A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SELECT E-TAILER BRANDS FROM CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE

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1 Journal of Management (JOM) Volume 4, Issue 1, January June 2017, pp , Article ID: JOM_04_01_002 Available online at Journal Impact Factor (2016): (Calculated by GISI) ISSN Print: and ISSN Online: IAEME Publication A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SELECT E-TAILER BRANDS FROM CUSTOMERS PERSPECTIVE Dr. Rachna Sr. Assistant Professor, The Business School, University of Jammu (J&K), Jammu and Kashmir, India Iesha Khajuria Research Scholar, The Business School, University of Jammu (J&K), Jammu and Kashmir, India ABSTRACT Those days are over when customers had to stand and wait in queues in front of retail outlets or ticket counters to buy books, groceries or movie tickets, railway tickets etc. The advancements in Internet technologies have moved people from physical markets to virtual markets, where they can buy from home or while on the go with much convenience. This has further been supported by advancements in mobile technologies and telecom sector as well. Today a number of e-commerce brands are available which help the consumers make orders online and receive the products at their doorsteps. The present study in this view aims to put light on some of the major e-commerce brands operating in India, viz., Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal. The research design used is descriptive in nature, wherein, comparative study was done to know consumer preferences towards e-tailer brands on the basis of various characteristics or services offered by them. The analysis has been done with the help of simple statistical techniques like frequency counts, averages and percentages. As per the findings, Amazon takes the first place followed by Flipkart and Snapdeal. However, neck-to-neck competition exists among these e-tailers. Suggestions from various respondents might help the brand managers or marketers to find out where their respective companies excel and where they need to work hard and improve. Key words: Virtual markets, e-tailer brands, Comparison, e-tailer Attributes and Services. Cite this Article: Dr. Rachna and Iesha Khajuria. A Comparative Study of Select E-Tailer Brands from Customers Perspective. Journal of Management, 4(1), 2017, pp INTRODUCTION The rapid pace of life today has affected the lives of people in many ways. To keep up with the speed, people these days resort to the things that tend to save time and can be done more conveniently. Even for shopping, consumers are turning towards digital / virtual markets where they can now buy almost everything easily without having to visit the stores physically. With the evolution of web-based technologies, mobile technologies and telecommunication services, India has witnessed a fanatical growth 12 editor@iaeme.com

2 A Comparative Study of Select E-Tailer Brands from Customers Perspective in e-commerce over the past few years and is further prospering at a fast pace. Though retail e-commerce at present, holds only 1.7% share of the total retail sales in India, it is believed to acquire about 5% market share by 2019 (Images Retail Bureau, 2017) [1]. Further, by 2019, over 200 million people are estimated to buy products online in India, implying that around 71% of the internet users in India will have bought products from digital stores [2]. A leading global financial services firm, Morgan Stanley [3]. said in a research report that by 2020, India s e-commerce market is expected to reach $119 billion. As per their report, India, in terms of internet users, shares the second position in the global internet market and is adding three internet users every second. Online purchasing in India is booming at a very rapid pace. The U.S. bank (a financial services company) opines that India will have more than 300 million online shoppers by 2020 compared with 50 million in With the increasing trend in online shopping, an intense competition can be seen among the various e-commerce players. Amazon India, Flipkart and Snapdeal are the major players among many in the e-commerce space. According to the Morgan Stanley research report, the top three online retail platforms dominated the India s e-commerce market in 2015 with a combined market share of 83%. Flipkart, including Myntra, maintained its position at the top with a 45% market share, followed by Snapdeal (excluding Freecharge) at 26% and Amazon India at 12%. in this view, the present study aims to compare these three top players in the Indian e-commerce market on the basis of certain attributes from customers point of view. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW E-commerce refers to the marketing, buying and selling of products and services in virtual markets. Also known as business-to-customer (B2C) e-commerce, online shopping is the most familiar form of e- commerce. A number of e-tailers are present today in the e-commerce space, Amazon, Jabong, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Shopclues, Craftsvilla, to name a few. Customers can buy almost everything on these digital stores, be it electronics, apparels, baby products, beauty products, movie tickets, books and what not. People are overwhelmingly turning to these spaces for shopping seeking enormous variety in very short time while getting huge discounts from one place. Thus, consumer buying processes are changing that brings in the necessity to understand their purchase behaviour towards these electronic retailers. Many researchers have conducted various studies on online shopping and the consumer buying behaviour towards digital markets. For example, Pradeep Kumar Tiwari [4] in his dissertation on online shopping behaviour mentioned that online shopping has a very bright future in India. People increasingly prefer shopping online as it tends to save their time and money, and also they get to gather and compare information regarding various products very conveniently. Also they find buying through e-commerce sites secure enough. Dr. Rina [5] in a recent study discusses various challenges and the future scope of e- commerce in India. She concludes that though the future of e-commerce in India cannot be predicted with much accuracy but at present it is definitely increasing at a very rapid pace. Certain parameters like competitive prices, easy return and refund policies, fast delivery, easy and secure payment options, m- commerce applications/services etc. are very essential for the growth of the industry. Puja Gupta (2015) [6] did comparative study on online and offline shopping in Rourkela, Odisha. The findings of the study revealed that the people in the age group of years seem to be indulging in online shopping more as compared to rest of the age groups. The reasons for people of age 35 years or more, not much interested in virtual markets were found to be either the lack of awareness of Internet and digital markets or even if they know about them, the fear of getting cheated in terms of fake products stops them to move towards digital stores. However, youth segment was found to be actively involved in buying online. Iyer and Eastman (2014) [7] in their research examined the attitude of senior citizens towards internet usage and its influence on comparison shopping. They found that those elderly people who are quite tech savvy tend to indulge in shopping online and do comparison shopping. However, their knowhow regarding internet usage cannot be correlated with their online shopping experience. Gao et al. (2012) [8] in their study emphasised that growth of online shopping has made e-commerce players to continually engage in providing rich information to the customers for their better shopping experience. However, due to limited information capacity, instead of analysing so much of information might confuse the customers rather than doing any good. Thus while 13 editor@iaeme.com

3 Dr. Rachna and Iesha Khajuria designing the e-commerce websites, the concept of unconscious thought needs to be kept into consideration as it was found to have moderating effect on the relationship between information quality and customer satisfaction while buying online. Saahil Goel (2017) [9] in an article mentions that the companies that embraced the digital mode for their businesses realised an increase of around 51% in their revenues and about 49% growth in their profits. Though the e-commerce industry has a number of players with further addition of e-tailers almost every day, there are at present three major giants, viz., Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon, in India that constitute the majority of the market share. The present study in this regard, aims at understanding the customer perception towards these e-tailers on the basis of their attributes and various services offered by them. 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The present study is descriptive in nature. The data has been collected using a structured questionnaire, employing convenience and judgement sampling technique. The various attributes of the e-tailer brands to be analysed, viz., Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal, were taken from past studies on online shopping and also on the basis of self understanding of their features and services offered. The data collected was analysed with the help of simple yet powerful statistical techniques like frequency counts, percentages and mean ranks. The questionnaires were distributed electronically to the friends and other known people residing in Jammu, Chandigarh, and Delhi. 250 questionnaires were sent through and Facebook, out of which 244 were received. Thus, the sample size was 245. The respondents were chosen on the basis of good knowhow about e-tailers and those who shop online. The respondents lied in the age-group years as these are the ones found to be active internet users. Also, those were preferred who had bought something in past three months from at least one of the e-tailers under consideration. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. First section was regarding the demographic profile of the respondents, while the other one contained various e-tailer attributes, where for each attribute, the respondent was supposed to rank the three e-tailers from 1-3, Rank 1 denoting the most preferred and likewise. 4. RESULTS The data collected was analysed with the help of simple statistical techniques, like frequency counts and percentages. Out of 244 respondents 130 were females and 114 males. Around 69% of the females preferred Flipkart the most while majority of the males (90% approx.) liked Amazon the most. Out of the total number of respondents, maximum (116) lied in the age-group of 31-35, while least (12) in years of age. The demographic profile of the respondents is as follows: GENDER Table 1 Gender versus Age AGE <20 yrs yrs yrs yrs yrs Total No. of Respondents Male Female TOTAL For deriving conclusions on customer preference for e-tailers, mean rank was calculated for individual attributes, and also the overall mean rank for the three e-tailers was calculated. The ranks were given certain weightages like Rank 1 had a weightage of 3, Rank 2 had weightage of 2 and Rank 3 had weightage equivalent to 1, so that the one with first rank had the highest weightage. The analysis has been compiled in the form of a table as shown below: 14 editor@iaeme.com

4 A Comparative Study of Select E-Tailer Brands from Customers Perspective Table 2 E-tailer Attributes versus Choice Preference S.No. ATTRIBUTE AMAZON SNAPDEAL FLIPKART 1 Wide range of products Wide variety of brands Clear, beautiful images Best quality products Best deals/discounts Genuine pricing of 6 products Appealing website graphics Fast loading of products Easy navigation through 9 the website Presence on social media Timely delivery of products Fast delivery of goods Best packaging Best filters Best payment options Accurate product photos Easy checkout Best customer care services Best refund policies Easy return/pick-up 20 services Mean of Mean Ranks BEST e-tailer F--S A A--F---S F--S A F--A S F--A S F--A S F--S A A--S F From the above table, it is quite clear that Amazon is leading the race with an overall mean rank of 92.28, followed by Flipkart and Snapdeal respectively. Also it can be seen that Amazon ranks on top for majority of the attributes also. However, there are many attributes where Flipkart stands very close to Amazon, and in some, even better than that. This is a clear indication of neck-to-neck competition between the two e-tailers. From the analysis, it is quite clear that Amazon definitely needs to work on its site graphics, filters and its social media presence, though further improvements in all areas can be done in face of intense competition editor@iaeme.com

5 Dr. Rachna and Iesha Khajuria The data can be more easily understood and interpreted with the help of a chart drawn below: Mean Ranks Wide range of products Wide variety of brands Clear images Best quality products Best deals Genuine pricing Appealing graphics Fast loading of products Easy navigation Presence on social media Tmely delivery Fast delivery Best packaging Best filters Best payment options Accurate product photos Easy checkout Best customer care services Best refund policies Easy return AMAZON SNAPDEAL FLIPKART Figure 1 Website Attributes versus Choice Preference From the above figure, it is very much clear that the mean rank values for Amazon (blue colour line) lie on the top for most of the attributes, while those of Snapdeal lie at the bottom, with Flipkart rankings running in between the two. 5. LIMITATIONS & FUTURE SCOPE As is the case with every research work, this study also suffers from certain limitations. First, the sample size was small and also since convenience and judgment sampling techniques were used, there is a limited ability to make generalizations about the whole population. Then, though data has been collected from three cities, the responses have not been compared on that basis. So, future studies can be done on this aspect. Also, the responses were not analysed on the basis of all the demographic factors such as income, education, occupation, etc., which otherwise could have served as valuable inputs in understanding consumer attitudes and preferences. Then, there always lies the chance for self-reporting biases. In addition to these, further studies can be carried out related to e-tailer preference on the basis of product categories as people might prefer different e-tailers for different types of products. 6. CONCLUSION With the evolution of internet services and easy availability of smartphones at cheaper prices, there has been an enormous change in the lifestyles of people. The spending of people and the way they spend is also changing. Virtual markets are becoming more and more popular day by day. The major demographic factor shaping the buying behaviour and the choice of e-tailer brands is the age and gender respectively. As can be seen from the findings of the study, people in the age group years, shop online more than rest of the age groups. Females preferred Flipkart more while males liked Amazon. Apparels and electronic items are found to be the most purchased products, apparels by females and electronic items by males. To some extent, it can be concluded on the basis of responses that for apparels, Flipkart is liked more and 16 editor@iaeme.com

6 A Comparative Study of Select E-Tailer Brands from Customers Perspective Amazon is preferred while buying electronic items. However, among the three selected e-tailer brands, Amazon has been found to lead the competition on 14 attributes out of 20 attributes considered for the study, followed by Flipkart being on top for 6 attributes and then Snapdeal. Flipkart is found to be the best for its graphics and clear pictures of the products where Snapdeal also scores more or less the same, but Amazon needs to take care of these parameters. Also, the filters used for limiting the choice of products/brands/colours need to be worked upon by Amazon. Further, though Snapdeal stands at position three, it does not imply that is being disliked by the people as it is considered to be among the top three players. It simply means that people like Amazon and Flipkart more than Snapdeal, indication that Snapdeal needs to work much harder in all the areas to further improve its current situation. And finally, the respondents gave certain suggestions that these electronic retailers should further improve the picture quality of the displayed products, and give detailed and accurate product descriptions. REFERENCE [1] Bureau, R, I [2] Statistics and facts about e-commerce in India. [3] Stanley, M. [4] Tiwari, K, M. Online Shopping Behaviour. MBA Dissertation, Greater Noida: Galgotias University, [5] Rina. Challenges and Future Scope of E-commerce in India. International Journal of Emerging Trends & Technology in Computer Science (IJETTCS), 5(2), 2016, [6] Gupta, P. Comparative Study of Online and Offline Shopping: A Case Study of Rourkela in Odisha. Master Degree Thesis, Rourkela: National Institute of Technology, [7] Iyer, R. & Eastman, J. The Elderly and Their Attitudes Toward the Internet: The Impact of Internet use, Purchase, and Comparison Shopping. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 14(1), 2014, [8] Gao, J., Zhang, C., Wang, K., & Ba, S. (2012). Understanding online purchase decision making: The effects of unconscious thought, information quality, and information quantity. Decision Support Systems, 53(4), [9] Goel, S. Trends That Will Shape e Commerce Sector in / 17 editor@iaeme.com