Online e-Bay stores - new mantra for Punjab entrepreneurs
Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 19:30 IST
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Chandigarh: Manmeet Singh, 28, from Amritsar sells his chess boards globally as does a young entrepreneur from Jalandhar who sells sports equipment. They are among the 200-odd people who do good business sitting in their homes in Punjab, thanks to online market portal e-Bay. Helped by e-Bay, which is now offering online stores to entrepreneurs, people in Punjab are selling their wares online. Every 20 minutes, a product is sold online from Punjab, e-Bay officials claimed here Wednesday. "Response is whopping as without spending anything, I am getting orders from countries like Britain and the US. It is an easy merchandise channel for entrepreneurs from Punjab," says Manmeet. He is one of the many for whom online stores, which are run with the help of the Internet, are fast catching the fancy in Punjab. "By opening an online store, one has access to buyers from all over the world, including 670 Indian cities. One can do transactions across geographical boundaries," Amarjit Batra, head (global trade) at e-Bay India, told reporters. "We are only facilitating the trade between the buyer and seller through online e-Bay stores and we are charging a fixed commission of five to eight percent depending on the product. Our endeavour is to bridge the gap between buyer and seller. Through an e-Bay store a seller from Punjab can directly approach the buyer and vice versa without any intermediaries," he pointed out. e-Bay is now fanning out to non-metro cities, especially in states like Punjab, where entrepreneurial skills are high. Cities like Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar already have people registering for online trading. "Over 50 percent of global sellers are from non-metro cities in India," Batra pointed out. Nine online stores from Punjab are already operating through eBay while over 200 people sell their products online. India gets over 100,000 listings for over 2,000 products daily on e-Bay while the international listings are 116 million. Buyers from over 150 countries have bought products from India. To attract more sellers, e-Bay Wednesday announced that no registration fee will be charged from entrepreneurs from Punjab for the next three months July-September. Jewellery is the largest contributor to global trade from e-Bay India. There is also a high demand for clothes, furnishings, handicrafts, sports accessories, stamps, coins and musical instruments, Batra said. e-Bay officials said that even an 80-year-old person was selling stamps through online trading.
Source: IANS
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