Business Process & Strategy

Table of Contents

Background and Introduction:        2

Motivation of research:        2

Literature Review        3

Gaps in Research        5

Qualitative Research        5

Focussed Group Discussion        5

Quantitative Research        6

Research Methodology        6

Stage one        6

Stage two        6

Stage three        8

Research Findings        8

Reliability Analysis        8

Factor Analysis:        9

Multiple Regression With Brand Value as dependent variable:        0

7. CONTRIBUTION TO LITERATURE        0

8. CONCLUSION        1

References        2

Background and Introduction:

Undoubtedly the advent of e-Commerce has changed the way we, the customers, shop these days.  In Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, in various product categories such as, Electronics, Footwear, Accessories or Books, e-Commerce is increasingly becoming the preferred channel for shopping. Obviously, shopping online saves a lot of time for us, but also is very convenient as we are able to see lot many products on our desks or devices itself, read the product reviews, ratings etc. - these are various parameters which helps us in deciding our purchase.

In earlier days, we used to decide which “Brick & Mortar” shop is giving higher discount or better services or is convenient to shop from, which is near to our place, which has a parking or does not have a parking facility. But now times have changed, with the focus shifting to e-Commerce platforms, their functioning, website look and feel, offers, freebies, delivery time etc, have come into the picture and the parameters to decide on which e-commerce platform to choose has also changed.

Our research “What intrigues you to buy from a specific e-Commerce platform” focuses on this area to find the factors which influence a buyer to purchase goods or services from a particular e-Commerce platform. Our team observed that despite of same prices for a product, customers choose to shop from say Flipkart and not from Amazon.in, probably then there are various factors apart from price which influence customers to purchase from a particular website.

We aspire to research on consumer decisions which influence them to eventually shop from one particular platform and not from other e-Commerce websites.  

Online shopping is on rise in India and is penetrating deep into tier 3 and rural cities. Below report shows the rate of growth of e-Commerce in different tiers of India.

Looking at the great growth and opportunity ahead for Indian e-Commerce industry, it is now a need of time for e-Commerce platforms to work on their brand building and aggressively work on factors that supports customer retention more along with customer acquisition.  In e-Commerce space, there is almost no switching cost involved for buyers and there is huge bargaining power with the buyers which make it imperative for e-Commerce companies to identify the co-relation between purchasing decisions and various factors that customers takes into consideration to make that purchase from a particular platform.

Motivation of research:

Marketplace e-Commerce players are being funded from VCs, people of India now have an increased faith and fewer apprehensions about shopping online, goods and even services are now being bought online. The competition among e-Commerce players to grab a pie of market is an all time high currently.

With fierce competition around, we were prompted to study the factors that an e-Commerce company keeps in mind to keep their sales momentum going.

We went for a survey to analyze how demographic variables, website features, user friendliness in shopping, customer services, delivery methods and even minute details such as packaging, buying guides, authorised sellers etc. are considered by customers to decide the e-Commerce website from where they wish to shop.

Results and analysis of our survey will help e-Commerce players to observe the areas of improvement to enhance customer experience and stimulate their top line.

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Literature Review

Literature review is performed to ensure no important perspective is left out and aligns the study to the leading perspective.  The review also helps in identifying the limitations of the earlier studies, focusing on the gaps, and avoiding duplication of research. Thus researchers can work upon the identified gaps and focus upon key areas.

The very first research on the loyalty of e-commerce website was performed by Marcel Gommans*, Krish S. Krishnan*, & Katrin B. Scheffold in 2001. The research tried to design a framework for brand loyalty in the e-commerce space, to present a conceptual framework of "e-loyalty" and its underlying drivers. The research proposed the a model of e-loyalty with the underlying drivers consisting of Value Propositions, Brand Building, Trust and Security,  Website & Technology, and Customer Service.  From this model the following brand loyalty strategies emerge:

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Srini S Srinivasan, Rolph Anderson, Kishore Ponnavalu (2002) investigates the customer loyalty in and e-commerce context. This paper identifies eight factors (customization, contact interactivity, care, community, convenience, cultivation, choice, and character) that potentially impact e-loyalty and develops scales to measure these factors. The paper also concludes that e-loyalty has an impact on the following two customer-related outcomes: word-of- mouth promotion and readiness to pay more.

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