Introduction
Online shopping is the easy solution for a busy life in today’s world. In the past decade, there had been a massive change in the way of customer’s shopping. Despite consumers’ continuation to buy from a physical store, the users or buyers feel very convenient to online shopping. Online shopping saves crucial time for modern people because they get so busy that they cannot or unwilling to spend much time shopping.
In the twenty-first century, trade and commerce have been so diversified that multichannel has taken place and online shopping has increased significantly throughout the world. Globally, e-commerce constituted about 2.29 trillion dollar market and expected to reach 4 trillion dollar by 2020 due to the double-digit worldwide growth in sales (15%) and order (13%) in all sorts of e-commerce such as business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C).
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Asia Pacific region is leading the growth of online shopping as compared to the mature market such as the US, UK, Japan and European Countries. The Asia Pacific recorded massive growth, especially in China. In 2016, Asia Pacific region made about $1 trillion in online sales and majority came from China constituting about $899 billion (eMarketer, 2016). With more and more consumers become increasingly familiar with the Internet and its benefit, online shopping is becoming popular and getting preference among a group of consumers seeking better value proposition regarding information, convenience, cost, choice.
Unlike a physical store, all the goods in online stores described through text, with photos, and with multimedia files. Many online stores will provide links for much extra information about their product. On the other hand, some online consumers are an adventurous explorer, fun seeker, shopping lover, and some are technology muddler, hate waiting for the product to ship. Consequently, online consumer behavior (user action during searching, buying, using products) became a contemporary research area for an increasing number of researchers to understand this unique nature of online shopping.
The primary goal of a business is to offer product and services that best serve their consumer needs. A business which fulfills the customer needs with satisfaction very well is more successful than its competitors as satisfied buyers tend to make a repetitive purchase.
Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the internet using a web browser. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among best alternative vendors, which displays the same products availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2018, customers can shop online using a range of different consumer and industrial products.
At global economic level, India is one country among the BRIC nations which has established itself as an economy with emerging markets. Since liberalization, the country has witnessed growth at rate which is very remarkable. With changes in most of the sectors, capital markets, infrastructure, banking, insurance, etc. are the sectors where India has witnessed a high pace of growth. With reforms in business sectors and the revolutionary changes in Information Technology sector, the choices of consumers’ with reference to shopping situation and payment mechanisms have also broadened. Buyers now have the alternative option of buying a product or availing of a service from offline as well as from online shops. With the increasing penetration of internet, these methods of purchasing have become popular. Today people have many choices with reference to buying venues, but the most recent one is buying through internet i.e. online shopping mode.
Nowadays, the Internet is being widely used for various purposes and has become part of daily life. At its inception internet was used as a medium for communication only but with time it has become a source to learn, entertain and most recently a medium for the exchange of goods and services between buyer and seller. The internet now has resulted in a new mode of exchange between buyer and sellers and has created an alternative for the traditional marketplace. Shopping through the internet has brought a different dimension to commercial activities. Compared to traditional shopping, consumers are preferring the internet as shopping medium because of its characteristics like ability to view and shop at any time from any corner of the world, feature like searching information about commodities, place a query / review or give purchase orders. Along with these features, convenience and comparatively lower price are some additional features resulting in acceptance of internet as a new shopping avenue.
India has an internet user‘s base of about 450 million as of July 2017, about 40% of the population. Despite being the second-largest user base in world, only behind China (650 million, 48% of population), the penetration of e-commerce is low compared to markets like the United States (266 million, 84%), or France (54 M, 81%), but is growing at an unprecedented rate, adding around 6 million new entrants every month. The industry consensus is that growth is at an inflection point. In India, cash on delivery is the most preferred payment method, accumulating 75% of the e-retail activities. Demand for international consumer products (including long-tail items) is growing much faster than in-country supply from authorized distributors and e-commerce offerings. According to study done by Indian Institute of e-Commerce, by 2021 India is expected to generate $100 billion online retail revenue out of which $35 billion will be through fashion e-commerce. Online apparel sales are set to grow four times in coming years.
As of 2019, the largest e-commerce companies in India are
World leader e-commerce company Amazon has emerged as the topmost e-commerce in India as well, in last few years. With a wide range of products Amazon has also started focusing on their delivery service by providing delivery within one day to their customers. To counter its competitors, more than 8500 crores have been invested by Amazon global in Amazon India.
Founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Flipkart is one of the best e-commerce companies in India. It has set a perfect example for all start up aspirants by growing a thousand times over a decade. Flipkart provides all kind of products, from products of basic-needs to stylish and luxurious products that are feasible. The market value of Flipkart is US $15 billion presently.
One of the biggest retail corporations in the world, has bought a major share of Flipkart, the Indian e-commerce giant. The deal is an official one and Walmart is paying about $16 billion for the 77% share that it is buying. The remaining share is retained by some of the old stakeholders including Binny Bansal, co-founder of Flipkar
Started in 2010 by two graduates Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, Snapdeal ranks third in the top ten lists of e-commerce companies. Headquartered in New Delhi, Snapdeal provides a wide variety in its products along with attractive daily local deals such as on restaurants, spas, travelling apps etc.
As the acronym suggests ‗payment through mobile‘, it enables you to make payments online through its e-wallet. This Delhi based e-commerce brand was commenced in 2010 but it witnessed boom in the year 2016. Because of Demonetization and government‘s support for Digital India, in last two years it has achieved more than 300% year-on-year growth.
Launched in the year 2012, this e-commerce major basically deals in fashion products. It provides a range of around 300 brands for kids, men and women by keeping in mind about today‘s trend.
An American MNC, eBay is also one of the prominent e-commerce companies in the world. It has diversity of products and one of the add-on features is that it lets you to sell or buy your used or second-hand product on biddable rates.
Rendering exciting and jaw-dropping deals every day, this e-commerce company was commenced by Sandeep and Radhika Agarwal. Delivering products to over 3000 pin codes, Shopclues has associated more than 5 lakh sellers with itself.
Headquartered in Gurgaon, MakeMytrip is basically a travelling site which sells bus, train, and air tickets, holiday packages along with great deals and exciting offers.
Having launched India‘s first 24-hour Home shopping TV channel, this e- commerce major provides you a wide variety of home appliances along with gazettes like cameras, mobiles, laptops and much more.
The first website that comes to our mind while booking movie tickets online is BookMyShow. Headquartered in Mumbai, Bookmyshow is the leading portal in booking tickets for entertainment purposes like movies, plays, sports events etc.
This is a platform which lets you order food online; the partner restaurant will deliver the ordered food at your doorstep. Zomato is growing rapidly since it has also launched gold membership in India that means it has tied up with premier restaurants of Delhi, Bangalore and Mumbai.
Definition of Online Buying Behaviour
Behaviour is the apparent, noticeable response in a given situation with respect to a given target. Use of the Internet for retail shopping has expanded immensely in recent years and has had a profound influence on the shopping process for many consumers. Online buying behaviour is a type of behaviour which is exhibited by customers while browsing websites of an e-tailer in order to search, select and purchase goods and services, in order to fulfil their needs and wants. It’s basically a behaviour which is reflected by the purchaser during the process of buying through the internet.
Online Shopping
While shopping online, every customer desires convenience, speed, price benefits, product comparison facility etc. It is not that these features are not available in traditional shopping methods. But due to changes in life style, the notions of these features have changed among the buyers. Now individuals are finding it difficult to shop from traditional channels due to their changed lifestyle. As a result of all these issues along with the technological advancements, a new mode of shopping i.e online shopping also called as electronic shopping has emerged. The Internet, in the field of shopping, has brought sea changes in the mindset of customers with reference to convenience, speed, price, product information and services associated with online shopping. The internet has provided marketers with a completely new way to create value for customers and build relationships with them' in the form of online shopping. Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly, without an intermediary service, buy goods or services from a seller in real-time over the Internet. One way of doing electronic commerce is online shopping. In online shopping, electronically the sale or purchase of transaction takes place 1 . It is also referred to as e-shopping where‘e’ stands for Electronic Shopping. Electronic shopping is defined as a computer activity/exchange performed by a consumer, via a computer-based interface, where the consumer's computer is connected to and can interact with, a retailer's digital storefront to purchase the products or services over the internet.
Historical Overview of Online Shopping
Today internet has changed the way we shop. In present day one of the most popular activity on the web is shopping. Online shopping has got tremendous charm in it as one can shop online at any time, from anywhere. It also offers to compare the product features and their prices by sitting at home itself. The history of online shopping dates back to the year 1979.The origin of online shopping is linked with the invention of videotext being invented in 1979 by Michael Aldrich in the UK. The term e-commerce was originally generated to explain the process of execution of business activities taking place electronically by making use of technologies like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT). EDI and EFT are considered as the backbone of e-commerce. These technologies only, made it possible to exchange information and execute transactions like the placement of purchase orders and generation of invoices electronically. 1980 to 1990 was the period of the growth of e-commerce industry around the world. This growth took place because of the invention of ATM’s and introduction of debit cards. During this period the major players which led to the growth of e- commerce include Boston Computer Exchange, Minitel and Electronic Mall. All these were electronic marketplace launched by different countries. In the year 1990 biggest achievement till date of e-commerce took place. In this year Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first ever web browser known as World Wide Web. In the very next year, it started using it for commercial benefits. In 1994 Netscape released a new browser which helped the people visiting any website by typing its name in navigator browser. After year, 2000 to till date the e-commerce industry kept growing with day by day increasing number of players. Even like an offline business, many big e-commerce companies started acquiring small e-commerce companies in order to achieve higher levels of profit. Some e-commerce companies like Amazon have also issued their IPO so early in the year 2011 only. After 2000 various different models of E-Commerce came into existence. Along with this it has been observed that hundreds of e-commerce services such as online food ordering, media streaming, online advertising, online marketplace, brick and mortar retailers, e-commerce payment systems and online store fronts have emerged.
Reasons for Buying Through Online Channel
There exists a large amount of differences between online and offline shopping channel. The biggest being the intangibility of online shopping channel. Inspite this barrier a large portion of the population is accepting this mode of shopping because of below-mentioned advantages.
The online shops allow its customers to shop for all 7 days in a week without any time limitation. Unlike offline shopping, in it, there is no time limitation for making the purchase. If an e-shopper has laptop or mobile with internet connection he or she can do the shopping from home or office or anywhere. Online shoppers even don’t have to wait for the shop assistant to help them for making purchase. Payment for purchase made takes place with a click of the mouse. One of the problems which customers have to face at the time of festivals and special events is the huge crowd. Many times it happens that customers have to do their shopping in a hurried manner because of the crowd. Online shopping channel provides convenience in this matter also. There is no concept of crowds while shopping through. Along with shopping one can search information about merchandise very conveniently while shopping through online channels. It also provides convenience with reference to tracking of order status, delivery & shipping status.
Online shopping channel helps customers save a lot of time which is consumed in case of offline shopping. In the case of online shopping, customers need not to go anywhere for shopping, they need not stand in long bill queues , even they don’t have to face the crowd while shopping. All these features of online shopping results in saving of consumersprecious time. By means of online shopping, customers can easily send gifts to their relatives and friends on especial occasions thereby saving their travel time.
In online system, one can easily compare merchandise and its pricing at different websites with the simple click of a button .Now there are many websites available which are specifically made for comparison purpose like www.compareraja.in, www.policybazzar.com, etc.By comparing through these website one can easily choose the best deal for purchase.
A physical store is either single branded or multi-branded. In both type of physical stores there arises limitation either related to the availability of several brands or limitations related to the availability of variants of a product of a particular brand. No such problems arise with virtual stores. In a virtual store, a shopper can easily search and purchase several products and multiple products at a single location. Even purchase of an international brand can be easily made through online shopping mode from any corner of the world.
- Lower prices and discount offers
E-shoppers can purchase the merchandise at comparatively lower prices through online shopping channel. The reason being no involvement of middlemen between buyer and seller in supply process. Online retailers time to time provide discount offers to their customers. They generally launch sales with heavy discounts offers on festivals, at the end of a season and on independence and republic day. Due to the elimination of maintenance, real-estate cost, the retailers are able to sell the products with attractive discounts through online.
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