An Unorganized Online Shopping Ecosystem Goes Silent in Lockdown

Beyond the multi-thousand crore shopping giants like Flipkart and Amazon, there are thousands of people who have made forays into the online shopping business over the past decade. This fledgling business has ground to a halt in the lockdown period.

Anita Rajguru from Pune promotes products like clothes, accessories and eye-wear on her Facebook page. People buy them by getting in touch with her page called 'shopping style'. The products are replicas of well-known brands. Her Facebook page has 3000 members and many of them are her customers. "It gives me close to ten thousand rupees per month," said Anita.

Since March 15 however, her business has come to a standstill. “I do not make these products but buy them from vendors. Now, the vendors are closed and courier services have also stopped, so there is no product to promote. I have told my regular customers that the business will resume only after courier services begin," she said.

Just a simple search leads one to many Facebook groups and pages for online shopping. There are thousands of individuals in this business with many groups running into lakhs and lakhs of members. It is a parallel world of the online economy, far from glittering advertisements and PR and was thriving till March 15, providing opportunities to thousands of men and women across India.

Paneri is a famous sari store at Matunga market in Mumbai. During the wedding or festive season, women across Mumbai choose Paneri to shop. Very few know that Paneri also sells its products online. "We do not have a platform of our own but give our products to folks who run online platforms. They give us business," said Ajit Pednekar, Paneri’s owner.

Pednekar said they click pictures of their products and send them using WhatsApp to these online platforms with prices. “Those promoters get their orders from their clients. Then they give us orders with the address of customer. We send products to the customer by courier and have the money transferred to our accounts online,” he said. “Due to the lockdown we can't send products via courier so we have decided to put it on hold till the lockdown is over," said Ajit.

Lekha Patel is also part of this world, selling products ranging from clothes to utensils. She works on WhatsApp: "I do not get time to put them up on FB and track individual orders. My focus is to give products to resellers," said Lekha. Who are these resellers? Lekha is connected to vendors who send her products by courier. Lekha connects these vendors to resellers and keeps her margin. “You may not believe that this chain could have three to four resellers. People still buy it from us because they get products at reasonable prices," said Lekha.

Yogesh Girme, like Lekha, is dependent on many people. He has a shop at Yeola city in Nasik district. This city is famous for the iconic sari ‘Paithani’. He makes Paithani and sells it in his shop. "There are two ways. One is to sell it in your shop. Paithani is not a product which women buy every other day. So they come to my shop only during the wedding season. In the off-season, I my push products online. Our business was dependent on the season but now this online market has made it perennial," said Yogesh.

“This lockdown has completely shutdown our business. I’ve lost between Rs 75,000 to Rs 80,000 in one month. April and May fall in the wedding season. If this continues, the loss could be a lakh for a month,” said Yogesh.

These small businesses also know that even when the lockdown is over, their business may need between two to three months to get back on track. “People are scared to buy anything online because they feel that coronavirus could come into your house through courier packets. Till the time the virus is out there, our business will suffer," said Anita.

The businesses are not organised and there are chains of promoters and resellers working only on trust. In these times, this informal industry has no one to turn to. "Who will listen to us? Our only option is to keep quiet and bear the loss," said Lekha.

With there being no way to gauge or calculate the losses that these small entrepreneurs face, they are losing money, their grip on their business and personal networks which are very essential to how they function. The lockdown is necessary but it will also destroy such pockets of the informal economy.