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The Indian Diaspora in developed nations and especially in America is a marketer’s delight. The near 2 million Indians in America and hundreds of thousands of working professionals abroad are a growing market. Marketers only need to look at some vital statistics and they will soon realize what they are missing.
The per capita income of an NRI is over $60k as compared to around $39k of the resident American
4 out of every 5 NRI’s have a PC at home
Almost 80% of NRI’s make regular trips back to India

Currently it’s only the financial services that are actually exploiting the web to offer their banking services and money transfer facilities to the affluent NRI. However, many other businesses have matured sufficiently to exploit the potential of the web globally.

The Indian entertainment industry has grown in leaps and bounds over the past few years. Overseas markets for cinema are growing in importance. Producers and distributors are looking to tap these markets for generating revenue. The trend is to make mid-priced budget films in India and market them in the US and UK markets. Some of the major problems in overseas marketing are:
Offline media promotions in International markets are prohibitively expensive
Promotion based activities are normally outsourced to an overseas marketing firm
There is no tangible form of measuring effectiveness of the marketing campaign
The control over the overseas marketing campaign is minimal

The Internet has a huge role in this space. Since bandwidth is not an issue in NRI markets, online promotions can comprise of everything from basic movie advertising to streaming videos. Apart from downloads, music and screen-savers that are normally offered, online product merchandizing is something that has tremendous scope. An E-shop allows film merchandize to be sold across the globe. Similarly, E-ticketing via credit cards can work brilliantly for spontaneous purchases like movie tickets. If you want to take your family out for a film, all you need to do is log on to the website, select the theatre in your area and check for availability. Book and pay online. Bingo!

Gifting is another of the areas that is on the up-swing. There are enough companies that do festival/event specific promotions for festivals like Raksha Bandhan or Diwali. One can pay for gifts or sweets from anywhere across the globe via credit card and the gifts are delivered to any location across India. Such seasonal activities have gained substantial popularity.

However, in categories like White-goods, marketers have not completely capitalized on this model. An NRI who wants to gift an air conditioner to his parents today has to send money home. However, consider a scenario where one can directly log on the product website, choose a particular model and make the payment online. The payment details and customer data are routed to the nearest dealer in the city who then co-ordinates and fixes the air conditioner at the specified location in India. All logistics are taken care of the dealer.
Cross promotions is another major benefit of setting up an E-Shop. Many companies are effectively promoting functional products like calling cards to attract NRIs. Similar promotions or co-branded activities with various other products can reduce the cost of advertising and also have a direct impact on sales. Looking at the way B2C E-commerce is growing across the globe, E-shops are likely to turn into a sizeable source of revenue for marketers.
 
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