"A STUDY ON USAGE OF E-COMMERCE IN MUMBAI CITY"

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

Carry ‘the globe’ in your shopping bag!! It’s not exaggerating the fact is
that the world is now coalesced to a click on our computers. Since long ago, all
alluring materials around have taken an exodus to the world of internet. No often
do we now think of taking a stroll through the market before buying a mobile
handset, but a healthy online research which in some cases is consequently
followed by an online purchase. The scenario is not limited to mobiles alone. It
covers a wide range of products like home appliances, consumer electronic goods,
books, apparels, travelling packages etc and even the electronic content itself.

1.1Meaning of E-Commerce

E Commerce stands for electronic commerce and caters to trading in

goods and services through the electronic medium such as internet, mobile or any
other computer network. It involves the use of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) in making commerce
between consumers and organizations, organization and organization or consumer
and consumer. With the growing use of internet worldwide, Electronic Data
Interchange (EDI) has also increased in humungous amounts and so has flourished
e-commerce with the prolific virtual internet bazaar inside the digital world which
is righty termed as e-malls.

E-commerce businesses may also employ some or all of the followings:

• Online shopping for retail sales direct to consumers via Web sites and
mobile apps, and conversational commerce via live chat, chatbots, and
voice assistants
• Providing or participating in online marketplaces, which process third-
party business-to-consumer or consumer-to-consumer sales  Business-to-
business buying and selling;

Gathering and using demographic data through web contacts and social media
• Business-to-business (B2B) electronic data interchange

• Marketing to prospective and established customers by e-mail or fax (for

example, with newsletters)
• Engaging in pretail for launching new products and services
• Online financial exchanges for currency exchanges or trading purposes.

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 Now have access to almost every knick-knack of daily lives at
competitive prices on the internet. No matter one is educated or illiterate, an
urbane or a countryman, in India or in U.K; all you need is an internet connection
and a green bank account. With e-commerce then, you can buy almost anything
you wish for without actually touching the product physically and inquiring the
salesman n number of times before placing the final order. Here is a beautiful
picture depicting how has human life evolved to adapt to the digital world and
hence trading over the internet. As seen, from pizza and potted plant to pair of
shoes, we have everything on sale on the internet available in tempting offers..!!
Snapdeal.com, Amazon, eBay, Naaptol, Myntra, etc are some of the most popular
e-commerce websites.

1.2History of E-Commerce
• 1971 or 1972: The ARPANET is used to arrange a cannabis sale between
students at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, later described as "the seminal act
of e-commerce" in John Mark off’s book” What the Dormouse Said. “
•

• 1979: Michael Aldrich demonstrates the first online shopping system.

•

• 1981: Thomson Holidays UK is the first business-to-business online

shopping system to be installed.

• 1982:Minitel was introduced nationwide in France by France Telecom and

used for online ordering.
• 1983: California State Assembly holds first hearing on "electronic
commerce" in Volcano, California. Testifying are CPUC, MCI Mail,
Prodigy, CompuServe, Volcano Telephone, and Pacific Telesis. (Not
permitted to testify is Quantum Technology, later to become AOL.)

• 1984:Gateshead SIS/Tesco is first B2C online shopping system and Mrs

Snowball, 72, is the first online home shopper

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• 1984: In April 1984, CompuServe launches the Electronic Mall in the USA
and Canada. It is the first comprehensive electronic commerce service.

• 1989: In May 1989, Sequoia Data Corp. Introduced Compumarket, the first
internet based system for e-commerce. Sellers and buyers could post items
for sale and buyers could search the database and make purchases with a
credit card.

• 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web browser, Worldwide Web,
using a NeXT computer.

• 1992: Book Stacks Unlimited in Cleveland opens a commercial sales

website (www.books.com) selling books online with credit card
processing.

• 1993: Paget Press releases edition No. 3[12] of the first app store, The
Electronic AppWrapper

• 1994: Netscape releases the Navigator browser in October under the code
name Mozilla. Netscape 1.0 is introduced in late 1994 with SSL encryption
that made transactions secure.

• 1994: "Ten Summoner's Tales" by Sting becomes the first secure online
purchase through Net Market.

• 1995: The US National Science Foundation lifts its former strict

prohibition of commercial enterprise on the Internet.
•

• 1995: Thursday 27 April 1995, the purchase of a book by Paul Stanfield,

Product Manager for CompuServe UK, from W H Smith's shop within
CompuServe's UK Shopping Centre is the UK's first national online
shopping service secure transaction. The shopping service at launch
featured W HSmith, Tesco, Virgin Megastores/Our Price, Great Universal

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 Stores (GUS), Interflora, Dixons Retail, Past Times, PC World (retailer)
and Innovations.

• 1995: Jeff Bezos launches Amazon.com and the first commercial-free

24hour, internet-only radio stations, Radio HK and Net Radio start
broadcasting. EBay is founded by computer programmer Pierre Omidyar
as Auction Web.

• 1996: The use of Excalibur BBS with replicated "Storefronts" was an early
implementation of electronic commerce started by a group of SysOps in
Australia and replicated to global partner sites.

• 1998: Electronic postal stamps can be purchased and downloaded for

printing from the Web.

• 1999: Alibaba Group is established in China. Business.com sold for US

$7.5

million to eCompanies, which was purchased in 1997 for US $149,000. The

peer to-peer file sharing software Napster launches. ATG Stores launches to
sell decorative items for the home online.

• 1999: Global e-commerce reaches $150 billion  2000: The dot-com

bust.
• 2001: Alibaba.com achieved profitability in December 2001.
• 2002: eBay acquires PayPal for $1.5 billion. Niche retail companies
Wayfair and Net Shops are founded with the concept of selling products
through several targeted domains, rather than a central portal.
• 2003: Amazon.com posts first yearly profit.
• 2004: DHgate.com, China's first online b2b transaction platform, is
established, forcing other b2b sites to move away from the "yellow pages"
model.
• 2007: Business.com acquired by R.H. Donnelley for $345 million.

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 • 2014: US e-commerce and Online Retail sales projected to reach $294
billion, an increase of 12 percent over 2013 and 9% of all retail sales.
Alibaba Group has the largest Initial public offering ever, worth $25
billion.
• 2015: Amazon.com accounts for more than half of all e-commerce growth,
selling almost 500 Million SKU's in the US.

1.3Features of E-Commerce

Today, ecommerce sees billions of dollars traded annually and no large company
of any commercial presence can afford to be without a website. Indeed, for many
companies, their presence on the internet is their window to the world. Some
companies are able to solely operate as an e-commerce business. While all
websites are unique, there are elements that every e-commerce site should feature
in order to stay relevant and competitive. These seven basic features of e-
commerce are ones your company should ensure are part of your approach to
connecting with consumers online.

1.Global Reach and Security:

E-commerce allows your company to reach consumers anywhere in the world.

Global reach is the highest number of potential consumers a business can reach,
essentially worldwide access. Of course, when working globally, security is
always key. You must protect customer information and ensure privacy with a
secure e-commerce platform. Security features should include an SSL certificate
that establishes secure connectivity, two-factor authentication, a firewall and a
privacy policy.

2.Ubiquity:

Ubiquity means that the commercial transaction or activity is available at anytime

from anywhere in the world. And in today’s business environment, you should
ensure that your website is mobile-friendly as consumers continually rely on mobile
devices for their internet connectivity. Having a responsive website ensures that

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your content intuitively adapts to whatever device is accessing it to provide the most
user-friendly experience.

3.Universal Standards:

Universal standards mean that e-commerce operates on standard platforms

with agreed methods and systems. This is where you should also look at the ease
of use of your e-commerce site and ensure that you are keeping it simple in design
and content. One study showed 76 percent of consumers say the most important
characteristic of a website is its ease of use. The objective is to help shoppers get
to what they want faster, and without running into the unnecessary complexity that
can clog up the path to purchase.

4.Richness:

Richness refers to the content available on the e-commerce platform

and how it used by the consumer. In order to ensure richness to your site, provide
a variety of messages and means, such as videos, text, pictures, sound, links, SMS
and more to enhance customer experience. Make sure you have high-resolution
photos and video and feature multiple images to help customers get a better feel
for your products. Remember that images are what make the sale, not the text, and
ensure the images load quickly to the page.

5.Interactivity:

Interactivity is the relationship a consumer has with the site, which is similar
to a face-to-face customer meeting in a traditional business. Part of increasing the
amount of interactivity you have with a consumer lies in your ability to connect with
them on an emotional level. This creates brand trust and loyalty. Make sure your
social marketing efforts are linked to your e-commerce site. Engage with your
customers to show authenticity and they won’t feel like they are being sold to all the
time.

6.Information Density

Information density relates to the technological capabilities of e-commerce, in

that vast amounts of information can be stored and made accessible very cheaply
and without the need for bulky storage. In e-commerce banking, for example, a

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customer can have access to a vast array of personal records and the bank can store
huge amounts of information as well.

7. Personalization

E-commerce takes personalized selling and marketing to a new level because of

the amount of information-gathering, interaction and engagement a consumer has
online. Products and messages can be personally targeted in a much more efficient
way, saving time and boosting the potential for sales. Make sure you feature user-
generated reviews and offer the option to create wish lists, if applicable to your
business. Personalizing a special offer can also help increase the amount of time a
consumer is spending on your site.

1.4Advantages of E-Commerce

Not such a long time ago, people used to travel great distances to meet both their
needs and desires. You would make a journey to the Orient if you were in need of

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spices or silk, or even closer in time to us was travelling abroad if the prices there
were lower than in our vicinity. Travelling to acquire goods was eliminated by the
surge of e-commerce.

E-commerce is global. That is a whole lot of space which it covers. With the rise
of the delivery drones, it is also becoming a lot more convenient than driving to a
store, browsing merchandise, waiting in a line, buying a product, and driving all
the way back whence you came. Herein lays the power of electronic commerce
and its websites. Instead of doing this (mostly) tedious routine day in, day out, you
could hop on your phone, browse for nearby shops and restaurants with delivery,
and order everything you need.

All of these advantages mostly pertain to your typical homo sapiens consumer. If
you

are a wise businessperson, it will not take you a long time to see all of these
benefits as an opportunity to expand your empire. Once again, e-commerce is
global. There is no possible wider audience, at least for the moment.

With a global reach, comes a global access. You can operate and manage your
business all the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year long. In turn, as
you can get orders faster, you get to enjoy faster transactions. A true win-win
situation if I have ever seen one.

E-Commerce offers the following advantages to consumers.

1. Wide range of products and services:

Electronic commerce through internet enables the customers to choose a

product or service of their choice from any vendor anywhere in the world. Due to
space constraint, a vendor can stock only a minimum amount of goods in the
physical store. A virtual store enables a business organization to stock a lot of
goods without considering the inventory cost. Hence, a business also provides a
lot of choice to consumers to choose a product of his /her choice.

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2. Convenience:

Customers can buy any product from anywhere in the world

without moving away from their workplace or home through internet. Due to bad
weather, people may restrict their shopping even if necessity arises. E-commerce
provides convenience to buy goods or services without causing any physical
constraints to the consumers.

3. Saves money:

The cost incurred by the business on the middlemen generally

falls on the consumer. Since the middlemen are eliminated, the customer is free
from bearing the cost of the middlemen. To attract customers and to combat
competitors, several business organizations offer product and services at cheaper
price. Certain goods like e-books, music audio clips, software can be purchased
and delivered through internet. It saves cost for the buyers.

4. Saves time:

Time saving is one of the prime benefits of online shopping. Time

taken for selection, buying and paying for an online product may not take more
than 15 minutes; the products are delivered to customers’ door steps within a
week. It saves delivery time for the buyers.

5. Adequate information:

Internet is used as a main vehicle to conduct

transactions in e-business. Internet allows customers to search for product
information, compare the prices and benefits and finally evaluate its value before
committing purchase. Through internet, customers can get their queries clarified
and track their delivery status when the goods are being sent to them. If any
doubts arise while handling the products, the customers can easily contact the
business through internet.

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The following are some of the advantages that e-commerce
offers to the society.

1. Provides job opportunities:

E-commerce bridges the gap between the job seekers and job givers in the
society. Human resources are able to get themselves placed in any organization by
posting resumes through internet, Some organizations also permit people to work
from their home. E-commerce through internet provides a global wide network to
identify and train human resource too.

2. Promotes cordial relationship:

E-commerce enables people to send gifts, greetings and gift vouchers to friends
and relatives anywhere in the world. This promotes cordial relationship between and
among individuals in the society.

3. Provides a wealth of information:

People through internet are able to access any information, say from tourism to
financial products. Access of global information at lower cost, just by click of a
button enhances the knowledge of the people and helps them to transform into a
part of a knowledge-based society.

4. Provides Entertainment:

E-commerce helps people to download music, videos and go through latest

updates and reviews. It permits people to book tickets to the movies online.

5. Less pollution:

People can buy any product or service from any location through internet
without traveling from their respective home or workplace. Business associates
can contact each other from their locations. It reduces traffic and reduces air
pollution and contributes to lessen global warming.

6. Online education:

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 E-commerce enables the students’ community to learn and acquire
knowledge through online. Students can complete assignments and download
information at anytime. Discussions with the tutors and with other students can
take place with the help of internet. Students can enroll themselves in any online
educational institution and acquire global exposure at a lower cost. Online
education gives an opportunity for every student to participate in virtual
classroom without considering their status, gender and role differences in the
society.

7. Health care:

Medical care and counselling are also provided through internet to the
needed people. Doctors and nurses can get professional information and update
themselves with the latest health care technologies through internet. This equips
the doctors to provide good health care to their patients at a lower cost.

The following are some of the advantages that e-commerce

offers to the Nation.

1. Reduces regional imbalances:

Developing countries provide several tax concessions for setting up call centres
in remote and rural areas. Call centres provide a lot of employment opportunities.
The revenues generated by the nation are allocated towards the development of
infrastructure in the rural areas. It brings balanced regional development in the
developing countries.

2. Reduces unemployment:

Business organizations require talented human resources to develop and

maintain the website of their business. Though business processes are automated,
business organization require people to attend to customer queries. The
establishment of call centres in developing countries reduces the unemployment
problem of those countries.

3. Economic development:

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 Business organizations are able to attract customers from anywhere in the world.
Increase in customer base results in increased production. This generates greater
revenues to the organizations and fosters expansion in national income. Expansion
of national income and increase in the volume of production and services
accelerate economic growth.

4. Availability of goods:

Through internet people can buy goods from anywhere in the world. The goods
which are not available locally can be purchased from any part of the world. The
needs of the customers are met by accessing the internet. So, business
organizations cannot ride on customers by citing shortage of goods in the local
market as the reason.
1.5Disadvantages of E-Commerce

For the third time, e-commerce is a global marketplace. You can order various
products and services from nearly anywhere in the world. Sure, you can use
ecommerce websites just to order a pepperoni pizza, but imagine how long it
would take if you ordered it from across the globe. Of course, you will not be
ordering pizza from the polar opposite of your current standing point. As common
sense dictates, the farther you and your order are, the longer it takes for it to arrive.
This particular disadvantage does not affect services such as content creation, web
development or web design, but it does massively affect products with a shorter
shelf life.

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Even though e-commerce offers a lot more information about a product or a
service than traditional retail, it does not allow you to experience any of it before
buying.

Another disadvantage that we often see pop up here and there is credit card or
identity theft. Although both are severe issues, we could argue that a lot worse
could happen the next time you carelessly run over the street to grab that delicious
popsicle. Popsicles melt. While it might not be a direct disadvantage of e-
commerce, the delivery of certain products is at the moment cost inefficient.
However, we do hope that drones carrying ice cream in little refrigerators will be
the next big thing of the future!

Though e-commerce offers many advantages to customers, business, society and

nation, there are still some areas of concern that need to be addressed. The
following are some of the limitations or disadvantages of e-commerce.

1. Security:

The biggest drawback of e-commerce is the issue of security. People

fear to provide personal and financial information, even though several
improvements have been made in relation to data encryption. Certain websites do
not have capabilities to conduct authentic transactions. Fear of providing credit
card information and risk of identity limit the growth of e-commerce.

2. Lack of privacy:

Many websites do not have high encryption for secure online transaction
or to protect online identity. Some websites illegally collect statistics on
consumers without their permission. Lack of privacy discourages people to use
internet for conducting commercial transactions,

3. Tax issue:

Sales tax is another bigger issue when the buyer and seller are
situated in different locations. Computation of sales tax poses problems when the

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buyer and seller are in different states. Another factor is that physical stores will
lose business if web purchases are free from tax.

4. Fear:

People fear to operate in a paperless and faceless electronic world. Some

of the business organizations do not have physical existence, People do not know
with whom they are conducting commercial transactions. This aspect makes
people to opt physical stores for purchases.

5. Product suitability:

People have to rely on electronic images to purchase products. Sometimes,

when the products are delivered, the product may not match with electronic
images. Finally, it may not suit the needs of the buyers. The lack of ‘touch and
feel’ prevent people from online shopping.

6. Cultural obstacles:

E-commerce attracts customers from all over the world. Habits and culture of
the people differ from nation to nation. They also pose linguistic problems. Thus,
differences in culture create obstacles to both the business and the consumers.

7. High Labour cost:

Highly talented and technically qualified workforce are required to develop

and manage the websites of the organization. Since internet provides a lot of job
opportunities, business organizations have to incur a lot of expenses to retain a
talented pool of employees,

8. Legal issues:

The cyber laws that govern the e-commerce transactions are not
very clear and vary from country to country. These legal issues prevent people
from entering into electronic contracts.

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9. Technical limitations:

Some protocol is not standardized around the world. Certain software used
by vendor to show electronic images may not be a common one. It may not be
possible to browse through a particular page due to lack of standardized software.
Insufficient telecommunication bandwidth may also pose technical problems.

9. Huge technological cost:

It is difficult to merge electronic business with

traditional business. Technological infrastructure may be expensive and huge cost
has to be incurred to keep pace with ever changing technology. It is necessary to
allocate more funds for technological advancement to remain competitive in the
electronic world.

1.6 Types of E-Commerce

1. Business-to-Business (B2B)
Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce encompasses all electronic transactions
of goods or services conducted between companies. Producers and traditional
commerce wholesalers typically operate with this type of electronic commerce.

2. Business-to-Consumer (B2C)
The Business-to-Consumer type of e-commerce is distinguished by the
establishment of electronic business relationships between businesses and final
consumers. It corresponds to the retail section of e-commerce, where traditional
retail trade normally operates. These types of relationships can be easier and more
dynamic, but also more sporadic or discontinued. This type of commerce has
developed greatly, due to the advent of the web, and there are already many virtual
stores and malls on the Internet, which sell all kinds of consumer goods, such as
computers, software, books, shoes, cars, food, financial products, digital
publications, etc.

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When compared to buying retail in traditional commerce, the consumer usually
has more information available in terms of informative content and there is also a
widespread idea that you’ll be buying cheaper, without jeopardizing an equally
personalized customer service, as well as ensuring quick processing and delivery
of your order.

3. Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) type e-commerce encompasses all electronic
transactions of goods or services conducted between consumers. Generally, these
transactions are conducted through a third party, which provides the online
platform where the transactions are actually carried out.

4. Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
In C2B there is a complete reversal of the traditional sense of exchanging goods.
This type of e-commerce is very common in crowd sourcing based projects. A
large number of individuals make their services or products available for purchase
for companies seeking precisely these types of services or products. Examples of
such practices are the sites where designers present several proposals for a
company logo and where only one of them is selected and effectively purchased.
Another platform that is very common in this type of commerce are the markets
that sell royalty-free photographs, images, media and design elements, such as
iStockphoto.

5. Business-to-Administration (B2A)
This part of e-commerce encompasses all transactions conducted online between
companies and public administration. This is an area that involves a large amount
and a variety of services, particularly in areas such as fiscal, social security,
employment, legal documents and registers, etc. These types of services have
increased considerably in recent years with investments made in e-government.

6. Consumer-to-Administration (C2A)
The Consumer-to-Administration model encompasses all electronic transactions
conducted between individuals and public administration.

Examples of applications include:

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 • Education – disseminating information, distance learning, etc.
• Social Security – through the distribution of information, making payments,
etc.

• Taxes – filing tax returns, payments, etc.

• Health – appointments, information about illnesses, payment of health
services, etc.

Both models involving Public Administration (B2A and C2A) are strongly
associated to the idea of efficiency and easy usability of the services provided to
citizens by the government, with the support of information and communication
technologies.

1.7 Top 5 E-Commerce Companies in the World 2018

Ecommerce sector is growing with double digit growth rate. Retail ecommerce
sales able to achieve a figure of 2.3 trillion US dollars. It has been forecasted that
by 2021, it will touch figure of around 4.8 trillion US dollars. US & China
amounted to sales of worth 1.6 trillion US dollars which accounts 70% of the
overall ecommerce sales in the world. Ecommerce growth rate in US was close to
15% and overall ecommerce sector in Asia-Pacific region had grown at a rate of
30%. These shopping websites are now competing with biggest offline brick and
mortar stores across the world. Below listed companies are from the world’s top
10 ecommerce sites if revenue and growth rate is taken into consideration while
ranking them. The top ecommerce companies include names like Amazon, JD,
Wal-Mart, Alibaba followed by Booking.com, Rakuten, Shopify etc. Here is a list
of the top 5 ecommerce companies in the world 2018.

1. AMAZON

Amazon is an US based ecommerce giant. It was founded by Jeff Bezos

on July 5, 1994.

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 Image: flickr.com/photos/mikemacmarketing/

It is the number 1 ecommerce company in the world if measured in terms of

Market capitalization and revenue. Jeff Bezos firstly started it as online bookstore
and later they diversified to sell whole range of products, which has now become
the world’s largest online shopping platform.

This can be found in company’s logo as well which has curved arrow shaped like
smile representing from A to Z which suggests that company has every product
from A to Z. Jeff Bezos initially named it as Cadabra, Inc but later it was named as
Amazon which was the biggest river in the world and also Amazon was a place
that was exotic and different. Amazon initially for almost 5 years did not make
any profit due to its unusual business model. But Amazon survived and made first
profit in the year 2001 that proved Bezos' unconventional business model could
succeed. Amazon has nearly 3.5 Lakh employees and every employee works with
a mindset that how they can create value for the customers. Due to such vision,
Amazon was able to achieve $100 billion mark in annual revenues in the year
2015.Amazon has its presence in many countries and now investing huge amount
of money to expand its operations in India as well. In year 2016, Jeff Bezos
announced investment of $3 Billion in India. It announced to acquire Whole
foods, a supermarket chain of 400 stores to strengthen its physical presence and to
challenge Wal-Mart’s supremacy in brick and mortar stores.

Revenues (B$): 108

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Growth Rate: 19%

2.ALIBABA
Alibaba is one of the China’s biggest ecommerce firms and was founded by 18
people led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou in 1999.

Jack Ma believed that it will empower small businesses and will level the playing
field by leveraging innovation and technology to compete in the global economies.
They enable the businesses to transform their way of doing business by providing
them fundamental technological infrastructure so that they can leverage the power
of internet to engage with the users and customers. As the name suggests it opens
for small- to medium-sized companies. Alibaba is the most valuable retailer in the
world since 2014 and has its operations expanded in more than 200 countries. In
year, 2018 it became the 2nd Asian company to break the $500 billion valuation
mark. In the early phase Soft bank, Goldman Sachs invested heavily in Alibaba. In
2016, company was able to achieve GMV of $478 billion and aims to double it by
2020. The company accounted for 80% of the total online sales happening in their
nation through their online portal in 2014 and feature around billion of products
due to which it was featured in the world’s top 20 most visited sites. Alibaba is
planning to spend 500 billion Yuan over five years to build robust logistic network
in China and around the world.

Revenues (B$): 22.99

Growth Rate: 42%

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3. WAL-MART
Wal-Mart Inc. is an US retail giant and was founded by Sam Walton in the year
1962.

Image: flickr.com/photos/jeepers media/

Wal-Mart has more than 11000 stores and is operating across 28 countries under
58 different names. Wal-Mart was able to generate $480 billion of revenue and
was able establish it as world’s largest company by revenue according to Fortune
Global 500 list in 2016.

The revenue generated through its ecommerce operations is just 4% of its overall
revenue. Wal-Mart is famous among its customers because Wal-Mart customers

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able to purchase products at very low price on any day. The reason behind selling
items at lower price is that Wal-Mart is able to achieve economies of scales. Wal-
Mart analyze large amount of user data which allows them to optimize their
operations by predicting consumer’s habits. Now Wal-Mart is focussing more on
expanding online commerce. In year 2016, it acquired Jet.com to compete with
Amazon.com. Wal-Mart’s US ecommerce CEO considering doubling their
warehouses for ecommerce to enhance consumers digital experience. In early
2006 when India had strict FDI regulations, Walmart announced a joint venture
with Bharti Enterprise. Bharti enterprise would handle the front end retail stores
and Walmart takes care of cold chain and logistics. Now Walmart is in talks to
buy India’s ecommerce giant Flip kart at a valuation close to $20 billion. If the
deal goes through, it will pose a great threat and competition to Amazon’s India
ecommerce operations.

Revenues (B$): 20

Growth Rate: 37%

4. BOOKING HOLDINGS

Booking holdings was earlier named as Priceline.com and it has its headquarter in
US.

It was founded by JS Walker in the year 1997, and Priceline went public in the
year

1999 and was able to generate $13 Billion through IPO. Price started its business
by selling gasoline, groceries, telephone services, second hand goods, home
mortgages, online travel site and new cars under its name your own price service.

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Priceline discontinue some services to focus more on travel business in the year
2000. Priceline was able to generate its first profit in the year 2001. Priceline also
enters into retail hotel business in the year 2004 by acquiring a majority stake in

Travel Web. It also acquires Activehotel.com, an online hotel booking company in

Europe. To grow further they acquired booking.com in the year 2005 which is
now world’s largest accommodation website today. Priceline further acquired
companies in online hotel space and surpassed Expedia to become India’s largest
online hotel reservation service. Priceline group was also named as Fortune most
admired company as well as most innovative company in the travel space. It
operates its website in more than 40 languages and 200 countries. In 2016, it was
able to sell more than 7 million air tickets through its platform, consumer booked
557 million room nights of accommodation and 66 million rental car days. One of
its subsidiary rentalcars.com was awarded world’s leading car rental app.

Revenues (B$): 12.68

Growth Rate: 18%

5. SHOPIFY
Shopify was founded by Tobias Latke, Scott Lake and Daniel Weinand.

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 Image: flickr.com/photos/opengridscheduler/

It is a Canadian ecommerce company having its headquarter in Ottawa, Ontario.

This company is having more than 6 lakh merchants using its platform and shopify
has been able to achieve Gross Merchandise value of $55 billion.

The founders of Shopify firstly attempt to open online store for Snowboarding
equipment’s and this startup was named as Snowdevil but they were unsatisfied
with existing ecommerce products in the market which lead them to launch their
own ecommerce platform known as Shopify. In 2009 they launched Shopify app
store and API platform which can be used by developers to develop apps for
online stores and sell those on Shopify app store. The app lets their online store
owners to manage their stores using their mobile devices. Shopify has also been
named as Ottawa’s fastest growing ecommerce company by Ottawa business
journal in year 2010. The company then launched a Shopify payments platform
which allowed consumers to pay directly through credit cards without requiring a
third party payment gateway. The company went public in the year 2015 and was
able to raise more than $131 million. Amazon.com announced the closure of its
Amazon webstore services for its merchant and chose Shopify as a preferred
migration provider and also, Amazon integrated with Shopify which allowed
Shopify merchants to sell on Amazon from their Shopify store. This exercise
actually helped Shopify in increasing their stock value by almost

24
10%.

Revenues (B$): 6.73

Growth Rate: 73%

6. EBAY
eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in the year 1995, it is an ecommerce
company based out in San Jose, California.

Image: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ebay-apos-ebay-marketplace

It provides people the option to buy or sell wide variety of products or services
worldwide and it follows both B2C and C2C kind of business model. The
company listed almost every saleable item by year 2000 and the business grew
quickly.

Company connect millions of buyers and sellers around the world. They used
robust technology to power their platform which enables sellers to offer their
inventory and list their items on their platform and let customers to find and
purchase it, virtually anytime and anywhere. It has its operations in more than 30
countries. eBay has approximately 14,000 employees worldwide. It has around
170 million active buyers worldwide and able achieve GMV of $24.4 billion. For
the Q4, eBay reported revenue of around $2.6 billion. It has crossed downloads of
391 million across the globe. It widely uses analytics to analyze the aspects of
buying and selling behaviour so that they can enhance the customer experience.

25
eBay had some of the biggest technology firms in the last years like PayPal,
Skype, Stub hub etc. eBay generates revenue by charging the listing fees from
sellers and some commission from sellers on the sale of product through their
platform.

Revenues (B$): 9.567

Growth Rate: 7%

revenue of 5 leading online stores (in billion US

dollers)
Ebay

Shopify
revenue
Booking.holding

Wall-mart

Alibaba

Amazon.com

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

As shown in above graph Amazon is highest revenue on worldwide e-commerce

website and Shopify is lowest revenue on worldwide e-commerce websites.

1.8 TOP 10 E-COMMERCE COMPANIES IN INDIA 2018

Ecommerce websites have revolutionized the way in which shopping was done
earlier. Ecommerce websites have become the shopping destination for millions of
people in India. The major ecommerce companies in India compete on the basis of
offers, discounts, and product offerings to remain at the top. Some of the top
ecommerce companies in India include Flip kart, Pay tm, BookMyshow, Myntra,
etc.
Here is the list of top 10 ecommerce companies in India 2018.

1. IRCTC

26
IRCTC, a subsidiary of Indian railways is the biggest and the largest e-commerce
portal in India.

Image: company website

It was established by the Government of India in 1999 to provide online railway

ticketing services for the citizen of India. Today it facilitates services like online
ticketing, tatkal booking, tourist destination booking and catering facilities.

IRCTC has special tourist destination packages such as Bharat Darshan, Buddhist
Circuit train, Maharaja express operation. Recently it started Adbhut Bhutan flight
tour package to the happiest country Bhutan. IRCTC has also incorporated
adventure tourist packages that offer adventure sports like water sports, adventure
and wildlife treks etc. The catering facilities started by IRCTC is a good initiative
as it allows passengers to book food from dominos, haldiram at some selected
stations. IRCTC has also won prestigious awards such as Legend PSU of the year
for Customer Friendly Operations Biggest E-Commerce portal in India in the year
2014. IRCTC has also made a record of booking of 11, 00,000 tickets in a day.
This portal serves millions of customers who make their reservations online.
IRCTC is the most popular portal in India for booking railway tickets online.
IRCTC has a large customer base owing to its varied offerings. It also provides
special benefits to senior citizens of the country.

27
GMV (in billion $): 14

2. MJUNCTION
mJunction is the largest e-commerce companies in India which is a 50-50 venture
by Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India Limited(SAIL).

Image: company website

Headquartered in Kolkata, the company was founded in 2001 by Tata Steel. At the
initial stage it sold steel online, and later it expanded its business to include
different verticals like e-selling, e-sourcing, e-finance, e-retail.

Apart from India, mJunction is the largest e- commerce portal for steel in the
world. mJunction was started with the intention to improve the supply chain of
steel industry and make the process transparent. mJunction has various online
platforms such as metaljunction.com, coaljunction.in, valuejunction.in,
autojunction.in, straightline.in and mjunctionedge. All these platforms support
small bidders to do transaction as well. mJunction is anticipated to conduct the e-
auction for awarding media rights. mJunction has also won prestigious awards for
its CSR activities and renowned as the most innovative company of the year. It is
the pioneer e-commerce platform which allows selling steels online. It has
revolutionized the way in which steel and coal was bought and sold earlier. Viresh
Oberoi is the CEO of the company. The company has transacted 556,858 crore till
date. It has presence in 25 locations across the country. mJunction won the “Best
E-commerce company of the year” award in the ET now making of Developed
India.

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GMV (in billion $): 9.24

3. FLIPKART
Headquartered in Bangalore, Flipkart is the largest and the most popular e-
commerce companies in India.

Image: https://www.smartprix.com/bytes/flipkart

The company was founded in 2007 by IIT Delhi graduates Sachin Bansal and
Binny Bansal, and initially, the company sold books online. Flipkart has done a
series of acquisitions to expand its range of product offerings.

In 2011, it acquired Mime360 and Chakpak to launch its own music store Flyte
Digital but it was not a success as Indian consumers were not willing to pay for
songs. .

Flipkart acquired Letsbuy.com and Myntra to add electronics segment and

apparels in

its product portfolio. Flipkart has ventured into launching its own range of
electronic products under the brand Digiflip. Flipkart owns several brands like
Citron, Flipkart smartbuy, MarQ, Billion Brand that offers a wide range of home
appliances, personal healthcare, electronic products, larger appliances and mobile
phones. Flipkart has faced severe criticism for violating net-neutrality when it
made a partnership with Airtel to launch the Airtel Zero platform. Today the
company sells a wide variety of products like books, movies, music, games,
mobile, accessories, cameras, computers, computer accessories, home and kitchen
appliances, TV and video products, apparel, personal and healthcare products.

29
Flipkart is anticipated to start repair service for mobile phones and electronic
items. Flipkart launches Big Billion sale to capture a large market share during the
festive season.

GMV (in billion $): 6

Received the ‘Best Customer Experience Award of the Year –

Retail/e-
2017
Commerce’at the Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit 2017

Bagged the ‘HansaCequity Customer’s Choice Award’ — a special

jury
2017 recognition at Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit 2017

Featured in a list of the ‘50 Smartest Companies 2017’ by MIT

2017
Technology Review

2016 First Indian app to cross 50 million users

2015 Acquired a Bangalore-based global mobile network AdiQuity

Acquired Myntra.com in an estimated 20 billion (2,000 crore, about

2014
US$319 million) deal.

Co-Founder of Flipkart Sachin Bansal, got Entrepreneur of the Year

2013
Award 2012-2013 from Economic Times

2012 Awarded Young Turk of the Year at CNBC TV 18’s ‘India Business
rds 2012’ (IBLA)

2011 Nominated for IndiaMART Leaders of Tomorrow Awards 2011

4. PAYTM

Based in Noida, Paytm is the pioneer company in India to offer online payment of
services.

30
 Image: https://www.ceoandtrends.com/2018/09/03/paytm-mall

Established in 2010 by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, One97 Communications is the

parent company of Paytm. Paytm initially offered online recharge of DTH, and
later it incorporated landline bill, data packs, prepaid and postpaid mobile
payments online.

In 2014 it launched its own wallet, Paytm wallet where users can add money.
Paytm also added payment of education fees, metro recharges, electricity, gas, and
water bill and utility bill payments. It also became the official payment gateway
for Indian Railways. In 2016 it unveiled QR system of payment which became a
huge success in India. From small tea shops to big retail shops had Paytm QR
through which Indian customers did the payments for goods and services. Paytm
also incorporated online payment for flight bookings, movie tickets, event booking
and amusement park bookings. In 2017, Paytm unveiled Paytm Gold that allowed
customers to buy pure gold online. It had 100 million app downloads in 2017.
Through its e-commerce platform Paytm Mall , it offers a wide range of apparel,
electronics, sports items, books, movies, stationery etc. to become the largest e-
commerce company in India. Venturing into the e-commerce segment Paytm is
giving tough competition to rivals like Flipkart, Amazon, Snapdeal. In 2015,
Paytm got a license from RBI to launch a payments bank through which it will
offer banking, lending and insurance services.

GMV (in billion $): 5

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5. AMAZON INDIA

Amazon is the world’s largest e-commerce company and has grown rapidly in
India.

Image:https://techwave.jp/archives/amazon_launch_india

Amazon started its operations in India in 2013 but has managed to occupy its place
among the top 10 e-commerce companies in India. Based in Seattle, Washington,
the company was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 and has since then grown to
become one of the leading ecommerce companies.

Initially Amazon sold books online but later diversified its products to electronics,
apparel, Furniture, food, toys and jewelry, videos, mp3, etc. Amazon Inc. has
invested 5 billion US dollars in Amazon India to counter rivals like Flipkart,
Snapdeal etc. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart to become the most valuable
brands in terms of market capitalization. Known for its continuous innovation,
Amzaon is anticipated to launch 3-D scan which will help customers find the best
fit clothing. The company has over 100 million registered users in India. Amazon
offers a lot of products and services such as AmazonPrime, Amazon Drive, Amazon
Web services, Kindle etc. Amazon India is set to launch AmazonFresh to cater to
grocery needs of Indian customers. The company has made deals with local vendors
to provide grocery items within 2 hours. Amazon India is also set to launch Audible
which will sell audio books online in its platform. Amazon has signed with
renowned authors of the country like ChetanBhagat.

GMV (in billion $): 3.2

2017 Acquired 5% stakes in retail store Shoppers Stop

32
 Partnered with Yes Bank to train entrepreneurs on E-commerce who
will
2017 in-turn help offline MSMEs and retailers understand technology and
sell online.

2017 Bags special recognition Randstad awards for e-commerce

2015 Won Golden Peacock Award Corporate Social Responsibility – 2015

2013 Launched operations In India

6. SNAPDEAL

Snapdeal is one of the prominent online e-commerce website in India

offering a wide range of categories.

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapdeal

The company was founded by KunalBahl and Rohit Bansal in 2010. Although it
was initially started as a daily deals platform but later it emerged as the leading
online shopping place for electronics, shoes, men and women clothing, home and
kitchen appliances etc.

The company grew more as it received investments from global marquee investors
like Softbank, Temasek, eBay, Venture Partners etc. Snapdeal made a series of
acquisitions such as Bangalore based website Grabbon.com and Delhi based online
sports goods retailer, esportsbuy.com It also acquired Shopo.in to add handicraft
items in its products portfolio. The company has acquired fashion site Doozton.com
and gifting site Wishpicker.com to increase its products offerings.In 2015, Snapdeal
acquired Freecharge.com to become the leading e-commerce players in the industry.

33
Snapdeal sells maximum products through its Unbox India Sale, 3day Mega Deals.
Snapdeal has a large customer base due to its various deals and discounts its
offers. Infibeam is anticipated to acquire Unicommerce, a subsidiary of Snapdeal.
The company has 10000 employees and offers more than 12 million products in its
webs

GMV (in billion $): 1.5

2017 FreeCharge sold to Axis Bank for Rs 385 crore in all-cash

2016 Acquires TargetingMantra, a boutique technology company

KunalBahl, the cofounder, won the The Entrepreneur of the Year at

ET
2015
Awards 2015

Gets $627 million funding from Japanese multinational corporation,

2014
Softbank

2013 Acquires Shopo.in, popular online shopping website

Awarded the Best eRetailer of the Year - Value for deals at India
eRetail
2012
awards 2012

2011 Received the Red Herring Asia Awards 2011 for leading e-commerce
company

2010 Gets launched online

7. SHOPCLUES Headquartered in Gurgaon, Shopclues is the leading e-

commerce brand in India which sells apparels, home and kitchen appliances,

34
electronic and daily utility items.

Image: http://trustscore.in/review/shopclues/

The company was co-founded by Sandeep and Radhika Agarwal in Silicon Valley
in the year 2011. Sanjay Sethi is the CEO of the company, and the company has
got funding from investors like Tiger Global, Helion Ventures, and Nexus Venture
Partner.

In 2015, Shopclues launched its app for android, windows and ios platform. The
company shipped 30 lakh products per month in 2017. Shopclues has a feature on
its website called as Mysite where merchants can create their own websites to sell
their products. Shopclues has done a lot of acquisitions like StoreKing, Momoe to
expand its business. The company has 5 lakh merchants and it launched its
advertising platform Adzone in 2016. Shopclues has attracted customers from Tier
II and Tier III cities and gets the maximum order from tier III cities. In 2016;
Shopclues won the Gold Award for its GharWapsi campaign. The company has
more than 700 employees and 100 Million visits every year.The company has
also faced criticism for selling fake Ray-ban products. Shop clue’s Sunday flea
market and Wednesday Super Saver Bazar has been immensely successful.

GMV (in billion $): 1.2

2016 Won Gold APAC Effie Award under the David v/s Goliath Category.

35
2015 Won ‘Advertising Campaign of the Year' Award

2014 Won bronze for or 'Best Email Marketing Campaign' in 2014.

Won the Indian e-Retail Awards in the year 2013 as the 'Best eRetailer of
2013
the Year'

2012 Acquired Momoe in 2016 for around $12 million.

2012 Raised Series A investment funds

2011 Launched Shopclues

8. MAKEMYTRIP

Established in 2000 by Deep Kalra, MakeMyTrip is the leading online travel

ecommerce company. Headquartered in Gurgaon, the company facilitates online
booking facilities for train, bus, flights, hotel reservation. The company has done a
series of acquisitions like holiday IQ, ITC group, hotel travel group and Mygola to
expand its business.

36
MakeMyTrip owns 65 retail stores across 50 cities in India. The company also
started providing car hire services. Apart from India, MakeMyTrip offers its hotel
booking services internationally. The company has its international branches in
New York and Sydney as well. The company has done a series of acquisitions to
enhance its presence in the South East Asia. MakeMyTrip merged with its biggest
rival Ibibo group to become India’s largest travel agency. The company has also
launched several mobile apps that provide various travel services such as flight
bookings, holiday packages, tickets, hotel booking etc. The company also offers
special packages for tourist locations. MakeMyTrip has recently made a strategic
partnership with Flipkart to leverage the cutomer base of Flipkart which will allow
it to offer travel services in its platform. MakeMyTrip owns recognized brands
such as Goibibo and RedBus. The company provides bookings for all major
domestic and low-cost airlines operating in India, Indian Railways and all major
Indian bus operators.

GMV (in billion $): 1.1

2017 India's Leading Online Travel Agency 2017

2016 Merges with Ibibo Group

2012 Best Travel Innovator – Travel Distribution World Asia Awards 2011

Best Online Travel Service Firm - Times Travel Honours

Great Places To Work 2011 – 3rd Best Company to Work for & #1 in
2011
Professional Services

2009 Best Travel Website – CNBC Awaaz

2008 Most Preferred Online Travel Agency – Travel Biz Monitor Survey

2007 Among 100 IT Innovators – NASSCOM

2006 Emerging India Award – ICICI Bank & CNBC TV18

37
9. MYNTRA
Based in Bangalore, Myntra is the most popular online fashion portal famous for
its fashionable apparels.

Image: company website

he company was founded by Mukesh Bansal in 2007, and initially the company
sold customized gift items, later expanded their business to include apparels and
lifestyle products. Myntra was acquired by Flipkart in 2014, and Myntra acquired
its biggest competitor Jabong to expand their business.

Today Flipkart, Myntra, Jabong together captures a large market share. Myntra
acquired Native5; Cubeit to strengthen its mobile app. Myntra has collaborated
with Ministry of Textiles to endorse handloom industry. It has also faced criticism
for labour issues. Recently, Myntra had acquired a smart wearables devices
startupWitworks to reinforce its product development capabilities. The company
enjoys a large customer base owing to its continuous innovation in its products. It
also provides design for apparel segment in Flipkart. From brands like Fastrack
Watches to Being Human, this portal has some of the most recognized and
premium brands in its store. Myntra has been always on the front in terms of usage
of technology. Myntra is planning to incorporate AI in its app and let users know
how they look and give a rating. It will also incorporate augmented reality to
produce talking t-shirts. Myntra has associated with Esprit which will allow it to
open 15 offline Espirit stores.

GMV (in billion $): 1

38
10. BOOKMYSHOW
BookMyShow is the largest online portal for booking entertainment tickets like
movies, events, concerts, sports, plays etc.

Image: https://indiadesire.com/bookmyshow

Headquartered in Mumbai, the company was founded by Ashish Hemrajani in

1999, and initially the company was registered under BigTree Entertainment Ltd.
Later they changed their brand name to “Go for Ticketing” to “India ticketing” to
finally
BookMyShow.

The company faced challenges in those days as internet, credit card, debit card,
were not prevalent and there was no multiple screens in theatres. The company got
a boost when Network 18 invested in the company in 2007 giving them 60%
partnership in the business. The company had survived the global financial crisis
and the dotcom crash. The company has many sources of revenue but the main
source of income is through ticketing which contributes to 60% of their total
revenue. The other sources of income are through advertising and promotion of
new movies, events and artists. BookMyShow has made partnership with major
multiplex chains, theaters, event organizing companies across the country.
BookMyShow has partnered with IPL, Formula 1 which has helped the company
to become the most successful entertainment portal in India. It has also won many

39
awards such as “The Hottest Company of the Year” in 2011. It has expanded its
operations to 4 countries outside India.

GMV (in billion $): 0.36

2017 Acqui-hires Nfusion for its audio entertainment offering – Jukebox.

Raised largest single funding of INR 550 crores from US based

Stripes
2016
Group

2016 Awarded the ‘Best Omni-channel Customer Experience Brand’

Crossed milestone as sells over 3 million movie tickets in a single

2016 weekend

2015 Acquired Bengaluru based Social Media Analytics firm Eventifier.

SAIF Partners invests USD 25 Million (Rs. 150 crore) valuing

2014
BookMyShow at Rs. 1000 crores. .

Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

Elizabeth Goldsmith and Sue L.T. McGregor (2000)

analyzed the impact of e-commerce on consumers, public policy, business and
education. A discussion of public policy initiatives, research questions and ideas
for future research are given.

Jackie Gilbert Bette Ann Stead (2001)

reviewed the incredible growth of electronic commerce (e-commerce) and presented
ethical issues that have emerged. Security concerns, spamming, websites that do not
carry an “advertising” label, cyber squatters, online marketing to children, conflicts
of interest, manufacturers competing with intermediaries online and “dinosaurs”
were discussed.

40
Andrew D. Mitchell (2001)
examined the key issues that electronic commerce poses for Global trade, using as
a starting point the General Agreement on trade in services (GATS), the World
Trade Organization (WTO) agreement most relevant to e-commerce.

Nir B. Kshetri (2001)

This paper attempts to identified and synthesized the available evidence on
predictors
of magnitude, global distribution and forms of e-commerce. The analysis indicated
that the twin forces of globalization and major revolutions in ICT are fuelling the
rapid growth of global e-commerce.

Werther H and Ricci F.(2004)

Reported that e-commerce in travel and tourism industries are continuously
increasing despite of tough economic problems. This industry is adopting
application of B2B and B2C. This industry has changed the ways of do business
for traditional ways to modern way i.e. e-commerce via web and other online
transaction software. Web is changing the behavior of consumers are well as they
are becoming less loyal, take less time for choosing and consuming the tourism
products. As this industry is service oriented business industry, companies are
implementing various new techniques to satisfy consumer needs and providing
information to them through web and different value generating strategies like
value extraction, value capture, value addition value creation. Travel and tourism
is information based service oriented business and the product is termed as
“confidence good” and prior comprehensive Assessment of quality is impossible
however due to use of e-commerce feedbacks from consumers can be obtained in
short span of time and this services can be enhanced accordingly. Due to adoption
of e-commerce in travel and tourism industry consumers are becoming more
powerful players as they can choose their destination and sites in few minutes
whereas travel agents, travel websites etc see diminishing power in sales however
they are providing new market functionality using new technologies to attract
more consumers. Many tour operator, travel agents online travel agents are using
these strategy to attract more consumers however using more high- tech
technologies needs huge investments need more high skill human resource etc.

Kim (2004)

41
examined there are main two factors for conducting successful e-commerce strategy
which are security of the e-commerce system and user friendly web interface.
Security means not only securing own system but also providing security assurance
to users who are using the sites or online software user friendly web interface give
consumer trust and it's easy to convenience for customers. Beside these factors other
factors are also essential to succeed which are top management support, IT
infrastructure and customer acceptance. Top management support plays vital role as
per Kim as they are the decision makers and their support and decision will direct
the company to use the strategy. Further he also explained that with-out proper IT
structure and skilled human resources, e-commerce strategy will fail. One of the
factors he explained is customer acceptance; customer acceptance means the way
customer accepts the web or online software of the company and it should have very
rich contents and very easy to use these factors will decide whether business will get
more customers.

Young Jan Choi 1, Chung Suk Suh (2005)

reported that the economic consequences of the death of geographical distance due
to the emergence of e-marketplaces. It has shown that overcoming spatial barriers by
means of e-marketplaces lowers the price level. Since e-marketplaces achieve
economies of scale by aggregating dispersed demands, they allow the company to
have more varieties that did not exist before their emergence.

ZabihollahRezaee, Kenneth R. Lambert and W. Ken Harmon(2006)

reported that the rationale for infusion of e-commerceeducation into all business
courses is that technological developmentsare significantly affecting all aspects of
today’s business. An Ecommerce dimension can be added to the business curriculum
by integrating e-commerce topics into existing upper-level business courses.
Students would be introduced to ecommerce education and topics covered a variety
of business courses in different disciplines eg.accounting, economics, finance,
marketing, management, management information systems. To help assure that all
related business courses in all disciplines such as egg. accounting, finance,
economics, marketing, management, information systems pay proper attention to the

42
critical aspects of e-commerce, certain e-commerce topics should be integrated into
existing business courses .

Mauricio S. Feather man, Joseph S. Valacich& John D. Wells(2006)

reported that as companies oracle to digitize physical based service processes
repackaging them as online e-services, it becomes increasingly important to
understand how consumers perceive the digitized e-service alternative. E-service
replacements may seem unfamiliar artificial and non authentic in comparison to
traditional service processing methods. Consumers may believe that new Internet-
based processing methods expose them to new potential risks the dangers of
online fraud identity theft and phishing Swindles means schemes to steal
confidential information using spoofed websites, have become common place and
are likely to cause alarm and fear within consumers.

Law and Bai (2008)

on their research paper mentioned there are two types of customers who use travel
companies websites, those are buyers and borrowers. Buyers are those people who
actually intend to buy the services whereas browsers are those who intend to surf
and get information only. Those browsers can be converted to buyers by improving
the website contents making it attractive, provided very rich in contents and very
user friendly to use. As more and more travel companies are applying these
strategies, the increase in percentage of website buyers and browsers are also
increasing day by day, this is due to adaption of e-commerce technology in travel
and tourism industry.

Chapter 3
Research Methodology

Research methodology is a systematic way to solve a problem. It is a science of

studying how research is to be carried out. Essentially, the procedures by which
researchers go about their work of describing, explaining and predicting
phenomena are called research methodology. It is also defined as the study of

43
methods by which knowledge is gained. Its aim is to give the work plan of
research.
The work done by researchers in the field of E-Commerce, enabled me to select the
topic for my research entitled 'A study on usage of e-commerce in Mumbai City'
was subjected to the normally adopted research methodology. The research
conducted is descriptive and analytical in nature. The nature of the study is
indicative which has the potential to collate the behaviour and the experiences of e-
commerce users in Mumbai City.

3.1 Objectives of the study

As an e-commerce are finding their way in global market the researcher wants to
delve into the psyche of the e-commerce users and learn the experience about the
ecommerce, his preference, usage habits, satisfaction level and awareness.
Moreover the e-commerce user must also be aware of the use of e-commerce in
Mumbai. In short how to get maximum benefits of e-commerce without incurring
any losses.
The objectives of the study are :
• To study the meaning, features of E-Commerce
• To assess the experience of e-commerce users
• To find out the attitude of users towards e-commerceTo know the
preference of websites among the users

3.2 Scope of the study

The present study focuses on the perception of users towards e-commerce. The
study was designed to gain a better understanding of the factors influencing
possession of ecommerce and users satisfaction. The study also analyse the extent
of utilization of e-commerce by user of e-commerce.

3.3 Limitation of study

• Limited time for acquisition of primary data
• Limited sample size
• sample area of data is limited
• Findings are based on survey through questionnaire

44
 3.4 Collection of data
Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted
variables in an established system, which then enables one to answer relevant
questions and evaluate outcomes.
Collection of data was collected from both i.e. Primary sources and secondary
sources.

Primary Sources:
Primary data means original data that has been collected specially for the
purpose in mind. It means someone collected the data from the original source first
hand. Data collected this way is called primary data.
The primary data was collected by a structured questionnaire. The questionnaire
become a source of collecting data which is provided later in Appendix.
Secondary Sources:
Secondary data refers to data which is collected by
someone who is someone other than the user. Common sources of secondary data
for social science include censuses, information collected by government
departments, organizational records and data that was originally collected for other
research purposes.
The secondary data was collected from the following sources:
• Published articles and reports of Journals
• Magazines and periodical articles from websites provide complimentary
information
• statistics provides on various websites

3.5 Structured questionnaire

A structured questionnaire was used to collect the necessary information and it

served as primary data to answer the study questions and objectives pertaining to
experience of e-commerce users. The questionnaire were mainly collected
personally by contacting the respondents. The data could be collected by convincing
the respondents that their responses would be used only for academic research.
The questionnaire consisted of 15 questions. The questionnaire mainly contained
close ended questions. Here we collect data from 40 respondent

45
 3.6 Sampling

The sampling focused mainly on e-commerce users with an even mix of people
both sexes i.e. women and men in order to rule out gender bias in the samples of
the results. An attempt was made to have a larger sample size but time became a
major deterrminent. Hence a total of sample size was thought to be adequate for
this study

3.7 Processing of data

The questionnaire were recorded. The data was subjected to classification on the
demographic parameters, usage pattern of e-commerce, preference of using
ecommerce websites, uses of payment method of e-commerce etc. The data which
were classified and analyzed were grouped as follows:
• Demographic details included information about the respondent on the
basis of age, gender, occupations etc.
• General information about awareness of e-commerce, usage of e-
commerce, name of e-commerce websites
• Details about most preferred product purchase
• Details about payment method on e-commerce, satisfaction and experience
of e-commerce users
• perception about the future of e-commerce in India

Chapter 4
Data analysis, Interpretation and Presentation

1.Age Wise Classification

Age Group

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (16-24) 22 55%

2 (25-34) 14 35%

46
3 (35-49) 3 7.5%

4 (50 or above) 1 2.5%

age wise classification

Age Group Frequency Age Group Percent

55%

35%

22
14
8%
3%
3 1
1 (16-24) 2 (25-34) 3 (35-49) 4 (50 or above)

As shown in above chart the age group between 16-24 are most prefer to buy
online

2.Gender wise Classification

Gender

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Male) 28 70%

2 (Female) 12 30%

Gender wise classification

30

25

20

15

10

5
47
0
male female
As shown in above data Male are more use to buy online than Female.

3.Occupation Wise Classification

occupation

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Others) 0 00%

2 (Self Employed) 2 5%

3 (Student) 20 50%

4 (Service) 13 32.5%

5 (Professional) 5 13%

Occupation wise cllasification

25

20

15

10

0
1 (Others) 2 (Self 3 (Student) 4 (Service) 5
Employed) (Professional)

As shown in above graph student and service persons use E-Commerce more than
others.

4. Shopping wise Classification

How frequently do you shop through e-commerce website

48
 Answers Frequency Percent

1 (More than once a month) 5 14.28%

2 (Once in 1-2 month) 7 20%

3 (Once in 3-6 month) 8 22.9%

4 (Once in 7-12 months) 4 11.4%

5 (Never) 11 31.4%

Shoping wise
14%
1 (More than once a
31% month)
2 (Once in 1-2 month)
3 (Once in 3-6 month)
20%
4 (Once in 7-12 months)
5 (Never)

11%

23%

As above pie chart shows 14% shopes. Once in a month, 20% once in 1-2 month ,
23% once in 3-6 month ,12%once in 7-12 month and, 31% customers are never
shop online .it means most of the persons prefers traditional market.

5.Website wise Classification

which is your most preferred e commerce website

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Flipkart) 19 47.5%

2 (Amazon) 13 32.5%

3 (Sneapdeal) 04 10%

4 (Shopclues) 2 5%

5 (Other: ) 2 5%

49
 Preferred websites
20
18
16
14
12 which is your most
preferred e commerce
10 website Frequency
8
which is your most
6 preferred e commerce
4 website Percent
2
0 47.50% 32.50% 10.00% 5.00% 5.00%
)
a rt) on) e al) u es
)
er:
k az d cl th
lip m ap p (O
(F (A ne Sho 5
1 2 (S (
3 4

As shown in above graph 47.5% persons preferred to buy onFlipkart and 32.5%
persons are buying on Amazon. 10% buy on sneap deal5 % buy on Shopclues and
5% are buying on other websites.

6.Access wise Classification

How do you access e commerce

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Mobile App) 26 84%

2 (Website) 5 16%

3 (Other: ) 0 0%

Access wise Classification

01
16%
%
1 (Mobile App)
2 (Website)
3 (Other:)

84%

50
As shown above 84% are access e-commerce on Mobile App and 16% are access
on Website.

7.Product wise Classification

Tick the product which you prefer to buy online

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Electronics) 12 39%

2 (Clothing) 9 29%

3 (Books) 4 13%

4 (Groceries) 1 3%

5 (Beauty products) 1 3%

6 (Ticket booking) 3 10%

7 (Other: ) 1 3%

As shown above table and following pie chart 39% Electronic product, 29%
cloths, 13% books, 10% tickets book on online. 3% groceries, beauty products and
other products purchase on online sites.

Product wise classification

Frequency Percent

7 (Other: ) 3% 1

6 (Ticket booking) 10% 3

5 (Beauty products) 3% 1

4 (Groceries) 3% 1

3 (Books) 13% 4
2 (Clothing) 29%
9
1 (Electronics) 39%
12

51
8.Payment Method wise Classification

what would your best payment method if you buy online

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (PayPal) 0 0%

2 (Debit/Credit card ) 14 45%

3 (Cash On Delivery) 13 42%

4 (E-wallet) 2 6%

5 (Other: ) 0 0%

Payment Method wise Classification

Series1

45%
42%

6%
0% 0%

1 (PayPal) 2 (Debit/Credit 3 (Cash On 4 (E‐wallet) 5 (Other:)

card ) Delivery)

As shown on above 45% persons pay by Debit/Credit card and 42% persons pay by
Cash On Delivery when purchase online. 6% persons pay by E-Wallet.

59
 9.Comparisons with online products
Have you compare e-
commerce websites before
buying products ?
Answers frequency Percentage
Always 19 48%
Rarely 18 45%
never 3 7%

Comparison on online products

Always Rarely never

8%

48%

45%

53
54
 Thought of replacementwith physical
store

34% 1 (Yes)
2 (No )
52%
3 (Maybe)

14%

As shown on above pie diagram 52% are said e-commerce can replace with
physical store, 14% are said it can't replace with physical store and 34% are said it
maybe replace with physical store.

12.Security of online store and traditional store

online shopping as secure as traditional shopping

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Strongly agree) 0 0%

2 (Agree) 11 37%

3 (Neutral ) 12 40%

4 (Disagree) 7 23%

5 (Strongly disagree) 0 0%

55
 Security of online store and traditional
store
Series1

5 (Strongly disagree) 0%

4 (Disagree) 16%

3 (Neutral ) 39%

2 (Agree) 35%

1 (Strongly agree) 0%

As shown on above 39% are neutral with this sentence, 35% are agreeing and
16% are disagreeing with this sentence.

13.. Future of e-commerce in India

Is there any future of e commerce in India

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Yes) 21 68%

2 (No) 1 3%

3 (Don't know) 3 10%

4 (Can't say) 4 13%

Future of e‐commerce in India

1 (Yes) 2 (No) 3 (Don't know) 4 (Can't say)

14%

10%
4%

72%

56
As shown in above pie chart 68% people think there is future of e-commerce in
India. 3% people think there is no future of e-commerce in India. 10% don't know
and 13% can't say that there is future of E-Commerce in India.

14. Variation in order Placed and Delivered

Is there a variation in order placed and order delivered

Answers Frequency Percent

1 (Always) 14 45%

2 (Rarely ) 15 48%

3 (Never) 0 0%

Frequency Percent
15
14

45% 48%
0 0%
1 (Always) 2 (Rarely ) 3 (Never)

As shown in above 48% rarely get difference in order placed and delivered.

45% always get difference between order placed and delivered.

57
 Chapter 5Findings, Conclusions and
Suggestions5.1Findings

From survey of E-Commerce the researcher collect primary data about usage of
E-Commerce. The findings obtain from that data are given below .
 Age group of 16-24 are most preferred to use E-Commerce.50 or above
age group do not use E-Commerce most prefer.
 Male as well as Female use E-Commerce to shop.
 Awareness of E-commerce is in throughout the all people.
 Most of student and service persons prefer to buy online.
 Flipkart is the most preferable website.
 Mobile App is use to buy product online.
 All products are available on website but electronic products are most
preferred product.
 Most of the people use Debit/Credit card to buy online product.
 71% of people are satisfied with e-commerce website.
 48% of people think e-commerce can replace with physical store.
 39% of people neutral with the statement of online shopping is as secure
as traditional shopping.
 68% of people think there are future of e-commerce in India.

From the above findings, know that there are some future of e-commerce in
India. youth of India is attracted with online shopping. Most of people aware
about the Ecommerce.

5.3 Future of E-commerce

The Indian e-commerce industry has been on an upward growth trajectory and is
expected to surpass the US to become the second largest e-commerce market in
the world by 2034.

58
The e-commerce market is expected to reach US$ 64 billion by 2020 and US$
200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5 billion as of 2017.

With growing internet penetration, internet users in India are expected to increase
from 481 million as of December 2017 to 829 million by 2021.

Rising internet penetration is expected to lead to growth in ecommerce.

India’s internet economy is expected to double from US$125 billion as of April

2017 to US$ 250 billion by 2020, majorly backed by ecommerce .

According to recent market research, mobile phone internet user penetration in

India is projected to reach 37.36 percent of the population in 2021, representing a
huge potential in teerms of digital and mobile buyer users.

59
Biblography

advantages-of-e-commerce-to-consumers/

https://www.pixelmattic.com/blog/e-commerce-in-india-2017/

https://www.export.gov/article?id=India-eCommerce

https://www.mbaskool.com https://www.ibef.org/industry/ecommerce.aspx

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/ecommerce-pros-and-cons-1141609 images
www.Wikipedia.com

www.cyber chimp .com

60
 Appendix

A comparative analysis on survey of e-commerce is conducted by Miss

ZainabAnis Ahmed(Researcher, University of Mumbai) under the guidance of
Prof.Dr.
Kinnarry Thakkar (associate Professor, Department of Commerce, University of
Mumbai).

Survey About Usage of E-Commerce

1. Age Group:
2.
16-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------24
24-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------34
35-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------49

50 or
above
3. Gender:
Male
Female
4. Occupation:
Professional
Self Employed
Service
Student
Others
5. Are you aware of an online shopping websites?
Yes
No
6. How frequently do you shop through e-commerce websites?
More than once in a month
Once in 1-2 month

61
 Once in 3-6 months
Once in 7-12 months
Never
6. Which is your most preferred e-commerce website?

Flipkart
Amazon
Sneapdeal
Shopclues
Others
7. How do you access E-Commerce?
Mobile App
Websites
Others
8. Tick the product varieties that you generally prefer buying online
Electronics
Clothing
Books
Groceries
Beauty Products
Ticket Booking
Others
9. Have you compare products before purchase online?
Always
Rarely
Never
10.What would be your best payment method if you buy online
PayPal
Debit/Credit Card
Cash On Delivery
E-Wallet
Others

62
11.Are you satisfied with the e-commerce ?
Yes
No
Can't Say
12.Do you think e-commerce can replace with physical store?
Yes
No
Maybe
13.Online Shopping is as secure as traditional Shopping
Strongly Agree
Agree
Neutral
Disagree
Strongly Disagree
14.Is there a variation in order placed and order delivered?
Always
Rarely
Never
15.Is there any future of e-commerce in India?
Yes
No
Don't Know
Can't Say

63
64