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Today businesses are making efforts to subsist in this challenging and taxing business affair. E-marketing aids as an operational alternative that businesses can concentrate on to come into direct contact with the shoppers. Driven by in-depth smartphone penetration, the introduction of 4G networks and growing customer capital, the e-commerce market in India is likely to grow to $ 188 billion by the year 2025, (IBEF, 2017). Shoppers easily find produce of their preference on these retail websites with just a click. A complete series of merchandise from various vendors with their prices get exhibited to the buyers for their choice making. It has become an integral part of life for many people. The overall figure for e-customer was 50 million in 2015 and is poised to rise by 3.5 times to 175 million by 2020. In India, e-retail is expected to occupy nearly 25 per cent of total organized retail. It is projected to hit a figure of $60 billion in gross marketing, denoting a total value of $240 billion by 2020, (Businessline, 2016).
E-business may further be classified into the various groups. B2B is concerned with line of work between enterprises, aiming transactions between the organization and its business cohorts. B2C e-services are concentrated between the business firms and consumers, like online retailing. C2C involves different types of e-commerce between particular consumers and may be demonstrated by an individual conducting online auctions or commercials involving sales. C2B is the sporadic kind of e-commerce that relates to issuing from the customers part, in particular shop windows, proposals of purchases that are consequently answered back by enterprises.
This paper focusses majorly on online food retail business, B2C model of e-commerce. Even though food e-retailing is a reasonably new concept in India, it is growing by leaps and bounds. In 2016, India positioned fifth among the prominent marketplaces in Asia Pacific at $135 million in terms of growth, (Das, 2017). Giant online corporates are venturing in the online food market. The already existing players includes Bigbasket, Grofers, and Amazon etc. (Kulkarni & Thimmaya, 2017). Amazon maneuvers to push in around $500 million in the food retail in India. Alike foreign direct investment strategies are being floated by Bigbasket and Grofers also. According to (Kulkarni & Thimmaya, 2017) online food retail market has been chiefly subdued by three major players, Amazon, Bigbasket and Grofers. Flipkart is also making efforts to re-entry into the online food retailing segment. A website augments the reliability and credibility of businesses, makes it appear more adept and supports as a great marketing scheme to spread the e-word of mouth about the trade. Thus, it is a precise, operative and apparent platform for both the consumers and the vendors to associate with each other for purchasing and retailing of merchandises.
Internet marketing aids as an alternative operative trade network that businesses can concentrate for an unperturbed medium to target clients. It empowers consumers to purchase merchandises and services directly from the vendors over the internet, with minimum human interferences. The complete product assortment from diverse vendors and prices get exhibited to the customers for making their choices. But, is competitive prices and good product quality sufficient for the buyers for taking their buying decisions? The solution to this problem is not that easy to retort as the internet buyer behavior itself is a very intricate subject. (Anshu & Loveleen, 2017)