The Indian Ecommerce Market: What Are the Top Marketplaces in India?
With a 1.38 billion total population, India is the second most populated country globally, which means there is an enormous trading opportunity to be unlocked for international brands and retailers. Currently, there are 624 million active internet users in this country, representing almost half of the total national population. With the intrinsic ever-increasing nature of the ecommerce sector and its acceleration caused by the pandemic, it is logical to imagine that India’s online audience reach and market size will only become more significant.
The Indian ecommerce sector is rapidly emerging and is considered to be one of the fastest-growing markets globally. According to Statista, the Indian ecommerce market size stands at $84 million this year. Still, it is fascinating to highlight its evolution: the market size was $50 million in 2018, and it is expected to quadruple by 2027, reaching $200 million.
The pandemic has forced a further acceleration of the Indian ecommerce sector, which was already set to grow. Usually, Indian families rely on the ‘kirana’, typical local stores, to purchase essential goods. The Covid restrictions have greatly influenced Indian shopping behaviour, encouraging those families to embrace ecommerce for a safer shopping experience. Major companies are facilitating this shift by creating business plans that connect traditional retail to the ecommerce sector.
While shopping online is quite efficient in large Indian cities, the remote areas of this incredibly vast country may lack reliable logistics and solid infrastructures to guarantee a good shopping experience. However, India is a very resourceful region and homeland of well-known online marketplaces leading the way to a fast and secure ecommerce ecosystem.
Compared to many regions where global online marketplaces cover the top positions in the ranking, local online marketplaces monopolise the Indian ecommerce market, offering a broad product range or specialising in a particular niche.
In the following sections, we will explore the key characteristics and dive deeper into the fifth most popular online marketplaces in India in 2021, ranked by total monthly online visits by SimilarWeb.
| # | Name | Region/Country | Product Category | Visits/Month |
| 1 | Amazon | Global | General | 295.8M |
| 2 | Flipkart | India | General | 167.4M |
| 3 | Myntra | India | Fashion | 32.9M |
| 4 | Snapdeal | India | General | 15.1M |
| 5 | Shopclues | India | General | 5.9M |
Amazon is a global online shopping platform that has expanded its empire by creating eighteen local online marketplace platforms in key ecommerce markets. Securing the first position as the top online marketplace in several countries globally, India is not an exception as Amazon.in is the number one shopping destination in the country with 295.8 million monthly visits.
Launched in 2013, Amazon.in has rapidly grown in India, and it reached over 70,000 sellers trading actively on the platform by the end of 2020. This remarkable achievement made Amazon.in surpass the UK and German marketplaces to become the second-largest Amazon marketplace in terms of the number of sellers.
Established in 2007, Flipkart is the largest local online marketplace in India, recording 167.4 million online visits and 150+ million app downloads. Mobile commerce is a flourishing ecommerce sector in India as it is accountable for 46% of the total online shopping transitions. Therefore, the number of downloads of the Flipkart app is a clear sign of the incredible popularity of the marketplace.
Flipkart is a pure-play marketplace allowing only third-party sellers to trade on its platform. Today, the platform boasts of having 200,000 merchants selling actively on the site and 150 million products listed across more than 80 categories.
If you are a fashion brand or retailer looking for a gateway to India, Myntra marketplace should be on your list. Founded in 2007 as a B2B venture for personalised gifts and later acquired by Flipkart, Myntra is now the top online shopping destination for fashion and lifestyle products in India.
Like Flipkart, Myntra is purely a marketplace and offers 500 leading Indian and international brands, such as Adidas, Nike, Puma and United Colours of Benetton. The platform records 32.9 million online visits, and over 90% of those are from its local market.
Operating exclusively in India, Snapdeal is a local online marketplace that solely trades goods from its regional, national, and international 300,000+ merchants. According to SimilarWeb, Snapdeal’s website records over 16 million online visits and its app ranks as the fifth most popular shopping app in India.
Since its launch in 2010, the platform has grown in popularity in the past ten years and now offers a wide assortment of over 60 million products across more than 800 categories. Also, Snapdeal provides a delivery service that securely reaches over 6000 cities and towns in India.
Shopclues was launched in 2011 under closed beta via Facebook, and its incredible success set the foundation of the online marketplace site. Today, Shopclues is the fifth most browsed marketplace in India, with over 5.9 million online visits.
With over 6,000 merchants selling actively on Shopclues, the platform offers a comprehensive product choice to its consumers, spacing from consumer electronics and apparel to automotive and homeware.
Trusted by major brands and retailers, Arcade Retail is a market-leading technology and service provider, which provides a flexible solution that removes the hassles of selling across international borders via online marketplaces. Get in touch today to discover how we can make your cross-border expansion easy!
