CAIT to launch online portal e-Lala next month

New Delhi: With more Indians buying products online, traders' body CAIT will launch a portal christened "e-Lala" next month to support brick & mortar shops to embrace e-commerce as an additional platform to generate more business.

"We are launching an e-commerce portal e-Lala to sell products online. The pilot launch is in Nagpur on November 5 and we are launching it formally on November 23 in Delhi," CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal told PTI on the sidelines of a press conference here.

"Through this portal, we are targeting operations in 50 cities across the country and 50,000 sellers to come on board by March, 2016," he added.

"Only a person having a physical presence in the form of a store can sell products through e-Lala. There will be direct interface between the buyer and the seller," Khandelwal said, adding that the 40,000 trade associations affiliated to CAIT will play a major role in making e-Lala's operations successful.

CAIT has also been organising a TRAIning programme named "Master Your Card" with MasterCard to promote financial awareness and literacy for traders.

The campaign across India aims to promote digital payments in association with HDFC Bank which is providing all digital payment solutions not only through Debit and Credit Cards but even mobile wallet, point of sale machines, mobile applications and other digital payment solutions.

"Through this programme, we aim to promote cashless economy in the country," Khandelwal said.

He pointed out that CAIT has organised workshops and roadshows in cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Kolkata to TRAIn traders under the programme.

The campaign is a community empowerment programme helping small businesses to get most value from digital payment technology. The underlying idea for such a campaign is to educate traders that cash is costly and payment cards and other digital modes offer more value, CAIT said.