Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire has helped rejuvenate global interest for Indian goods such as apparel and jewellery.
According to an e-commerce firm Alibaba.com, which sells products online globally, the movie had bolstered demand for Indian goods significantly in the month of February this year.
There has been 100% growth in the number of searches for domestic products in February 2009 compared with the same month a year earlier, the China-based company said.
“February has been a very active month for India-related searches on our website, which we deduced was due to the huge worldwide popularity of the movie (Slumdog Millionaire) and the enormous buzz it generated in the lead up to the Oscars,” Alibaba.com’s senior director (Strategic Business Development Division) Brian Wong said.
Most of searches were from the US, UK, Europe and China. In February, the Mumbai-based film Slumdog Millionaire swept eight Oscar Awards, including two by A R Rahman for his music scores and Best Picture by director Danny Boyle.
“Our data suggests that the movie shone a global spotlight on India culture, with a record number of searches for Indian products on our website during the month of February,” he added. Popular searches Alibaba’s website in February included Bollywood-inspired fashion items, sari and salwar suits, cultural products and Indian music videos.
“This is for the first time, we have noticed a trend where a movie had created demand for country-specific products. It was only during the Beijing Olympics that we had seen a similar trend when the demand for sports items had gone up,” he added. Alibaba.com had 870,000 members in India as on December 31, 2008.
Post movie, even more and more Indian entrepreneurs and small businesses are turning to e-commerce to cut costs and gain access to new customers globally, he added.
