E-retailing in India: A long term pan India reality or a short term urban phenomenon?

E-Retailing is new buzz word and people are busy in projecting future growth rate of this industry. By doing some number crunching, we get this idea that may be it is the new sun rising sector of new economy. But who knows it might be another formula of touts of share markets to show the investors a rosy picture in the present economic despondency. This paper is a sincere effort to check the reality of e-retailing in India. While typing this line on my laptop in an urban atmosphere e-retailing seems a reality or phenomenon which will expand itself but once you move into the rural setup which I must say I frequently do the hard realities surface. The urban infrastructure or I must say the infrastructure of Metropolitan cities is much better than the rural one. The level of education, income, needs of the people and the platform which is required to catapult e-retailing is in consonance with urban infrastructure and its demographic aspirations. But the moment you talk about hinterlands of pan India, the stark difference comes out. Be it infrastructure or electricity or level of income, needs of the people and last but not the least education. Everywhere you see a stark difference. There is big divide between urban India and rural Bharat. This research paper calibrates both the aspects minutely. My only apprehension is, what if the saturation comes in the metros after some time and due to lack of platform eretailing does not expand itself into semi-urban and rural areas.