On one hand entry of e-commerce is bringing a new dimension to competitive landscape, and on the other the customers are becoming more aware and are willing to exercise their choice more than ever before. Increased influence of social media among youth provide the opportunity for retailers to engage with customers in newer forms and to extend their relationship with the customers. All these things provided the motivation for researchers to undertake this endeavor to understand and examine the attitudes of youth towards Online Shopping. Efforts were made to understand the relationship between Attitudes towards Online Shopping, Satisfaction and Future Intentions to Shop Online. Satisfaction of online shoppers worked as a partial mediator between Attitude towards Online Shopping and purchase intentions.
TopIntroduction
Indian Retailers are confronted with empowered customers; scattered markets and increased competition. The entry of e-commerce is bringing a new dimension to competitive landscape. The customers are becoming more aware and are willing to exercise their choice more than before. There is significant influence of social media among youth. This provides the retailers the opportunity to extend their relationship with the customers.
Online retailing has a growing prospect in the global marketplace. It provides location free, customer controlled, and information rich retail service. Internet has made a visible and authentic contribution towards the transformation in business nowadays. Internet has made E-commerce a possibility and it is inclusive of several pre purchase and post purchase activities. This, in turn, has led to purchase and sale of products, services and information over internet. Internet user of the twentieth century is young, professional, educated, and affluent with higher levels of income. They value time more than money, which automatically makes the working population and dual-income or single-parent households with time constraints a better candidate to be targeted by non-store retailers. E-commerce has stamped its authority over the market due to many impressive advantages – simpler, faster and efficient business transactions. It offers considerable opportunity for growth for a developing economy like India.
According to an American Express report, online shopping in India is expected to reach 38 million cyber shoppers in 2015. At present, there are 74 million internet users, which will continue to increase in coming years. India is third largest in terms of internet usage in world, with majority of internet users’ age less than 35 years. The main factor for the growth of E-commerce is not only the growing internet usage, but also increase in the number of credit card users in India. As per the report, the number of Indians with credit cards increased by 4% in 2013. The e-commerce market in India was worth $16 billion in 2013 and is expected to touch $56 billion by 2023, according to the ASSOCHAM report. A huge number of choices, improved confidence and convenience drive the rapid growth of E-commerce in India. The e-commerce market in India will control 6.5% of total retail market by 2023.Without doubt; online retailing has most of its customers based in cities. Mumbai is the biggest contributor to the revenue of online retailers, followed by Delhi and Kolkata.
Youth’s perception of shopping has changed dramatically. They now prefer to sit around, browse and shop from anywhere on their laptops or tabs or smartphones, then visiting the traditional markets. They do not want to invest time in travelling to different parts of the cities which costs money, roam around from shop to shop and buy something that was not their first choice but had to buy it because they had invested so much time into it. The reason why this significant change has taken place is the convenience of online retailing. This is mainly because online retailers have made available many features that are absolutely absent in the traditional markets like ‘price comparisons’. Most of the students buy electronic items, books, etc. online and have the opportunity to compare prices of their choice, from hundreds of vendors who are selling that particular headphone, unlike in a traditional market where they would have to settle for the vendor’s price. Many are still not confident enough to share credit/debit card information on online merchant websites. The online retailers have introduced the ‘Cash on Delivery’ option for such people and this has worked wonders. People, who used to be skeptical of the goods purchased online, now buy most of their necessities online including books, music and entertainment, kitchen and home décor, medicines etc. Online retailing has overcome the constraints through infinite choices, easy access to consumer reviews, no pressure sales and minimum time. Today’s youth view this physical and online environment as a cohesive unit due to a combination of a fast paced lifestyle and increasing distances in which technology acts as a bridge. Fast evolution of mobility devices with decreased cost has enhanced this adoption. Focusing on same day delivery model, shipping within the minimum possible time, implementing a liberal return policy, and addressing trust and security concerns are some important ways retailers are working to ensure repeat purchases by existing customers.