<div>The growth of e-commerce in India is driving growth of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which in turn is contributing to new job opportunities and GDP contribution, says a study, jointly conducted by domestic e-commerce player Snapdeal and consultancy firm KPMG.</div><div> </div><div>It claimed that e-commerce sector in India is projected to cross $80 billion by 2020, examined the macro-impact of the sector on the growth of SMEs and identified remaining gaps in the ecosystem that needed to be plugged.</div><div><br>"At Snapdeal, we are working towards building the most impactful digital commerce ecosystem in the country and SMEs form the foundation of this ecosystem in many ways," said co-founder and chief executive Kunal Bahl.</div><div><br>"With over 200,000 sellers operating on our platform, we felt the need to conduct a systematic unbiased study to identify opportunities and challenges to further accelerate the growth of the sector. We have taken a number of initiatives like seller training programmes, seller financing programmes - Capital Assist and Snapdeal Seller Advisor Programme, with an aim of creating life changing experiences for over one million sellers in the next three years. This study has given us deeper insights into what more we can do to enable small businesses become more successful online," he added.</div><div> </div><div>The study also highlighted the importance of SMEs in the country which accounted for over 17 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2014 and contributed to 45 percent of the nation's industrial output and 40 percent of the total exports.</div><div> </div><div>"The fast-paced growth of the e-commerce industry in India represents an unprecedented opportunity for SMEs. We hope that the findings of this report will assist policymakers, industry bodies and e-commerce companies to strengthen he support ecosystem, which enables SMEs to ride the e-commerce growth wave successfully," said KPMG India chief executive Richard Rekhy.</div>
