Topic: Would crypto e-commerce in India ever work? (Read 150 times)

As already stated, it heavily depends on what happens when the Financial Minister announces the rules and regulations on crypto, as a lot of people are really concerned about investing due to the unclear legality of it all (though Wikipedia does say that BTC is legal in India )

Anyone remember the "Lakshmi" crypto that was rumored to be an India-govt regulated crypto that was supposed to come out around 2018? That shows that the government is willing to experiment with this stuff, and it will try to make a centralized version of it which might be widely used to pay as a more convenient option. But it would be really hard to incentivize the usage of these centralized crypto on e-commerce websites (I assume only the regulated crypto will be an option for most sites). The elderly wont use it due to lack of knowledge. I really think that even if BTC is regulated and legalized, only some other form of regulated crypto will be a payment option on e-commerce websites as it is pretty hard to tax and regulate a decentralized currency like BTC.

You can succeed in this, but the same requires a team. Amazon, Flipkart, Jiomart provides competing price for a-z products. Providing competing market price on products for cryptocurrencies is really hard. Only thing right now that can be done is create a listing platform. The team needs to be active finding products at the best price and courier it. This service at the beginning won't get much of orders.

That's bound to happen. There are literally many people in India who don't trade crypto just because it isn't legal yet. Once the Finance Minister announces the regulations the Indian crypto market might see heavy surge in bitcoin's price. Other potential altcoins might see a boost too.


I think it would be a good thing for you to wait right now on how the regulations are brought forward for crypto in India. Once crypto is legalized, you can throw up a survey for your crypto e-commerce site and get people's response on it, which will give you a better understanding on how you should make your next move. Keeping things simple here would be more of a benefit in my opinion.

Did any ceypto related e-commerce website running successfully till date except darknet website that sells illegal goods? I don't think so! So I am sure this idea is bound to fail. You can definitely create an e-commerce website but don't restrict it to crypto payment only! You will end up loosing customer only! Rather keep cryptocurrency as an option along with fiat.

In India, cryptocurrencies are considered as an investment, rather than a currency. This has taken a lot of momentum after the recent price surge, but again as an investment. So I would think it is a good idea to accept only cryptocurrencies for an e-commerce website in India.

Not just crypto e-commerce, any new e-commerce website will find it hard to work in the current scenario in India. The space requires software engineers, which India is so good at producing that even its mechanical engineers are better at it than the rest. (Metallurgical, to be accurate). The other important ingredient is cheap labor, plenty of which is available in India, thanks to the 2 crore pakoda-wala jobs that the great NaMo has bestowed upon the youth saving us from the perils of demographic dividend.

As far as discounts are considered, that needs far more volatility and a lower entry point to have some returns. Back when BTC was a few thousand rupees, the uptick potential for e-commerce would have been huge. Viability of such a business can be quite a challenge now. Although not impossible with the right modelling and pricing. (Well, I think I have thought myself out of my initial assertion, it is indeed possible but with novel effort and far more expertise.)

Rather than e-commerce, I think the first thing that crypto needs in India is consolidation. Better applications and a better experience. The crypto applications as of now are either shitty exchange apps (Talking to you WazirX) or unreliable, shady loan applications. I think the market is ripe for well-designed, L2 network based apps about almost anything that apps can be.

Apart from legality another major problem as Webtricks mentioned is why? Why would someone want to buy things from Cryptocurrencies when they can easily buy using INR? This idea is feasible only for someone who earns in cryptocurrencies other than that anyone would never first buy crypto for investment and then use it for shopping online. This might sound like something unique but it doesn't adds value to the customers. Moreover not only customers how will you manage your supply chain and payment systems? You will have to pay your suppliers in cash only they might not accept crypto so technically you are just making your supply chain complex without adding any value to the customers

Investment was never the problem. Since Supreme Court deemed RBI directive invalid, crypto trading in India has grown many-fold. Check out this thread: THREAD, you can clearly see trading has grown roughly 5 times in December 2020 as compared to March 2020. As a matter of fact, bitcoin is trading at the premium of 5-10% in India currently which clearly shows demand for crypto investment is much more here than global average.

What we need is positive environment for crypto businesses in India. We need widespread awareness about Bitcoin, we need people to know that Bitcoin is much more than get rich quick scheme. Next time, if I come up with the business idea which involves cryptocurrencies, I don't want to see weird expression of people's face that I am doing something criminal. These all could only be achieved if Finance Minister stands in Parliament and clearly state that cryptocurrencies are regulated and can be used and traded as per legislation. Remember what happened when Late. Arun Jaitley stood up and issued warning on the use of cryptocurrencies in Parliament three years ago? The price of bitcoin flunked to Rs. 2,50,000 (upto 35% discount) in India. Reverse can happen if FM gives positive speech in upcoming budget session.

1 Feb is around the corner , I hope it doesn't get banned.
After the clear declaration of crypto regulations, a big share of people going to invest in crypto in India as the main concern of Indians is the legality status of crypto currency.

Even though most of the Indians use cryptocurrencies as investment, the fact is irrelevant here. The more important question is how would you lure people to pay with cryptocurrencies instead of rupee. The one and only way I could think of is providing items at highly discounted prices.
 
The one way of making that possible is by using market volatility. If it is possible for you to leverage the market volatility in your favor and sell the crypto received from customers at higher prices then you can tie up with one of the leading Indian Exchange and provide instant crypto purchase option right into your website. This way, you wouldn't even have to face the transaction fees. But you will need the team of highly specialize traders to channelize the funds in the market to generate higher returns in order to cover discounted prices and of course, there is always the risk of trading losses.

Another way to provide items at discounted price is by exploiting the lack of regulations. Since, you are dealing in crypto, there are several taxes and regulations you needn't worry as of now. You can use tax savings to provide goods at cheaper price. In order to cover the market volatility, you may use forward contract with expiration and needn't worry about sudden fall or rise in crypto values. But of course, there will be many risks, you would have to keep business activities below radar and may face government intervention at any time.

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Although, the news isn't in media yet but I have received the update that Finance Ministry is going to announce initial set of crypto regulations in Budget speech on 1st February. Government was seeking the suggestions on this from notable people involved in crypto economy in India and few of my contacts were asked too. The regulations will also include the clear taxation guidelines and tax rates. Cryptocurrencies aren't going to be banned in India. 

I don't think so it will work. As it is neither legal nor illegal right now and rumors were Government is thinking about passing laws in the parliament regarding it's ban.
Moreover, as it is decentralized so government would never allow it to work in that large sector . It will unfortunately end in dark web.

I had bought a domain a long time ago thinking I would start crypto related e-commerce website specifically for India. Always, found the counter argument on why it wouldn't work as one could just use fiat and avoid the transaction fees etc. Do you think there's any scope for crypto e-commerce in India? India sees a huge share in trading volume when it comes to crypto but I feel a large share of it is to just HODL or just trade it like stocks. Would you like to buy goods with your crypto?

Edit: Most of the crypto e-commerce international websites just somehow turn into a mini dark-netish web spaces where its ultimately about discounted digital goods that were acquired from stolen credit cards. A complete turn off. Another argument is, its hard to compete with the fiat giants of Amazon, Flipkart with money being pumped into them like theres no tomorrow.