Procurement Through Digital Platforms: Including Informal Women Workers and Their Collectives examines how women-owned collective enterprises engage with digital procurement and e-commerce platforms in India. Based on experiences from eight SEWA-supported enterprises across sectors such as agriculture, handicrafts, health, services, tourism, and transport, the study explores both the opportunities and barriers that women face in accessing digital markets.
It highlights challenges related to complex registration processes, documentation requirements, language barriers, digital literacy gaps, platform fees, visibility costs, and limited support for collective ownership models. The report argues that public procurement systems and private e-commerce platforms can play a transformative role in expanding market access for women-led enterprises, provided they become more inclusive, accessible, and responsive to the realities of informal women workers.
It concludes with practical recommendations to strengthen digital inclusion, simplify compliance, improve platform design, and enable greater participation of women’s collective enterprises in the digital economy.
