India was traditionally a market that was driven by VFM (Value for Money) sentimentality. Buyers here used to believe in a conservative approach to the Shopping experience . Buyers prefer to touch and feel products before making a buy decision. Apart from this there were other technological challenges in the bygone era in terms of connectivity and user confidence on online suppliers (in terms of quality and deliveries) .
Post 2009 India has tremendous growth in online retail. Most of the buying happens from urban households where time has become the most valuable commodity. Online bill payments on utility services seems to be normal in any household. As India emerges to become the backoffice hub for global businesses, professionals seem to be working in global timezones . Affordability is no longer a factor. User confidence on online brands is gaining day by day. Business models like Flipkart ( http://flipkart.com/ ), Futurebazaar ( http://www.futurebazaar.com/ ), Univercel ( http://www.univercel.in/ ) are gaining popularity among masses . Simultaneously organizations are luring customers with terms that aim to guarantee user satisfaction, like free return in 15days policy, Free Shipping within given boundaries, COD (Cash on Delivery) so on.
As these models mature there seems to be a emergent need for robust shopping models that are able to adapt to Indian markets and address local conditions. We at Railsfactory have been building Ecommerce models for our clients for a very long time. Currently we have built a Center of Excellence servicing clients on Ecommerce models that span a range of offerings. Our core team has been involved in building multitenancy capability over the existing Open Source Spree Commerce. By doing we combine the power of open source community with best of breed solutions there by elevates the existing framework to match features available in Closed end systems like Magento , OSCommerce, Zencart and Prestashop. The multitenancy feature helps in serving multiple clients with a single instance running in the back end thereby optimizing load.
