Online retailing and marketing in India: A Study of the current business models and charting future course for the Industry

Abstract

E-Commerce or E-retail refers to offering products/services online to the customers. In a short duration of 2 years there is sharp increase in the number of startups in the e-commerce/e-retail market. Many of the sites are offering related or similar kind of products/services. We have briefly studied the history of evolution of e-commerce and the political, technological and economical factors which led to the success of e-commerce ventures in the developed countries. Analyzed the current scenarios of the e-retail in developed countries, which products are fast moving and which are of high volumes. With the changing lifestyle and shifting boundaries E-Retail has offered many benefits to the suppliers and consumers which have shifted the goods transactions from in-store to online. In our study we have referred few research papers to understand the factors important for the products to sell online and what categories of products can be sold online. Also studied the way services are promoted in online medium based one which the services are divided into different categories. We have studied and critically examined the Indian retail market to understand the current scenario and future prospects of E-retail in Indian demographics. We have selected four e-retail companies Infibeam, Flipkart, Caratlane and Myntra located n places across India (Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Chennai) and which offer services in different categories of products ( books, consumer electronics, diamond jewellery and apparel ) and did secondary analysis to understand the market in which these companies are operate. We also did primary analysis of these companies to understand the business model streams (value streams, revenue streams, and logistical streams), challenges and opportunities available in each sector by organizing interviews with key employees in the organization. The findings reveal that even though the Indian retail market is in a nascent stage and there is scope for growth, as the new players enter the market, each player will compete on price and more worried about customer retention than customer acquisition. The companies have to employ new promotional strategies to attract customers. As the market matures the situation will be no different from the one being observed in developed countries like US and UK.