Present demographics in e-commerce industry are definitely very positive as the number of online visitors in India grew 50 percent in 12 months to November 2012 outpacing the likes of China and Brazil, which grew just 2 to 3 percent each.

In his pre-budget expectations, Mr. Laurent Dhaeyer, MD, Ogone Asia and EBS said, “It is not only the responsibility of the government and its policy initiatives but also the responsibility of every member in the process chain of the e-commerce business such as merchants, payment gateways and customers to work in harmony to  shape up the industry’s future”.  Laurent Dhaeyer said, “a more cohesive environment, bringing all the players in the payment ecosystem to work in unison will unlock the true potential of the e-commerce business in India”.

The regulation put in place by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for 3D-Secure or 2-factors authentication to create a safe environment for e-commerce, were necessary and a prerequisite for further growth. Regulation was necessary but perhaps not sufficient. Many online shoppers turn to cash on delivery for convenience, trust is not completely achieved and the number of new buyers could increase faster.

According to Mr Laurent, following are the steps to be taken for further growth of the industry:

A. Convenience and user-friendliness need to be put back at the centre of the equation while balancing out with safety and security. Several millions mobile and tablet subscribers will gradually start transacting more online provided their check-out experience is optimised. Returning customers are looking for ways to simplify their buying process which would lead to higher conversion and impulsive buying behaviours (e.g. Amazon checkout process)

B. Better KYC: Merchants need to know their customers better and progressively adapt their processes for the level of trust they have.

C. Fraud mitigation systems: Payment gateways have a role to play with the use of advanced fraud management systems that give indications to the merchants about the potential risk level of each transaction

D. International cross-border e-commerce: Most of Indian e-commerce merchants are still extremely India-centric. While this is certainly greatly explained by the size of the internal market, that leads to huge untapped potential. Adapted fraud-mitigation tools and strategies become a ‘must’.

E. Banking and networks performance: Today’s typical failure rate on the transactions is way higher than in other countries. This can be partially attributed to unstable networks, internet connectivity and banking systems. The measures taken to create a huge fibre-optical network should help drastically.