E-commerce for Rural Micro-Entrepreneurs: Mapping Restrictions, Ecologies of Use and Trends for Development

This paper addresses the struggle of rural micro-entrepreneurs in the Global South in utilizing e-commerce to reach wider markets. This research paper looks at the adoption of e-commerce as a sustainable marketplace by the micro-entrepreneur sellers from the lower socio-economic rural communities in India, a booming digital economy in the Global South. 'Sustainability' here refers to a model for sustainable economic development sustaining the e-commerce as business model for the rural micro-entrepreneurs to flourish. This paper explores rural development by dismantling the factors that shape the ways technology and trade impact micro-entrepreneurs. The aim is to offer recommendations and solutions to contribute building the e-commerce as a sustainable marketplace for rural micro-entrepreneurs. Recent information and economic policy changes in India, along with the expansion of mobile infrastructure and a growing user base in rural regions makes this research timely and important. By scrutinizing the infrastructure and auditing the information needs and challenges of users, this research will illuminate the gaps that are leading to a lack of sustainable economic development, and information asymmetries discouraging the rural micro-entrepreneurs from selling online. The purpose of the paper is to find hurdles in the sustainable development of e-commerce as a business solution.