile phone for making purchases. Mobile UX was therefore crucial to attract and convert mobile visitors. Furnspace needed to accelerate their site’s loading speed to make it more attractive to mobile visitors. Furnspace had already implemented a traditional content delivery network (CDN) with Amazon Cloudfront, but it only slightly improved performance. Furnspace needed a solution to accelerate their website, improve conversions, and control future CDN operating costs. Read more about Furnspace’s complete improvement here.
After Implementing ImageEngine
Our customers in India have found many benefits from our ImageEngine solution, including:
- Faster Page Loading, Higher Conversions: Accelerate your website and decrease payload by more than 60%.
- CDN Savings: Pay only for optimized, resized image bandwidth.
- Proactive Device Detection: Accurately identify mobile devices without using slow, inaccurate javascript.
- Automatic Image Resizing : Automatically resize and cache your master images.
- Simple Deployment: Easy integration with leading e-commerce platforms.
The bandwidth consumption of Furnspace dramatically dropped as their image payload was reduced by 86% on average. The average customer can expect at least 60% reduction in image payload on average. Try ImageEngine on your eCommerce site for free. Or test your site here
“Our average page weight went from 4MB to 400kb after implementing ImageEngine by ScientiaMobile….By implementing ImageEngine, we slashed loading time, generated a huge uptick in mobile visitors, and now have 50% of our visitors coming from mobile. Best of all, we have seen a 100% increase in conversions and a 20% decrease in bounces since we deployed ImageEngine.”
