Bengaluru

Few are likely to shed many tears for either Amazon's or Walmart's Indian travails. They take no prisoners in their businesses outside the country. And within it both have built such strong moats that the position of neither is in jeopardy. As Arpan Sheth of Bain, a consultancy, says, "Walmart and Amazon are here to stay."

A study by Bain & Company, Google and AWE Foundation surveyed close to 350 women entrepreneurs and small business owners in urban India. Their report said almost 73 percent of women were negatively impacted by the pandemic with 35 percent experiencing a significant decline in revenue (25 percent to 75 percent). The revenue of almost 20 percent of women entrepreneurs dwindled to zero.

And here, grocery isn’t the leading category yet—fashion is, followed by beauty and personal care products, according to Bain & Company, a consultancy. Overall, social commerce will grow tenfold from today’s levels to between $16 billion and $20 billion, by sales volume, in 2025, Bain estimated in a December 2020 report. From there it could go to between $60 billion and $70 billion by 2030, according to the report, written in collaboration with Sequoia Capital. And a new breed of social commerce startups is leading this change. Meesho is perhaps the largest, focussing on apparel, with millions of women on its network selling to their friends and neighbours. Meesho, in fact, is reported to have landed a $250-million investment from SoftBank Group, making it a unicorn in the process. Bengaluru’s GlowRoad is the next biggest platform, according to Bain, followed by Mumbai’s Shop101. Jaipur-based DealShare is another venture that started out by simply offering deals on WhatsApp. It has raised $21 million in its third major funding round.