E-Commerce No Threat To India’s Traditional Retailers

A report by a consulting/accounting firm says it will be a long time before traditional retailers in India are threatened by online competitors. Pricewaterhouse-Coopers says the key reasons are last-mile connectivity, high payment cost, low profitability, regulatory barriers and a scarcity of skilled manpower. Low Internet penetration in the country is another major barrier: only 16 percent of India's 1.2 billion people had access to the Internet in 2013. Bottom line: online stores are projected to account for only three percent of India's total retail market by 2020.