Online retail - The next bubble waiting to pop?

Online retail in India is on fire. Just switch on the television in the evenings and you will see signs of this trend-a wave of advertisements during prime time from companies like Snapdeal and Flipkart blanketing the airwaves.

That's because these e-tailing sites have been pumped with cash for expansion, and there's now a frantic race afoot to try and scale up as quickly as possible.

What makes these ads eerily familiar is residual memory of a similar kind of spending-spree that took place not so long ago by companies who now occupy real estate in the great internet graveyard.

In the US, companies like pets.com and etoys.com were harbingers of the next great revolution in e-commerce, their valuations reaching astronomical heights, only to quietly collapse and expire in a few years.

Could the same thing happen here?

Text: Swati Garg, Business Standard