Internet sector is going through a significant shift wherein the lines between online and offline commerce are blurring. It is expected that India is set to become the third largest nation of internet users after U.S. and China in the next two years with a large chunk of youngsters eager to adopt new technologies with rapidly changing lifestyles. According to ASSOCHAM, online retailing in India is likely to be worth Rs75 Bn by end of 2014. One of the primary benefits of online vs. offline shopping is the ease of finding and researching products as well as the ability to perform price comparisons.
Flipkart founded in Oct 2007 and began by selling books online. Currently it is present across various categories including movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers, healthcare and personal products, home appliances and electronics. Some of the Key Business processes developed by Flipkart worth noting are,
- Hassle free shopping experience. For e.g. Cash on delivery as many customers are not keen to share their credit card information online.
- Developed its own courier services in order to overcome from logistic hurdles. Deliver almost 80% of its orders.
- Adopted word of mouth marketing as it believes the customers rely on the experience and feedback of their friends and peers before they try out a site as a result lower marketing cost.
E-tailing is win-win situation for both as it provides convenience to the customers and can help retailers to sell its products in areas where they don’t have a physical presence. Generally, retailer use online platform to know the market before establishing physical stores. It helps the retailers to understand the customers taste and preference in better way. Organized retailers understood the importance of online retailing & have started developing these channels.
Future Retail and Shoppers Stop have already entered Online Retailing segment by introducing ‘futurebazaar.com’ and ‘shoppersstop.com’ respectively. Even though online retailing is showing tremendous growth, existence of offline retailing cannot be denied in long run. With changing taste, preference of the Indian consumers shopping is now became an experience rather than activity. Consumer’s psychological attributes play a critical role in shopping. Store atmospherics and store facilities contribute to the organized retail experience
We believe online retailing can definitely benefit retailers in few categories like books, music, movies,, electronics and Mobile and gift items as the market is shifting from physical to digital access for these categories. Shoppers Stop operates Crossword and Trent in Landmark which is mainly into books & music. We believe hive off of such loss marking business converted such business into digital formats will provide good returns in long run.