CHANDIGARH: Chandigarh-based entrepreneur KS Bhatia woke up to 50 missed calls on Sunday. He had been quoted by Google CEO Sundar Pichai as an online success story in his speech before PM Narendra Modi at the 'Digital India' dinner for top tech CEOs at San Jose, California, and his online endeavor had got world recognition."The online journey started when my 14-year-old son, who is quite an internet wizard, gifted me this domain (also the idea) on my birthday two years back. He told me that this vertical has not been touched and it was so true," said jubilant Bhatia, a 45-year-old chemical engineering graduate, founder and CEO of Pumpkart.com "We put in place a team for search engine optimization and invested in Google Adwords and today if you type 'water pumps' anywhere in the world, including Google UK and Google US, Pumpkart's name pops up. Seeking our growing presence, even top e-commerce companies were forced to introduce water pumps in their list of commodities. Other companies created websites and left it at that," he said.Looking back at the online success, Bhatia recalled, "We began by stocking pumps but soon turned into an online marketplace and today we have 200 brands with us. The water pump market is worth Rs 2,600 crore and nearly 60% of it is unorganized. There are over 400 manufacturers in the country."Ask him why he clicked in faraway Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and he explains. "In Tamil Nadu, the high internet penetration seemed to do the trick for us and out model came in handy for domestic and agricultural customers. In Maharashtra, it was different and most of the existing pump manufacturers did not have reach in remote areas. Thirty five percent of the company's sales are in these two states."Bhatia believes India Post can help entrepreneurs like him to take things to the next level. "Logistics is a hurdle that we face and given the well-knit network that India Post has, it can complement e-commerce in a big way by helping companies reach out in the remote areas."But despite these problems, he adds, the future of e-commerce looks very bright in India. "We are only at $17 billion, e-commerce has swelled to $550 billion in China and $350 billion in the US. So it is a phenomenon that is here to stay," said Bhatia.Even though Bhatia has been dealing in offline sale of water pumps for 17 years, it was his online marketplace that is taking him places. "Google India recently did a case study on Pumpkart.com in May for carving a new niche at world level. Earlier, we were awarded as regional winner of SME Heroes Challenge 2014 organized by Google India ," he said."In Chandigarh, a one-man retailer was selling water pumps and he decided to take his business online and today he is the largest retailer of water pumps in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu," said Pichai, appreciating the business model of Bhatia's company Pumpkart.com.Image courtesy: LinkedIn