Online Shopping in India
Online shopping is quite common these days in the developed world than it was about 5 years ago but it is not the same in India for its own set of reasons. In developed economies consumers find the worldwide web a great place for bargain-hunting, with most goods available at lower prices than in a bricks-and-mortar store. But convenience appears to be an even bigger attraction as revealed in surveys because most online shoppers find the crowded high street too stressful.
Though online shopping has witnessed growth in India but it is still not pervasive like the west and the growth is also limited to certain areas like online travel booking and perhaps stock trading (which actually is not pure e-commerce). The main reason why shoppers in India are not willing to shop online is that they don't get any real value or incentive. Also they are wary about fraud, delivery and customer service and their fears are not imaginary.
The first issue that online consumers are facing in India is the narrow range and limited choice of merchandize. Even the leading sites like ebay.in, indiaplaza.in, indiatimes or rediff have very limited range of items and therefore are hardly attractive. I personally searched many a times for books and music titles among other things in the Indian sites but seldom found any great product and never exciting prices.
In spite of limited range still some consumers want to buy online just for the sake of convenience but then their experience is also not good. There are too many cases of delayed delivery, damaged or inferior goods, quality issues and even instances of cheating where the goods were never shipped.
Once I bought 3 items from Sify shopping to gift a friend of mine and to my horror I came to know that out of 3 items only one was okay, another was damaged and the third once never sent at all. Needless to say there was no help from sify customer care and my complaint only fell to deaf ears and I was actually cheated. My experience
Though online shopping has witnessed growth in India but it is still not pervasive like the west and the growth is also limited to certain areas like online travel booking and perhaps stock trading (which actually is not pure e-commerce). The main reason why shoppers in India are not willing to shop online is that they don't get any real value or incentive. Also they are wary about fraud, delivery and customer service and their fears are not imaginary.
The first issue that online consumers are facing in India is the narrow range and limited choice of merchandize. Even the leading sites like ebay.in, indiaplaza.in, indiatimes or rediff have very limited range of items and therefore are hardly attractive. I personally searched many a times for books and music titles among other things in the Indian sites but seldom found any great product and never exciting prices.
In spite of limited range still some consumers want to buy online just for the sake of convenience but then their experience is also not good. There are too many cases of delayed delivery, damaged or inferior goods, quality issues and even instances of cheating where the goods were never shipped.
Once I bought 3 items from Sify shopping to gift a friend of mine and to my horror I came to know that out of 3 items only one was okay, another was damaged and the third once never sent at all. Needless to say there was no help from sify customer care and my complaint only fell to deaf ears and I was actually cheated. My experience