Title: Exploring e-commerce potential in rural India: opportunities in Northern India

Authors: Hemanti Richa; Alpana Srivastava; Madhu Pandey

Addresses: Amity Business School, Amity University, Lucknow, UP, India ' Amity Business School, Amity University, Lucknow, UP, India ' Department of Psychology, BS College, Patliputra University, Bihar, India

Abstract: E-commerce facilitated online shopping is well established and populated in urban areas facilitating the buyers with lower price and delivery at their convenience. However, the type and nature of demand in rural areas is different. The supply chain is less developed along with product portfolio. Using primary data from rural areas, the study aims to gauge the penetration of online shopping in rural areas and their specific considerations and barriers to it. Applying basic descriptive statistics, the findings reveal that there is serious problem in logistics and rural people desire more agricultural products than fashion and entertainment. It has been recommended, if seeds, fertilisers and equipment are sold to the rural people, there would be a huge market to tap which is untapped till now.

Keywords: e-commerce; electronic commerce; rural e-commerce; agriculture; online shopping; rural supply chain; India.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBG.2025.146216

International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 2025 Vol.40 No.2, pp.97 - 106

Received: 17 Aug 2021
Accepted: 11 Oct 2021
Published online: 13 May 2025 *

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