Online Retailing

Network technology is developing rapidly. E-commerce, e-marketing, digital marketing are developing gradually. The number of internet users is increasing like anything. Internet is increasing its boundaries and is reaching in villages as well, as our Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi is focusing on digital India. Currently, India is having more than 2 Billion internet users & India is at number three worldwide in terms of internet users. Most importantly growth rate of internet users in India is immense as it has touched 3800% in the last 10 years. This growth has encouraged a lot of companies to target India as a potential market. Due to which numbers of companies have started their set up in India and a lot of Indian entrepreneurs have also shown their interest in this segment. If we talk about the current scenario thousands of webs based companies are operating in India. Few are from India and few have started operating in India after seeing the potential customer base. Although it has created a great opportunity for sellers and customers it has created more confusion amongst customers. Every online shopping company is coming up with offers and discounts to make it tempting for customers but it has become tough for customers to choose a particular website to purchase items. The purpose of the research is based on the same problem as to how customers are giving preferences to these online shopping portals. The main objective of the study is to find out certain parameters which are assisting customers to prefer a particular website.

Since Harry Gordon Selfridge first opened his eponymous department store on Oxford Street in 1909, London’s retailing industry was then revolutionized as Selfridge “literally changed everything about the way Londoners shopped” (Woodhead, 2007, pp.1) – the artsy shop windows, inventive in-store promotions, glitzy fashion shows and other entertainment, as well as premium customer services and facilities mesmerize every elite consumer. In the adventurous American retailer’s vision, shopping is at once a visual and tactile, gratifying and pleasurable experience that can be best relished in “a moment of private self-indulgence and enjoyment” (Woodhead, 2007, p.34). However, in the late twentieth century, due to the unprecedented growth and changes in retailing services and consumption around the world triggered by the irreversible force of globalization, post-industrialization, urbanization, transnational mobility and money flows, branding and marketing, information and communications technology and so forth, rather than just a corner of the street, we witnessed the “malling” of a large portion of urban space and gradual standardization of cityscapes in rapidly developing consumer societies, particularly in China and East Asia – from multi-story shopping malls, flagship stores, concept boutiques to guerrilla pop-up shops. Meanwhile, more and more consumers are becoming addicted to online surfing and shopping, and marketers and retailers tend to explore the online sphere, building their brands and selling their merchandises, leading to the rapid “malling” of virtual space.

Does such a metamorphosis guarantee everlasting growth in sales and further perpetuation of consumerism in our society and culture? On one hand, the emergence of online shopping, reliance on global travelers’ and tourists’ impulse (or price-conscious) consumption in global cities, have created new challenges for brands and retailers improvising strategies to sell and impress the clienteles through their physical (also virtual) shops, no matter how enthralling they be; on the other, they are striving to adapt to/experiment new modes of brand and design communication. Now our society is already saturated with brand icons and images, online and offline, and then there are simply too many options – from promotional strategies, communication channels, product variety to ways of consumption – to dazzle and distract consumers at once and in every nanosecond. Placing all these as the backdrop of branding and retailing practices, several key questions emerge: is retail design still significant like in the good old days amid the new chances and challenges? What are the alleged changes and actual practices in the contemporary retail industry and retail design as a tool of brand communication that we, whether as a researcher, practitioner or even just an ordinary consumer, have to pay attention to? What are their immediate implications and divergent effects to consumers, culture and society? More radically speaking, for instance, can the evolving virtual shopping experience and its potential synchronization with 3D printing technology (i.e., “prosume” a piece of recyclable/reprintable luxury fashion online with just a click and within a couple of minutes when one has an “omnipotent” 3D printer at home) completely substitute and eradicate the offline one in the foreseeable future (Leopold, 2015; Lindgren, 2015)? In this chapter, based on interdisciplinary theories and recent empirical research in Hong Kong and Shanghai, we attempt to address the above questions, and the discussions will focus on the retail market conditions and their social, cultural and economic significance in the two locales within the East Asian market, providing insights to a wide range of audiences who are concerned about the future of the retail industry, as well as briefly discussing the impact of evolving retail designs, dictated by market trends, on the creative liberties of the designers.

Reference:
Leopold, C., 2015. Fashion designer makes entire collection using small 3D printers. Digital Journal, [online] 27 July.
Lindgren, T., 2013. Fashion system Shanghai: The advent of a new gatekeeper. In J. L. Foltyn & R. Fisher ed., Proceedings of 5th Global Conference: Fashion – Exploring Critical Issues. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary.Net, pp.1-8.
Woodhead, L., 2007. Shopping, seduction & Mr Selfridge. London: Profile 2007.

The purpose of this research paper is to examine the impact of delivery time preference and its impacts on customer repurchase intention. This study explores how customer's delivery time preferences may change based on their personal factors, types of products (Hedonic & Utilitarian), purchase purpose (Gift giving, self use) and how it may affect their future purchase decisions. This study involves data collection through an anonymous questionnaire filled by 204 regular online shoppers of varying age groups. The majority of online shoppers were younger than 41 years. Responses were measured using a five point likert scale. The results show that customer's personal attributes like age and gender may alter their delivery time preferences also hedonic and utilitarian products & different purchase purposes may have significant influence on customer's delivery time preference. In addition to that it was found that customers will prefer websites, which had delayed delivery of their products, for repurchases if the websites are offering quality product, packaging and attractive discounts. This study is conducted on online shoppers to measure influence of personal factors, type of products, and purchase purpose on delivery time preference & repurchase intentions. Further research may be conducted to examine few other factors which may alter customer's delivery time preference and repurchase intentions. Only few studies have investigated effect of factors influencing customer's delivery time expectations, This research paper addresses an important aspect in online retailing and it will contribute towards developing a more comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior in online shopping also it shall provide valuable inputs to the E-tailors for understanding customer's delivery expectations under different circumstances and managing delivery of products accordingly.

This article provides an empirical statistical analysis and discussion of the predictive abilities of selected customer lifetime value (CLV) models that could be used in online shopping within e-commerce business settings. The comparison of CLV predictive abilities, using selected evaluation metrics, is made on selected CLV models: Extended Pareto/NBD model (EP/NBD), Markov chain model and Status Quo model. The article uses six online store datasets with annual revenues in the order of tens of millions of euros for the comparison. The EP/NBD model has outperformed other selected models in a majority of evaluation metrics and can be considered good and stable for non-contractual relations in online shopping. The implications for the deployment of selected CLV models in practice, as well as suggestions for future research, are also discussed.

The rapid growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) across the globe has led to a growing demand for better understanding of this phenomenon. While the assertion in the popular press is that there seems to be an understanding among Kenyans that online shopping activity is fundamentally different from that in a conventional ‘brick-and-mortar’ stores retail environment, there is need to empirically examine this issue more comprehensively. This exploratory study sought to establish the state of e-commerce in Kenya by examining the online shopping attitudes, behaviors and usage patterns. This was done by exploring the underlying motivations, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings on e-commerce among key decision-makers in selected firms and subsequently presenting an overview of the current state of affairs as well as future prospects. The study was qualitative in nature and the primary data collection was undertaken by conducting key informant interviews with 12 purposively selected respond...

The purpose of this study is to explore online consumers' experiential response towards visual user-generated content in online shopping environments for fashion online shopping. The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework has been widely used online shopping environment studies to examine the effect of website attributes on online shoppers' internal affective and cognitive states, and shopping behaviour (Kawaf & Tagg, 2012). Recent literature in the field proposes a more holistic model of online experiences (e.g., Pentina, Amialchuk, & Taylor, 2011) which is conceptualise to mediate the relationship between website attributes and behavioural responses. Consumer experience is regarded a critical concept in consumer behaviour and marketing in order to understand consumers and create competitive advantage in online retailing (Schmitt, 2010). Building on existing online shopping environment research, the study conceptualises online experiences for fashion online. The exploratory study investigates online consumers' experiential responses (aesthetics, relational, emotional, Flow experience and interactivity) towards user-generated photographs of fashion outfits created by community members of an online social shopping community, ASOS Fashion Finder. 12 photo-elicited interviews (PEI) with female online shoppers of ASOS, aged 18-25, were conducted. The results of the study present initial insights to understanding the experiential states of fashion online consumers for retail marketing.

Purpose-An uncertain product demand in online retailing leads to loss of opportunity cost and customer dissatisfaction due to instances of product unavailability. On the other hand, when e-retailers store excessive inventory of durable goods to fulfil uncertain demand, it results in significant inventory holding and obsolescence cost. In view of such overstocking/understocking situations, this study attempts to mitigate online demand risk by exploring novel e-retailing approaches considering the trade-offs between opportunity cost/customer dissatisfaction and inventory holding/obsolescence cost.
Design/methodology/approach-Four e-retailing approaches are introduced to mitigate uncertain demand and minimize the economic losses to e-retailer. Using three months purchased history data of online consumers for durable goods, four proposed approaches are tested by developing product attribute-based algorithm to calculate the economic loss to the e-retailer.
Findings-Mixed e-retailing method of selling unavailable products from collaborative e-retail partner and alternative product's suggestion from own e-retailing method is found to be best for mitigating uncertain demand as well as limiting customer dissatisfaction. Research limitations/implications-A limited numbers of risk factor have been considered in this study. In the future, others risk factors like fraudulent order of high demand products, long delivery time window risk, damage and return risk of popular products can be incorporated and handled to reduce the economic loss.
Practical implications-The analysis can minimize the economic losses to a e-retailer and also can maximize the profit of collaborative e-retailing partner.
Originality/value-The study proposes a retailer to retailer collaboration approach without sharing the forecasted products' demand information.