Rajiv Sharma, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588,
Impact Factor: 6.452, Volume 07 Issue 05, May 2017, Page 47-50
E-Commerce in India
Rajiv Sharma
(Asst Professor, A.S. College, Khanna, Punjab, India)
Definition: The buying & selling of products &
Abstract: E-commerce is definitely one of the
services by businesses & customers through on
business options that one will have to explore in the
electronic medium, without using any paper
future. Ecommerce is said to bring about paradigm
documents. E-commerce is widely considered the
shift in the world for trading. Prediction ebuying & selling of products over the internet, but
commerce is showing tremendous business growth
any transaction that is completed solely through
in our country. Backed by increased online user
electronic measures can be considered ebase & mobile phone presentation, Indian ecommerce. E-commerce is subdivided into threecommerce has seen impressive growth in the last
categories: business to business or B 2 B (Cisco),
few years. Considering India’s demographic
business to consumer or B 2 C (Amazon) &
dividend & rising internet accessibility, the sector
Consumer to consumer C 2 C (eBay).
is slated to scale greater heights. Although, India’s
overall retail opportunity is substantial, the sector is
ECOMMERCE in India:
beset with some serious challenges. The present
study has been undertaken to describe the present
status & future growth of e-commerce in India.
Analyze the present trends of e-commerce in India
& examine the challenges & opportunities of ecommerce in India.
Keywords: E-commerce, Online retail, Increasing
internet users, Electronic fund transfer.
Introduction
E-commerce stands for electronic commerce. It
means dealing in goods & services through the
electronic media & internet. The rapid growth of ecommerce in India is being driven by greater
customer choice & improved convenience with the
help of internet the vendor or merchant who sells
products or services directly to the customer from
the portal using a shopping basket system or digital
cart & allows payment trough debit card, credit
card or electronic fund transfer payments. In the
present scenario e-commerce market & its space is
increasing in demand as well as an impressive
display or range of a particular type of services. Ecommerce is already appearing in all areas of
business, customer services, new product
development & design. E-commerce business is
growing in India because of wide range of product
with minimum price wide range of suppliers &
customers internet. In this modern era every
business units want to join online business because
increasing ratio of internet users in India. Ecommerce in India is still in growing stage but it
offers considerable opportunity.
There are some essential factors which will
significantly contribute to the boom of e-commerce
industry in India i.e. Legal requirement of
generating invoices for online transactions,
multiple payment option, replacement guarantee,
quick service, the product quality and dedicated
24/7 customer care centre should be there. Ecommerce also provides various types of
opportunities for retailers, wholesalers/distributors,
producers and also people.
A. Services for Producers
Producers can take advantage of ecommerce
by linking themselves with online, by giving better
information about their product to the other links in
the business chain and by having brand identity.
Producers can sell their goods directly to the
consumers and retailers. Providers has easy
potential for communication and they can no longer
rely on the customer to be forced to communicate
with them by sending leaflets or through
advertisements.
B. Services for whole Distributor
Wholesalers can take advantage of ecommerce
who is capable of establishing contractors with
reputed producers and linking their business with
the on-line. Ecommerce decreases the cost of
creating, processing, distributing, storing and
retrieving information by digitizing the process.
C. Services for People
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Rajiv Sharma, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588,
Impact Factor: 6.452, Volume 07 Issue 05, May 2017, Page 47-50
People can buy with a click of mouse button
without moving out of their house or office, online
services such as banking , ticketing including
airlines ,bus, railways, hotel booking etc have been
tremendous benefit for the customers. E-commerce
allows consumers to interact in electronic
communities and to exchange ideas and compare
experiences.
D. Services for Retailers
A Retailer can save his existence by linking
his business with the on-line distribution.They can
make available much additional information about
various things to the consumers, meet electronic
orders and be in touch with the consumers all the
time. Retailer put the information of their product
on such web site which is heavily visited by user
like yahoo.com etc. When their product
advertisement is seen by many people, more
customers will get attracted and thus merchant can
get more orders.
Advantages of e-commerce
A. To Consumers:
The distinct advantages e-commerce can offer to
the consumers include but are not confined to the
following only:
(i) Consumers have a much wider choice
available on the cyber market.
(ii) They bear lower costs for products due to
increased online competition among
sellers.
(iii) Because of wide-scale information
dissemination,
consumers
can
compare products, features, prices
and even look up reviews before they
select what they want.
(iv) They enjoy wider access to assistance and
to advice from experts and peers.
(v) They enjoy saving in shopping time and
money.
(vi) Consumers also avail of fast services and
delivery of products and services.
(vii) They also have the convenience of having
their orders delivered right to the door
step.
(viii)
Finally, consumers are driven to eshopping in hordes as even branded
goods cost less on the Net.
B. To Suppliers: The major advantages that ecommerce can bring to the companies/suppliers
are:
1. It minimizes inventory cost E-commerce
venture need not maintain huge inventories or
expensive retail showrooms. Their marketing and
sales force is a fraction of that of traditional mortarbased businesses. Ecommerce can minimize
inventory costs by adopting just-intime (JIT)
system enhancing the firm’s ability to forecast
demand more accurately.
2. It can improve customer services It has been
found that providing both customer and after-sale
services account for up to 10 per cent of the
operating costs.
By putting these services on-line under ecommerce, these costs get reduced, on the one
hand, and simultaneously the quality of services
also gets improved, on the other. High quality
customer relationship called” “customization” is
crucial for retaining custom-ers in the e-commerce
environment. That is the reason why Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) has become the
buzzword which everybody is talking of now. Ecommerce provides ample opportunity for
Customer Relationship Management solution and,
in turn, in establishing better relationship with the
customers. It becomes absolutely necessary for the
company to enhance customer loyalty. Otherwise
the customer, who is full of choices, can jump from
one website to another. If company is to stay in
business then it will have to deliver the products or
services to customers as they want, when they
want, and how they want.
3. It reduces distribution costs as well The
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) based on
Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) study has revealed that the
time needed to process an order declined abruptly
by a minimum of 50 per cent to a maximum of 96
per cent. It is really amazing.
4. It helps business globalize E-commerce by
minimizing costs enables companies’ especially
small ones to make information on its products and
services available to all the potential customers
spread over worldwide. This is well confirmed by
Amazon. Com. founded by Jeff Bezos, the largest
bookstore in the net by taking away a large amount
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Rajiv Sharma, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588,
Impact Factor: 6.452, Volume 07 Issue 05, May 2017, Page 47-50
of sales from the traditional booksellers. In India,
the experience of reinfusion-on-the- net presents
the similar case.
problem that early stage of ecommerce startup will
face.
C. Product Target
5. It helps market products more quickly By taking
the entire product design process online, drawing
partners and customers into the process and
removing the traditional communication barriers,
companies can bring products and services to
market far more quickly. Internet commerce
solutions allow customer to reduce the costs of
sales and open new markets, speed and simplify
order accuracy, approval, and processing, tracking
and delivery and improve decision making,
leverage existing investments in infrastructure,
business systems and repositions and link
manufacturers with suppliers on the same network.
CHALLENGES IN E-COMMERCE
More companies flood the marketplace with
new products; target marketing is becoming an
increasingly important tool of differentiation.
Product which is not satisfactory for the customers
tend to got replaced or returned. Some products
take long delivery time to reach customers home.
Delivery time of products may range from days to
month .This is major issue which leads into overall
loss in revenue, loss of shipment costs and
reputation. The average Indian customer poses
great trust issues for e-commerce transactions.
D. Less Awareness
There are some barriers responsible for slow
growth of e-commerce in India. Hamilton (2002)2
indicate some barrier in using e-commerce
including security problems, lack of skills, cost etc.
Customer resistance to changing from a real to
virtual store. People do not yet sufficiently trust
paperless, faceless transactions. For the growth of
E-business in India it needs a focus and should to
make country in the lines of E-business.
Indian customers are more comfortable in
buying products comfortable. They tend to choose
the product by touching the product directly.
Majority of Indian rural population are unaware of
internet and it uses. When it comes to ratio of
internet consumers, scenario is not so admirable
one. Very few are aware of the online corruption
and fraud and thus darkness still exists. A reliable
survey reveals that 50% of Indian online users are
unaware of solution of online security.
A. Security Issues
E. Cash on Delivery
Fear of making online payment is a universal
psychological factor of Indian customers. 60% of
the users do not trust the web as payment channel.
Web transaction takes place with credit card, but
credit card itself is not safe. Anyone who can
transfer the data of credit card on the web is not
sure about the salesman identity. Buyer is also not
sure that card is not used for malicious purpose
which also causes big challenge for e-commerce in
banking also.
E-commerce companies are offering COD as
one of mode of payment for the buyers. It is seen
that majority of the customers denied to make the
payment at the time of delivery of the product.
30%50% of buyers are also taking advantage of
this while purchase of any product and service over
internet. COD has been introduced to counter the
payment security issues of online transaction but
this mode has been proving expensive to
companies.
B. Customer Acquisition Forces
Conclusion
Successful e-commerce interaction between
markets should be strong. Issues related to lack of
supply chain integration, high charges for products,
delay in delivery and lack of proper courier
services in some areas also make customers
frustrated and one of challenge faced by ecommerce. To get people to come on e-commerce
site and make purchase involves heavy cost due to
advertisement and marketing which is biggest
E-commerce provides various services to
wholesalers who can take advantage of Ecommerce and capable of establishing contractors
with reputed producers and linking their business
with the on-line. Also Retailers meet electronic
orders and should be in touch with consumers all
the time with Ecommerce. Nowadays, E-commerce
is the extensive use of computer network with
internet.
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Rajiv Sharma, International Journal of Research in Engineering, IT and Social Sciences, ISSN 2250-0588,
Impact Factor: 6.452, Volume 07 Issue 05, May 2017, Page 47-50
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