India has shown rapid economic growth in recent years. According to the calculations of the International Monetary Fund, India ranks 3rd in terms of GDP in terms of purchasing power parity, overtaking such large market players as Japan, Germany, and Russia. India’s annual GDP is expected to grow by 7.4% in 2018. Significant improvements in terms of trade and increased purchasing power contribute to the development of the country and increase the country’s attractiveness to international trading partners.
The Internet is increasingly penetrating the lives of Indian citizens, and where there is the Internet, there is also online shopping. E-commerce in India is developing rapidly, in 2017 e-commerce revenue amounted to $ 25 billion. At the moment, 14% of the population makes regular purchases on the Internet, but with the annual increase in Internet penetration into the life of the population, the number of online buyers is also increasing.
Every year the number of online purchases in India is growing at an unprecedented rate, and now is the time to enter the Indian market.
The buyer is not yet bored with hundreds of offers from the same type of companies, so he is still very friendly to new offers, which gives a chance for cross-border brands to prove themselves and capture an impressive share of the Indian market.
Portrait of a shopper in India
The highest purchasing power is attributed to consumers from 26 to 35 years old since representatives of this age category most often have a stable income and can allocate more funds for purchases.
A distinctive feature of buyers is their loyalty to the brands they trust, i.e. they prefer to shop at one trusted store rather than order at a new one every time. An affiliate network is a platform that connects advertisers (that’s you) and publishers – these are people who are well versed in Internet marketing and are ready to help you enter any market. But despite the loyalty, Indians do not neglect to try new things and shop at cross-border stores. At the moment, the most popular are online platforms in the USA, Great Britain, and China.
On foreign sites, they prefer to buy clothes and shoes (54%), household appliances and electronics (43%), cosmetics and beauty products (42%).
Most of the purchases are in the categories “clothing and footwear”, “electronics”, “travel services”, “goods for children”, and “food”. Home delivery is gaining momentum.
It should be noted that in India the purchase of auto goods, pet goods, and music on the Internet is not popular.
How to enter the Indian market with an affiliate network?
An affiliate network is a platform that connects advertisers (that’s you) and publishers – these are people who are well versed in Internet marketing and are ready to help you enter any market.
What are the main advantages of networks?
- there are more than 700,000 webmasters in the Admitad partner network, some of whom are citizens of India, and they know how to promote goods for their fellow citizens;
- you don’t have to keep a team of internet marketers in India or partner with agencies to get your brand known there;
- you pay only for the result that you define yourself: if you want to attract sales, do the action you pay for by buying your product;
- you will not find it difficult to plan the streams of income and expenses: you pre-lay the publisher’s remuneration in the margin received from the sale. You do not need to calculate acquisition costs, spend budgets on testing advertising campaigns and complicate calculations – publishers do all this for you;
- you set the rules by which the webmaster works.
How does this work in practice?
It’s simple: your company has decided to enter the Indian market and start selling goods/services there. You came to the affiliate network and filled out an offer.
In the offer, you need to prescribe an action that you are willing to pay for, GEO (in our case, India is a priority), traffic sources that publishers can use (contextual advertising, social networks, e-mail newsletters, cashback, coupons, etc.), rules promoting your offer, and be sure to indicate which traffic is prohibited so that publishers do not use context on the brand and do not attract traffic from adult sites or other unwanted resources.
Then you need to give the offer to the manager in the affiliate network, and he puts it in the program directory. Further, the affiliate network notifies publishers about your offer, and they start working with it.
What should you do before you start capturing the Indian market?
As an advertiser, you should be prepared for a large number of applications and orders. There have been times when publishers were attracting a significant amount of sales, but advertisers weren’t prepared and they didn’t have enough product.
What came of this? The client is upset because he did not receive the desired purchase/service, the publisher does not want to work with the offer anymore, since he attracted sales, but did not receive a reward, and the advertiser is not satisfied with the work.
So, a small checklist before entering the Indian market:
Your website needs to be prepared for an Indian audience. Translate your website into English, if not already done. Set up a shopping cart on your site, because users need to put goods somewhere. Allow buyers to choose a currency, it is logical that it will be more convenient for Indian residents to view prices in rupees. It will be easier and clearer for them, and this will remove unnecessary difficulties on the way to buying your goods.
30% of online purchases in India are made from a smartphone, so pre-configure the mobile version of your site so that users do not close the page when they see a crookedly fit desktop version.
Be prepared for new customers to need help, so your customer support staff should be fluent in English and always ready to help new customers.
It is necessary to set up a delivery system to India in advance, and it is better if it is free since most cross-border sites provide free delivery, which “bribes” Indians and contributes to an increase in purchases. Be prepared that there will be a lot of goods to be delivered.
Adjust in advance for local promotions and big sales. Online sales from overseas sites peak around Christmas and Diwali (October-November). You can prepare inspiring discounts for these periods.
And most importantly, working with affiliate networks should be suitable for your business. Affiliate marketing works best in the e-Commerce segment. With B2B companies, everything is much more complicated, but each company can be considered individually.
