With the increase in the number of online customers, the online retailers have increased their employee strength two fold in India during the current financial year. It is expected that it will continue to hire to cater to the increasing demand of the sector. Currently India is home to 11 million customers who purchase everything from day to day commodities to airline tickets on the internet. It is estimated that the number of online customers will increase to 38 million by 2015 and the growing sector has already hired 80 per cent more this fiscal. The forecast was made by the financial services firm Avendus Capital.

The exploding online retailing and need for manpower.

The speed at which the online business is occurring is increasing rapidly and the sector needs more manpower to handle the business. According to Rohit Bansal, Chief Operating Officer, Snapdeal.com, they are set to hire additional 1000 people. The company which started as a local deal company has now grown up to a stage where it now has 10,000 storekeeping units that offer products in lifestyle, home appliances and travel. The company presently employs 750 executives out of which 500 were hired in this fiscal. Snapdeal has hired 50 of its workforce from various Indian Institute of Technologies’, 15 from various prestigious institutes in the United States such as Stanford and Harvard. Now Snapdeal is looking at various Indian Institute of Management for hiring employees in 2012.

The exploding growth and the huge potential for growth in the online retailing present a very interesting challenge for hiring talented workforce, according to a spokesperson from Indiatimes. The spokesperson added that if one has to keep up and succeed in the exponentially emerging and growing industry, it requires a combination of domain knowledge of the industry and the ability to constantly challenge the status quo and learn and intrapraneurship spirit.

Even though the sector is in the infant stage, it demands lot of manpower. The sector offers attractive compensation packages to the employees. An executive at the senior level earns between Rs 75 lakhs and 80 lakhs per year, middle level earns about Rs 60 lakh, while junior executives earn about Rs 18 lakh. It offers lucrative career prospects and there is lot to look forward to. The internet penetration in India has changed Indian lives over the last decade. It began with the transformation of way Indians travelled and now it is the turn of e-commerce to change the way Indians shops, which are often constrained by time and worried with parking space at malls.

The increasing need for online retailing

In India the number of internet users is increasing by about 30 per cent every year. Now people prefer internet to make reservations for rooms at hotels, purchase books, gadgets, Mobile phones, apparels and many more. Even after the dotcom fall in 2002, online retailers seem to be confident about their plans. The main advantages with online retailing are the need for lower working capital, reduced investment in fixed assets and almost zero rental deposits. These are the motivating forces that drive more players into the category. The retailing portals offer 10 to 20 per cent discounts which drives more customer towards it.

The estimates show that an increase in the number of the online shoppers by 35 per cent will change the sector from the current USD 800 million markets to USD 11.87 billion market in 2015, says Avendus Capital. An investment of USD 180 million has been made in the sector by various private equity and venture capital firms, from 2009.

The hunt for best talents

With the increase in the demand of employees, the online retailers are hunting for the best talents. The need for manpower is directly proportional to the volume of the business. According to Manmohan Agarwal, the chief executive officer of Yebhi.com, he has been hiring employees for his company all around the year with the business growing ten times the same period previous year. Out of the 1,100 members in the workforce, 800 were hired in the present fiscal. About one fourth of the top executives in the firm are from prestigious institutes such as Indian Institute of Technology and Indian Institute of Management.

Tradus has hired Krishna Motukuri, former executive at Amazon.com and was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer. The idea was not only to make the backend of the business strong, but also to enhance the shopping experience on the site.

The online retailing industry is witnessing a war for securing the top talents. Most of them are in search for innovative software engineers, creative designers and product managers who understand the consumer behavior so that the online shopping becomes a delightful experience. In the case of Tradus, out of the 50 who will be taken on board, there includes computer science engineers from Indian Institute of Technology also. The company plans to hire talents from IIMs and ISB in 2012.

The industry is undergoing a chaotic growth and so the companies need to be in par with the growth in theindustry. Statistics shows that more than 30,000 people were hired by the sector in the current fiscal and estimates show that the number will cross 70,000 by 2015-16. Most of the chief executive officers of the companies are spending a considerable part of their time in recruitment, to hire the best possible talent. According to Manoj Chandra of Allschoolstuff.com, he wants to increase the team size two fold by mid 2012. He added that he spends 30 per cent of his time on the process of recruitment.

The remuneration for graduates from prestigious colleges is not driving the employers away. They say that if they want to realize their dreams, they need to be aggressive.

The career growth potential is at least three times faster than any other traditional industry. Executives who are in charge of regional responsibilities of a business are given national responsibilities in the online retailing companies, which open up huge opportunities for career growth.