The need for e-commerce is increasing extensively due to increasing digitization and increasing penetration of e-commerce in several industry verticals. E-commerce of agricultural products are gaining significant traction around the world due to easy accessibility. Various agricultural products are available on the e-commerce websites. Farmers can now buy or sale agri products using an e-commerce platform. Farmers can use an e-commerce platform to manage inventory, product deliveries, and sales data, among others.
While buyers can simply order fresh,
healthy, locally sourced agricultural products from the comfort of their homes.
Agricultural e-commerce platforms offer an important opportunity for cost
reduction and demand enhancement of products. Agricultural e-commerce platforms
create values for agri-food chain, help farmers sell their product at fair
prices and support the use of digital platform to eliminate intermediaries. Evolution
of e-commerce has reduced the cost of inputs and helps the farmers to explore
new products in the agriculture sector.
E-commerce
of agricultural products market provides
an opportunity to streamline agricultural value chain and reduce inefficiencies
in the distribution of farm produce. Agricultural e-commerce has emerged as an
alternative model to formalize informal value chains by enabling the buying and
selling of produce online. It enables farmers to bypass several intermediaries,
resulting in higher income, reduced wastage, and the potential to deliver
fresher produce to customers, and adds transparency to the value chain and
increases farmers' access to new markets.
In recent years, more and more smallholders
in both developed and developing countries have begun to sell agricultural
products directly to consumers through e-commerce platforms. Many supermarkets
have also launched their own delivery services, such as Waitrose’s partnership
with Ocado in the U.K., whereas many small retailers and specialty delivery
companies have partnered, including HappyFresh in the U.S. and Instacart in
Southeast Asia. Offline grocery retailers also use their store footprints to
offer click-and-collect services.