Project Synopsis

CUSTOMERS ATTITUDE TOWARD

ON - LINE RETAILING...

A Virtual Shopping Experience

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The success of any project study depends upon a number of factors among

which the proper guidance from the experts in the industry and a faculty

plays an important role. I take this opportunity to convey my sincere thanks

and gratitude to all those who have directly or in directly helped and

contributed towards the completion of this project. I take here a great

opportunity to express my sincere and deep sense of gratitude to

Lecturer Dr. Shyam Lal kaushal, for giving me an opportunity to work on this

project. The support & guidance from sir, was of great help & it was

extremely valuable. I would like to express my gratitude to sir for his

constant support and encouragement.

Ayush Sharma

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

Index

Abstract
Introduction

Chapter 1: Online Retailing for Millennium and Beyond

Chapter 2: Retail Market Evolution in India
Chapter 3: Evolution of E-Retailing in India
Chapter 4: Analyzing E-Retail Opportunities
Chapter 5: On line Process-Merchandising & Criteria’s
Chapter 6: Consumer attitudes towards Internet shopping
Chapter 7: Pricing Strategies
Chapter 8: Success factors in E-Retail
Chapter 9: Major Players in Indian Online retail Industry.
Introduction of FlipKart an emerging online shopping avenue
Chapter 10: Multi Channel Integration & its implication for Retail Web sites
Chapter 11: Challenges for automatic home supply replenishment in E-
Retailing
Chapter 12: Return Policy – A Vital Process for E-Retailer’s
Conclusion
Bibliography

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

Introduction

With rapid growth of the Internet and globalization of market, the retail
sector has become an increasingly competitive and dynamic business
environment. Business and marketing activities are affected by the invent of
Internet technologies and the Internet is revolutionizing commerce,
marketing, retailing, shopping and advertising activities of products and
services. There are several attractive attributes of Internet to not only e-
customers but also companies on time and money saving, communicate,
convenience, easy accessibility, selection from a wide range of alternatives,
and the availability of information for making decisions and all marketing
activities can be performed via the Internet efficiently. In the era of
globalization, companies are using the Internet technologies to reach out to
valued customers and to provide a point of contact 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. E-commerce and e-marketing are the two important terms in the new
Internet-based business domain. E-commerce can be defined as a way of
conducting business by companies and customers performing electronic
transactions through the Internet. E-marketing, (also known as Internet
Marketing, Web Marketing, and Online Marketing etc.) can be defined as the
promotion of products or services through the Internet whereas; e-tailing
can be defined as selling products and services by using the Internet. Wang
(2002) has provided a broad definition of e-tailing by defining it as the
selling of goods and services to the consumer market via the internet.
According to Turban et al. (2006), e-tailing is defined as retailing conducted
online, over the internet. In general, the activities of e-tailing encompass
three main activities. They are: (i) a product search facility (often referred as
a product evaluation or information gathering facility), (ii) an on-line
purchase function and (iii) a product delivery capability (Kolesar and
Galbraith, 2000). Like general marketing activities of an organization,

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

E-tailers have also stick to the same 4P‟s of marketing activities.

They are: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. With regard to the right
products, e-stores can offer a larger spectrum of product offering like
traditional retailers in categories ranging from electronics to shoes. E-store
is the Internet version of stores that set up electronic storefronts on the
Internet. It provides all kinds of products and renders service to the e-
customer at the click of a mouse button and makes money by selling
products directly to e-customers. When it comes to the right price, e-stores
can be operated with low profit margin because of the lower cost and higher
sales volume. As for the right promotion, e-stores have unlimited direct
marketing, advertising and selling opportunities. Finally, with regard to the
right place; the location of e-stores is not important in the Internet and e-
customer can connect and purchase products and services from the
Internet at any time and place. According to Lim and Dubinsky (2004), e-
store is defined as a commercial web site on which e-customers can shop
and make purchases.
According to Rao (1999), e-commerce offers increased market activity for
retailers in the form of growing market access and information and
decreased operating and procurement costs. The consumers can gain
better prices due to the competition and also can enrich their knowledge on
goods and services. According to a survey conducted by Internet and Mobile
Association of India (IAMAI) and Indian Market Research Bureau (IMRB), the
e-commerce market in India has garnered Rs. 9210 crore in 2007-08,
whereas e-tailing market was only about Rs. 1150 crore). In general, e-
tailing industry, from a business perspective offers an opportunity to cater to
consumers across geographies, no operational timings, unlimited shelf
space – and all this with miniscule quantity of infrastructure. For a country
like India, the growth in the e-tailing market is driven by the need to save
time by urban India. Besides with over 2.5 billion internet users, access to

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

internet has also played an important role in growing the markets.

Consumers‟ decision-making process has considerably changed with the
introduction of the Internet as an alternative channel for shopping. The new
wave of consumerism coupled with increasing urbanization and burgeoning
middle class with paradigm shifts in their demographic and psychographic
dynamics have driven consumers frequently to use retail websites to search
for product information and/or make a purchase of products. In India, the
shift from physical stores to e-store takes place due to the in-adequacy of
time of consumers and the relatively high disposable incomes as well as
due to a high need for labor-saving goods and services
(Gehrt, Yale and Lawson 1996). Again on the recent report of Internet and
Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the Indian e-commerce market will
gallop at an impressive growth rate of 47 per cent to over Rs 46,000 crore
in the year 2011. Comprising about 81 per cent of the total e-commerce in
the country, the online travel market, which includes booking rail and air
tickets, hotel accommodations and tour packages, is estimated to grow by
50 per cent and touch Rs 37,890 crore by December, 2011. E-tailing sector
in India is expected to grow by 34 per cent and touch Rs 2,650 crore in the
year 2011. (http://www.deccanherald.com/content/147517/india-e-
commerce-market-cross.html).
Bullish on the growth prospects of the online market, the Indian retail
market has observed that online spending has been skewed toward certain
products in e-tailing. E-tailing, which includes purchases of durable products
such as electronic items, home and kitchen appliances, as well as personal
items like apparels and jewellery, constitutes 8 per cent of the overall e-
commerce market in India. The top E-tailers in India are indiatimes.com,
fabmart.com, rediffshopping.com. They have managed to retain their lead
due to innovative business strategies, supply chain model and changing
urban lifestyles.

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

Methodology

Different techniques such as Questionnaires, Interviews and Observations,

etc. have been used by earlier studies for investigating attitudes in online
shopping among different demographic regions, varying age groups, tastes,
expectance, interests, etc.
For this study, a questionnaire based survey design is chosen as it allows
comparatively huge population simply and efficiently. Data has been
gathered from the sample population of 100 students, 50 housewives, and
50 persons from general public through questionnaire-based survey. The
questionnaire was presented in a straight line to target groups of different
programs of the university. This is a survey-based research and is carried
out through a questionnaire, which was circulated among 200 students of
different programs, 50 housewives, and 50 persons from general public
through questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was based on 5-
point likert scale. They asked to point out the degree of their agreement or
disagreement on a statement ranging from
1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree).
First part consists of demographic evaluation using Basic Questions about
name , Sex, Age, Occupation, Income etc.
Second part consists of perceived knowledge about internet. It represents
inclination for the usage of Internet for shopping online.
Third part of the questionnaire consists of issues involved in uncertainty and
objectives to shop online. The physiographic, emotional, social, and
demographic risks and experiences affiliated with online shopping. Other
questions consist of Internet benefits or damages, which includes personal
Internet support, privacy, flow of data and training among securing the
personal data. It has to examine four groups of variables (i.e., customer
attributes, appropriate factors, perceived uncertainty factors, and
medium/control advance factors) that forecast three types of online
shopping vacillation (i.e., overall hesitation, shopping cart rejection, and
uncertainty at the final payment stage). We found that different sets of
interruption causes are related to different phases of online shopping
uncertainty. The study concludes with suggestion for various delay-reduction
devices to help consumers close their online decision hesitation. The
questionnaire is distributed among the people of different demographics.
Students of HP universities and housewives from Summerhill. This ensured
the validity of the responses and research.

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

Literature Review

There are a number of research works have been done by researchers but
only a few has been given, related to the paper. Brown (1987) has
suggested that the costs of a retail format refer to consumers‟ costs.
Consumers incur non-monetary costs - time, effort and psychological costs -
as well as monetary costs. Savings in non-monetary costs are especially
emphasized by non-store formats. Their appeal to consumers has been the
ease and convenience of shopping, freed from location and other
constraints. According to Rao (1999),
E-commerce offers increased market activity for retailers in the form of
growing market access and information and decreased operating and
procurement costs. The consumers can gain better prices due to the
competition and also can enrich their knowledge on goods and services.
Zhang and von Dran (2000) have found that certain aesthetic elements of a
web-site are considered as purchase motivators, while other aesthetic
elements serve as hygienic factors (i.e., necessities) in purchase decisions
from e-retailers. The colour and background images of web-page are also
found to affect consumer choice.Tractinsky and Rao (2001) have argued
that computer users, particularly those who seek online substitutes to the
physical shopping experience, would value aesthetic designs just like
consumers of other commodities. Ratchford et al. (2001) have told that
through Internet, consumers can gather information about merchandise and
they compare a product across suppliers at a low cost. They also can
effectively analyze the offerings and easily locate a low price for a specified
product.
Eroglu et al. (2001) have advocated that the most important thing in the
traditional retailing is physical store setting. According to them, it is largely
determined by the cost of real estate and the various physical objects
required creating different sounds, aromas, colours and lighting.
The electronic retail growth of Indian market as estimated by Euro-monitor
report, has already touched Rs. 2700 crores in the year 2010 from Rs. 400
crores in 2005 .in 104 Online constraints tend to be related to the screen
resolution and the hardware that exists at the consumer end of the channel.
The hedonic factors in designing the web-site interface can be enhanced
with symbolic, nonverbal elements, which can be created by images,
colours, fonts and videos and music. Zeithaml (2002) has defined that the
success of e-tailing depends on the efficient web site design, effective
shopping and prompt delivery. The other e-store services are delivery on real
time , return and replacement process, period of filling out online orders
form, speed of response time to e-customers‟ queries. Kim and Lee (2002)
have suggested that the design of e-store influences consumers‟ access to

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

e-store. In the e-store, website design, design of product and service

comparison and information, time to complete online order form, easy of
searching product and service, screen layout, screen complexity, page
composition, information retrieval methods, information display, use of
colour and background, assistance to the user and speed of accessing the
e-store are notable factors attracting e-customers. Doolin (2004) has
specifically pointed out that e-tailing is the sale of products and services to
individual customers. According to him, the definition of e-tailing
encompasses the sales of products or services online. Rabinovich (2004)
and Cao and Zhao (2004) have identified the challenges of e-tailing
industry. This challenge begins with the response time of the web-server;
moves to the amount of time the customer must wait until the order ships,
and also includes the time the shipping process takes. Delone and Reif
(2004) have found that at present customers are more likely to continue
shopping online when they have a greater experience of online shopping. It
is also found that young adults have a more positive attitude towards online
buying. Lavie and Tractinsky (2004) have expressed the expressive
aesthetics of web-sites that convey a sense of creativity and uniqueness.
This type of aesthetics is likely to serve an important role when shopping for
specialty goods. The expressive design is relevant to specialty goods
because of their unique characteristics that emphasised the shopping
experience. Bauer et al., (2006) have compared the services of online retail
service vs. traditional retail services. They have identified that the online
retail services are broken into two rather distinct phases: the client
interaction phase taking place online and the fulfilment phase taking place
offline. They also have suggested that web-site quality is a matter of
delivering both hedonic and utilitarian elements.

HPUBS
 Project Synopsis

List of References

www.google.com

www.wikipedia.com

www.slideshare.com

www.filesguru.com

Ernst and Young (2000). Global Online Retailing. [Online], [Retrieved May 27, 2010]

Kim, S.Y., Lim,Y. J. (2001): “Consumers' Perceived Importance of and Satisfaction with
Internet Shopping”, Electronic Markets, vol.11,

Smith, H., Milberg, S. and Burke, S. (1996) Information privacy: measuring individuals'
concerns about organizational practices, MIS Quarterly, 20, 2, 167-196.
Malhotra, N., Kim, S. S., and Agarwal, J. 2004. Internet Users Information Privacy Concerns
(IUIPC),

HPUBS