Phones to burgers: A list of things that were ONLY sold online this year

We cannot deny that this was the year that you almost ordered everything online. Why? Because, everything was available, it was convenient, and it was also a lot cheaper than buying at brick and mortar stores. Buying items at the click of a button became the mantra of the country this year.

From $5 billion in 2009 to $6.3 billion in 2011, $14 billion in 2012 and $11 billion in 2013—the e-commerce industry has grown at an aggressive pace. The Indian e-commerce market, which is currently pegged at Rs 78,000 crore ($13 billion) is all set to cross Rs 5,40,000 crore ($90 billion) by 2019, an increase of 700 percent in 5 years.

Earlier, we would only buy books and clothes online. But this year completely changed our idea of purchasing power. There were things that you could book ONLY online.

Here are some of the things that were exclusively built for the online shoppers this year:

1.Phones

In February, Motorola officially announced that it was launching the Moto G exclusively with Flipkart in India. This was the first time any global smartphone vendor had come to India with an online-only retail model. This essentially means Motorola didn’t launch its phones in brick-and-mortar retail stores in the country. The retail model has its obvious pitfalls – a majority of users are still not comfortable with online shopping and there is no way a buyer can get a look and feel of the device before buying it. But, that didn’t prove to be any sort of deterrent. In the five months since the phone first went on sale, Motorola sold a whopping million plus smartphone handsets. Motorola also sold its Moto-E, Moto-G and Moto-X lines online.

Following Motorola’s footsteps, in August, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi’s Mi3 went on sale exclusively on Flipkart and all 20,000 units sold out in 2.4 seconds.

2.Xbox

Microsoft announced an exclusive partnership with Amazon India in August for the sale of Xbox One, Xbox 360, Kinect, Xbox Live, Xbox Accessories and all Microsoft-published Xbox game titles. Within a day after the much-awaited launch of Microsoft’s gaming console Xbox One, Amazon said it has delivered 200 units which were booked pre-launch.

3. Homes

Tata Value Homes, focused on affordable housing, partnered with e-commerce major Snapdeal to sell houses through the online marketplace model. As part of the partnership, about 1,000 homes across projects in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai was up for sale on Snapdeal. Ranging from 1 BHK to 3 BHK, the houses are priced between ₹18—70 lakh. Recently, Tata Value Homes, a subsidiary of Tata Housing, tied up with realty portal Housing.com to sell homes online.

Tata Value Homes has so far sold 700 homes online, generating over Rs 300 crore in revenue, which is almost 45 per cent of its sales.

4. Cars

The new Volvo XC90 First Edition was sold only on its official website. The cars were sold out in just 47 hours after going on sale online in a few global markets. It was a limited-edition variant created to celebrate the launch of Volvo’s new SUV XC90.

In total, 1927 individually numbered cars were made available for global sale via the Swedish manufacturer’s website. Most of the cars were reserved within one hour and at its peak, seven cars were sold every minute. Incidentally, this was the first Volvo car to be sold online.

5. Burger

Following the e-tail success story of mobile phones and others, Burger King decided to pull off a similar strategy. Trying to cash-in on the frenzy ahead of its launch, international burger chain Burger King took advance booking to a new level by letting customers order burgers in a flash sale. The official Burger King India page on Facebook posted a link to ebay ahead of the opening of its first store in India by offering customers a chance to jump the queue and receive a free t-shirt on buying a burger at a promotional price online. And guess what? Thousands of burgers were pre-ordered with just a click.