India’s e-commerce industry is entering a new phase of growth where artificial intelligence, unified commerce, customer relevance and responsive supply chains are becoming critical to building sustainable businesses, according to industry leaders speaking at the India E-Commerce Forum (IEF) 2026 in Bengaluru.
“India’s e-commerce is no longer a story about discounts and deliveries. It’s about convergence, with online and offline blurring into one shopping journey. AI is influencing brands, discovery and customers today,” said Bhavesh Pitroda, director and CEO, IMAGES Group, which organised the event around the theme ‘From Scale to Sustainable Advantage: Where Commerce Leaders Shape What’s Next.’ “The brands that win in the next five years won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets, but those that understand their customers better than anyone else,” he said.
As AI becomes embedded across the consumer journey, S Suryanarayanan, former MD and CEO, Levi’s India, said businesses need to look beyond speed, scale and efficiency to build sustainable competitive advantage. “Consumer behaviour is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. Discovery, trial and purchase can happen across different channels, creating a free movement between them,” he said.
Building on the importance of trust in an increasingly digital marketplace, Dinesh Talera, CEO and co-founder, Mysore Saree Udyog, said heritage and authenticity will remain central to consumer relationships even as discovery evolves. “The emotional connect, trust in a heritage brand and authenticity of the product are not going to change. What will change is how customers discover us,” he said. Talera said unified commerce will be important in ensuring a consistent experience across consumer touchpoints.
Taking the discussion from trust to long-term relevance, Preeti Gupta, CBO, Van Heusen Innerwear, Aditya Birla Lifestyle Brands Limited, said brands need to focus on lifetime value rather than short-term transactions. “Consumers will always be attached to brands they trust over a longer period of time. It is important to focus on the lifetime value of the consumer and build a sustainable business rather than pursue short-term growth,” she said.
The importance of speed and convenience was further underlined by Puspen Maity, CEO, TechnoSport, who said faster fulfilment is increasingly becoming a consumer expectation. “Speed is the new discount. Delivery speed has become an important part of the consumer’s decision-making process, alongside product discovery, reviews and quality,” he said.
For categories involving high-consideration purchases, Vivek Mehta, CEO, Urban Ladder, said physical retail will continue to play an important role in the consumer journey. “It is not really about online versus offline. Discovery happens predominantly online, the experience happens offline and the conversion can happen anywhere,” he said.
Turning to supply chain agility and the role of technology in responding to demand signals, Sumit Jasoria, co-founder and CEO, NEWME, said AI is becoming central to product creation and demand prediction. “The role of AI is not limited to customer support. It is also transforming areas such as design and demand prediction,” he said. He added that the ability to respond quickly to changing consumer demand will increasingly separate successful companies from those that lose relevance.
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