Online Shopping In India Advantages & Disadvantages

Online shopping has come as a boon to the customer who is always on the run with time flying out of his hands

. Wikipedia defines online shopping as Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. If an intermediary service is present the process is called electronic commerce.

Online shopping caught the fancy of the west in the early nineties with establishments such as Pizza Hut and Amazon joining the foray in 1994 and 1995 respectively. But this internet revolution was slow to catch up in India especially with the dotcom crash of 2000.

But as things stand today, the number of Indian Internet users is expected to nearly triple in the next three years, from 80 million today to 230 million in 2015. Additionally, broadband users will increase from 1.7% to 12.5% of the population which is extremely essential to the success of Indian e-commerce. Indian customers are fast finding online shopping to be convenient affair which offers them a variety of options for a single product. The emergence of Indian based e commerce websites such as Flipkart, homeshop18, fabindia and other big names of retail like Future Group, Shoppers Stop joining the online shopping phenomenon in India is proof enough that online shopping in India is poised for a tremendous growth in the country.

Some of the things which attract the Indian customers to online shopping are-

Convenience- the first and foremost reason why Indians whyonline shopping easy is the convenience which they offer. They can shop from anywhere at any time. Gone are the times when the Indian consumer had to physically visit a shop and then stand in long queues to purchase a product. The time conscious consumer finds it an extremely valuable deal where he can shop even at 3 AM for the product which he wants and just wait for the product to be delivered to his door step.

Price Comparison- It is a well known fact that Indians are price sensitive buyers. The Indian customer is delighted to compare prices on different sites like he can do nowhere else.

It is an added benefit that the customer is not pressurised to buy anything. He can very well see a hundred things but choose not to spend a penny without getting embarrassed.

Indians also prefer online shopping to send gifts to their loved ones far from them.

But like the law of nature there are also some disadvantages to online shopping in India. The first and foremost is that online shopping doesnt allow the Indian customer to touch and feel the product before buying it. The next is the vulnerability of making online payment. Since online shopping is still in the nascent phase in India, the security concerns are quite genuine as some online websites might not be using the recommended security software simply to cut cost. Another concern for Indians during online shopping is that some times the products purchased are not exactly what the customer requires. This happens especially in

case of clothes, footwear and other such accessories. There is a problem with the colour shown, the fit and other details. Though companies today have the norm of exchange of goods, yet the procedures involved are generally too complex and time taking which makes the India consumer wary of shopping online.

Having said all this, the advantages of online shopping still outweigh the disadvantages and customers will eventually realise how blessed it is to have the option of online shopping when even 24 hours in a day are sometimes not enough for doing everything.

by: AMIT SINGH

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