May 2016

The e-commerce industry has been growing. With companies growing in Eastern Europe and Asia, the past few years have been good for the industry. Not to mention the largest growth the e-commerce industry has seen in its history in the first quarter of 2016. Also with the growing industry does not seem to be feeling the growing pains of the increase of the minimum wage. However, with all of these gains comes loses too. Since Silicon Valley is leading the world in computer advancement New York City has fallen behind. The city’s newest companies, many e-commerce, cannot find firms to invest in their business. Another loses on the international scale is Anand Chandrasekaran quitting the position of chief product officer in the company, Snapdeal. This news came as a surprise because he was only with the company for a year.

Who is Chandrasekaran in the E-Commerce World

Anand Chandrasekaran is a Stanford alum who played an important role in the company with Google. He was pivotal in India’s e-commerce world. According to Economic Times, “The Stanford University alum had joined the company in June last year from Airtel where he was the chief product officer. Chandrasekaran’s hiring was pivotal for the company at that time as rival Flipkart onboarded a Google executive, Punit Soni, to handle a similar role.”

Why is This New?

This article might seem strange because it is talking about India, not America. However, this is important because India is an important place for e-commerce. There are many jobs and companies in India, so what happens there is important for the rest of the e-commerce world. Also the fact that Chandrasekaran isn’t the only leading person in the e-commerce industry to step down from a company they helped build. According to Economic Times, “Recently, three key hirees – head of Flipkart’s ecommerce platform Mukesh Bansal, chief product officer Punit Soni and chief business officer Ankit Nagori, had stepped down. “

The countries that made up the Soviet Union have been laughed at since the became independent democracies in the 1990s. Those countries have been considered third world countries and have had plenty of internet scams that came out of them. However, more recently these former Soviet Block countries have been moving up quickly in the e-commerce arena. Eastern Europe is now the fourth largest region in the world in terms of B2C e-commerce. The region is also home to many emerging online retail markets. Analysts think it is due to the boom of e-commerce in Asia.

What Does This Mean for Eastern Europe?

According to PR Newswire, “B2C E-Commerce sales accounted for only a small one-digit share of the total retail sales in Eastern Europe in 2015, less than half of the shares in North America, Western Europe and Asia-Pacific. This is an indication of the potential for further online retail growth in Eastern Europe, supported by increasing Internet and online shopper penetration in its leading countries.”

This growth means that there is an increasing interest to start investing in Eastern European countries again. The better these companies can do in the next few months will be watched by companies and countries interested in working with the countries in region.

Why is this Good for Eastern Europe?

As the e-commerce begins to grow and evolve the better these companies will become and strong they will become. When this happens it will bring jobs and money into the region and hopefully end those jokes about how terrible it is to live there.
According to PR Newswire, “In other major markets of the region, including Turkey and Poland, online retail is also evolving. Important trends include the growth of mobile and cross-border E-Commerce, yStats.com finds. Smartphone penetration is growing across the region, with countries such as the Czech Republic having already surpassed a 50% smartphone penetration rate among the mobile phone users. Another interesting trend is the popularity of price comparison websites, especially in Greece, Romania and Hungary.”