eBay reveals Delhi's belly-dancing connection with Brazil

Where do people buy the most Rudrakshas in India - metros, towns or villages? While you may be tempted to say villages, world's largest ecommerce firm, eBay.com, begs to differ. According to their data, Rudraksha topped the 'home decor' category for metro buyers from India while the towns preferred 'wall hangings' and their country cousins -- the humble 'home fragrance'.

The annual survey started last year also revealed other interesting insights into the Indian ecommerce landscape, including the fact that the third most exported item from Delhi is 'belly dancing apparel', after books and gemstones. Delhi also pushed back the commercial capital Mumbai to the second place as the most active hub on ebay during 2009. Bangalore, arguably the city the most net-savvy population, in at the fifth place, after Chennai and Jaipur.

The survey of eBay's 3 million Indian users also busted a few other myths, including the fact that tier-II towns are behind their metro counterparts when it comes to exploiting technology profitably. According to the survey, there are 2,471 e-Commerce hubs in India, including 747 rural towns.

Rural Indians are grasping eBay, with its network of nearly 9 crore customers spread across the world, as a low-cost marketing tool, says Ambareesh Murty, country manager for eBay India. "People making wooden ethnic furniture in Jodhpur are using eBay to sell to customers in metros and even to USA and Singapore. Craftsmen in Ludhiana are exporting golf clubs to eBayers in USA, Germany and France. In fact, 181 rural towns are active entrepreneurship hubs – places which use eBay primarily to sell their wares to India and abroad," he points out.

While Maharashtra, Delhi and Tamil Nadu were the most active states by volumes, the three southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala led with the highest number of transacting towns.

While most of the towns in India are 'profit' centres -- they sell more than they buy, South India buys around 41% of all items sold within India, but sells on 19%. Not surprisingly, West India was the most 'profitable', and accounted for nearly 46% of all intra-country sales while buying just 27%.

While foreigners buying from India overwhelmingly preferred lifestyle items (68%) such as jewelry, apparel, home decor etc., domestic buyers ovewhelmingly chose technology products (44%) to be bought off eBay, presumably because the 'latest models' of hi-tech items are not easily available in brick and mortar stores.