‘Social media is new tool of traders to fight online cos’
   Date :16-Nov-2020

Social media _1 &nbs
 
 
Business Bureau ;
 
In order to promote Indian goods and boycott of Chinese goods and to ensure celebration of this Diwali as ‘Hindustani Diwali’, Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has used the traditional ‘Jugaad’ technology of India as its weapon to challenge unethical business practices of big e-commerce players. “CAIT has adopted an innovative way to make the campaigns of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call of ‘Vocal on Local’ and ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ at the ground level.
 
And this Jugaad technology is nothing but optimum usage of Whatsapp and other social media avenues where not only the merchants but thousands of people are selling their goods directly to consumers. This innovative way of doing business developed by CAIT has made social media as another strong method of doing business in India,” said CAIT National President B C Bhartia. CAIT is all set to launch its e-commerce portal ‘Bharatmarket’ in month of December.” CAIT keeping in mind the festive sales of Diwali and with a view to capture majority of festive business by the traders, the CAIT developed the idea of usage of Whatsapp and other social media as an innovative and powerful tool for the traders, he said. Accordingly in the month of August, 2020, CAIT advised trade associations across country to educate the traders about making a powerpoint presentation of their goods and send it through WhatsApp and other social media platforms to their customers.
 
Known people are also using WhatsApp groups of residential societies, residential colonies etc., and take online orders and delivering the same through employees of their shops, Bhartia said. This idea of CAIT was well accepted across the country and now not only the traders but household ladies, women entrepreneurs, self employed people and others are conducting business activities and gaining revenue through this new format where there is no investments, he pointed out.
 
CAIT has also added craftsmen, artisans, handicraft artisans and people of poor strata in almost all states of the country bringing potential market for their products, Bhartia added. Bhartia while quoting a survey report of Shiprocket conducted between September 1 to 30 among 40,816 persons across country revealed that the most popular sales channel for new sellers (17.92%) was social media platforms while for existing sellers, it was the online websites (35.19%), informs a press release issued here. The second most popular channel for new sellers was offline channels (12.04%) and for existing sellers, it was noticed that social media (32.75%) was the next most popular sales channel. Shiprocket also noted that the top product categories during the festive season were personal care (18.45%), food and groceries (16.51%), apparel (15.09%), electronics (11.37%), healthcare (7.60%), household and cleaning supplies (4.59%), and jewelry (3.83%), he added.