According to this , an online retail marketplace HighKart.com will be the first e-commerce website in India to accept 'Bitcoin payment' for products.

"Their objective is to make purchasing easy and secure for anybody who has internet access. Today, they are present across various categories including mobiles, cameras, and computers with a lot more to come"

"The concept originated from high level of customer service and high discount Pricing using pathbreaking cryptocurrency Bitcoin. (...) With Bitcoin the number of benefits associated are many, including very low / nil transaction fees, no chargebacks and no delays for starting to accept with an unprecedented security factor. (...) There is no need to look it at as a barrier as with technology up-gradation, advancement and acceptability it will have a much larger user base than usual payment systems. We are working very hard and with great community support looking forward to make the cryptocurrency as mainstream currency and not just virtual currency. (...) We do not store Bitcoin with us and with great support from our payment processor we are able to encash it on same day, which reduces any kind of risk involved due to volatility of Bitcoin."

The Paypers published an article about contactless transactions in Poland.

"The number of contactless transactions with Visa cards reached nearly 840 million in 2013 in Poland."

"The figure makes Poland the number one country for Visa contactless payments in Europe, with the monthly number of contactless payments reaching 20 million."

"The growth in contactless payments, which stood at 11.3 %, was almost twice as large as the increase in the number of payments in general (including cash withdrawals from ATMs), which grew by 6.8 %."

CenturyLink published last year an article, how web performance influences e-commerce.

"You can have the most beautiful e-commerce site in the world, but if the page doesn't load fast enough, people will leave!"

"Kissmetrics found 40 percent of visitors abandon websites taking more than three seconds to load, and 79 percent of shoppers dissatisfied with website performance are less likely to buy from the same site again.

According to this, rising Internet penetration and adoption of online shopping among the masses across the India, force companies selling products and services through websites to look at smaller cities in order to expand their business.

"According to eBay India Census 2012 report eCommerce is here to stay. The research findings were based on an analysis of all online buying and selling transactions by Indians on eBay between July 1, 2011 and December 31, 2012. The marketplace had around 4500 eCommerce hubs during the time of study, of which over a thousand hubs were located in rural India, indicating that consumers in the smaller towns of India are a major force in this online growth story."

"eCommerce companies face a number of operational hurdles, especially in rural areas - given the poor infrastructure available in those parts of the country. The low literacy rate in the country is the another problem for the growth of eCommerce, as even the educated people in rural areas are not able to handle cyber technology."

“In recent years, rural markets have acquired significance, as the overall growth of the Indian economy has resulted in the substantial increase in the purchasing power of the rural communities. In fact estimates show rural markets are growing much faster than urban markets. But there are a number of factors hindering the growth of eCommerce in the country, biggest of which are low Internet penetration, payments and distribution logistics.”

"eCommerce companies struggle to reach the unreachables in many remote areas including many states in Northeast India due to poor transportation facility."

According to this, online commerce in Argentina has jumped 48.5% in 2013 with EUR 1.37 billion spent in online purchases carried out by 12 million people.

"The growth of internet users and companies who sell products online together with a wider variety of products offered, more safety measures and increased user confidence are some of the reasons behind the increase."

"Transport and tourism-related tickets have continued to top the list of online purchases with EUR 364 million (28.7%) spent in 2013. Electronic goods and accessories were second on the list and reached EUR 100 million in sales (10.9%), followed by food and drinks (7.8%), mobile phone purchases (6.7%) and home supplies (3.7%). (...) Results show that in 2013, 73.4% of internet users undertook web research on prices and brands before going to a store to buy their desired products. This has led online marketplaces to boost regular store purchases."

"Online shoppers have spent an average EUR 6 and undertook between two and six purchases. Half of the respondents have declared they chose online transactions for convenience and paid for their purchases with credit or debit cards."

"43% of large companies and 36% of small and medium companies sold their products online, representing an increase compared to 2012. While 76% of the companies used social media networks to communicate information, only 40% used them to offer their products. Only 10% of the clicks on e-commerce websites were a result of social media networks."