India is one of the country where shopping for household items are done conventionally by visiting the provision shop , small market or a store . India have 20 millions small shops and about 275 shopping mall. Majority of Indian buy their day to day use items from a nearby shop .
With new generation GEN-Z , the method of shopping is changing from a visit to the market to ordering online. This is the result of internet revolution. Internet was launched in India in 1995 , and first online shopping started in India by India-Plaza company in 1999. 20% Indian did shopping online in 2022 by spending aprox Rs.14,000/= per year. In India biggest player for online shopping are Amazon , flipkart , Myntra and Snap deal and many others.
In 1979 Michael Aldrich started e-commerce site using TV to Computer order system. Boston computer exchange was established in 1982 for computer selling in USA. Amazon was launched in 1995 in US and in 30 days it start supplying items to 45 countries. On the invent of smart phone in 2007 , the online buying has become more easy . By click of a button you can order anything on line using smart phone. About 2.6 Billions people in this world did online shopping in 2022 ie 33% of world’s population. Amazon is a world leader on online sale with a worldwide turnover of $514 billions in 2022 . The annual growth of online sale is 5-8%. American do 10% shopping online and in UK 20% shoppers buy items online.
Imagine you wanted to buy some item for your house, and to buy that particular item you need to drive for 30 KM on a congested road , look for parking for your car and then buy that item in the crowded market doing lot of bargain with the shopkeeper. For you it will takes 2 hour to buy the item and bring to your home . Isn’t it very tiresome ? . But if you buy the same item online , it will be delivered to your door step within 2-3 day fully packed . So which is easy way to shop – Going to market Or online shopping ?. One must have Debit or Credit card to do online shopping . But there is still advantage and disadvantage to do online shopping as per table below –
| Advantage of Online Shopping | Disadvantage of Online shopping | |
| Saving on driving to market | Some online sales app are fraud | |
| Saving on time , Petrol , Energy | Touch and feel of item is missing | |
| Free shipping to your Door step | Delivery delays sometime | |
| Special written promotion | Can not ask for discount/bargain | |
| Can compare other similar product and cost | Colour difference from Catalogue | |
| Product review by other shoppers | Lack of close examination of item | |
| Return back policy | Delay in refunds on return back | |
With the annual growth of 4% in online shopping in India , by 2030 half of the Indian will be doing shopping on line. The cashless transaction as promoted by the Govt may be making the on-shopping easy but it will result in un-employment as the supply chain will have less handshakes as per table below. With the shorter supply chain cycle for online shopping, it can result in to saving of 5-10% to the consumer.
| Conventional Shop | Online Sale | |
| Manufacturer – to | Manufacturer – to | |
| Distributer- to | X | |
| Dealer – to | X | |
| Retailer – to | On line Store – to | |
| Consumer | Consumer |
As the craze of online shopping is increasing , this has affected the business of small size super market which so far have been prominent point to shop in a Bazaar . Small super market owner find it difficult to match the price of online store . The overhead cost to run a shop is far more than a online store , as shop owner have to pay hefty rent , Electricity , utility charges and staff salaries to run the shop irrespective of the business turnover. Fast growth of online shopping can be headache for small business shop owner in the future. In view of above will you still go for a online shopping ?
We will talk about the smart way of doing online shopping in my future Blog.
