TOP BUSINESS COMPANIES IN INDIA'S ONLINE RETAIL MARKET: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN FLIPKART AND AMAZON IN CURRENT SCENARIO
(A REVIEW OF LITERATURE) Mrs. Anubhuti Pawar
Assistant Professor, SRGBN College, Sanawad Ms. Manisha Solanki
Assistant Professor, SRGBN College, Sanawad
Abstract- The main objective of the comparison between Amazon and Flipkart is to understand the work processes used by both companies as well as the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities, and risks associated with the online marketplaces and the factors influencing customers' decisions regarding which one to use. This analysis is an effort to primarily analyse how these E-business sites coordinate their research, marketing strategies, and public relations efforts at the corporate and global levels. For this study, an expressive measurements approach has been adopted using both planned polling for the collection of essential information and the collection of supplementary information from a variety of sources, including corporate websites and journal articles. The analysis‟s finding is that, compared to Flipkart & Amazon offers the majority of customers higher levels of satisfaction.
Keywords: Customer Buying Behavior, Amazon, Flipkart, E-Commerce, Shopping Experiences and Online Shopping.
1 INTRODUCTION
As far back as internet has been acquainted with the world, it has made a colossal impact on individuals; business is one of such case where internet has had the effect. The Internet has evolved into a more powerful and essential tool for all people's needs and methods of work. Innovative businesses have created systems for accepting orders from customers, making payments easier, providing customer service, gathering marketing data, and receiving online reviews by integrating various online information management tools with the use of the Internet. E-commerce, or Internet commerce, has been used to refer to all of these activities collectively. With its wide range of products and straightforward purchasing process, online shopping has become incredibly convenient for everyone. It has been designed to compare the customer satisfaction scores of two major Online Business, Flipkart and Amazon, critically. These two significant figures each left their impact in India.
A comparative study between Top Business Companies Amazon and Flipkart delivers the information about the factors that impacts customer satisfaction to succeed in e-commerce market. Customers are now more likely to shop online than in actual stores in the current digital era. Consumers are now comfortable with purchasing groceries like fruits and vegetables online after first gravitating toward the clothes, footwear, and electronics categories. As a result, online selling is expanding quickly in India. In terms of the number of product categories, the number of products within a category, payment choices, discounts, e-coupons, special sales offers, etc., consumers today have a wide range of options available online. The definition of customer satisfaction is "the consumer's fulfilment response. It is a determination that a feature of a good or service, or the good or service itself, offered a satisfying amount of consumption-related satisfaction, with or without under- or over fulfillment. Customer satisfaction is influenced by expectations, perceived service and perceived quality (Hu, Kandampully & Juwaheer, 2009). Expectations influence total satisfaction when the customer evaluates a product or service. Satisfaction is a customer‟s emotional response when evaluating the discrepancy between expectations regarding the service and the actual performance perception.
1.1 History of Flipkart
Flipkart is an e-commerce company founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.
It is registered in Singapore and it operates in India whereas it‟s headquarter is in Bangalore, Karnataka. In May 2014 Flipkart received $210 million from DST global, in July 2014 it raised $1 billion led by existing investors‟ Tiger Global and South Africa‟s media group Naspers and May 2015 it raised $550 million from some of its existing investors.
Flipkart‟s last fund raising round in May 2015 had pegged its valuation at $15 billion.
Flipkart acquired the rights to Chakpak‟s digital catalogue which includes 40,000 filmographies, 10000 movies and close to 50k ratings. Flipkart has categorically said that it will not be involved with the original site and will not use the brand name. Over 15 millionproducts: still counting. It includes 11.5 million book titles. The other products include Books, Movies, Music, Games, Mobiles, Cameras, Computers, Healthcare and personal products, Home appliances and electronics, Stationary, Perfumes, Toys and many more. In July 2014 Flipkart launched its own set of tablet, mobile phones & tablet. The first among these series of tablet phones was Digflip pro xt 712 tablets. In September 2014 Flipkart launched its in-house home appliances and personal healthcare brand citron. The label includes a wide range of cooking utilities and grooming products.
1.2 History of Amazon
The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called his “regret minimization framework,” which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the internet business boom during that time. In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice- president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle. He began to work on a business plan for what would eventually become Amazon.com. Jeff Bezos incorporated the company as “Cadabra” on July 5, 1994. Bezos changed the name to Amazon a year later after a lawyer misheard its original name as “Cadaver”. The company went online as Amazon.com in 1995. Bezos selected the name Amazon by looking through the dictionary and Barnes & Noble sued Amazon on May 12, 1997, alleging that Amazon‟s claim to be “the world‟s largest bookstore” was false. Barnes and Noble asserted, “It is not a bookstore at all but it‟s a book broker.” The suit was later settled out by court, and Amazon continued to make the same claim.” Company offers Books, Music, movies, games, Digital download, Kindle, Computer and office, Electronics, Home and garden, Grocery, health, beauty, Toys, Kids, Clothing, and Sports. Amazon has separate retail websites for united states, united kingdom & Ireland, France, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Australia, Brazil, Japan, china, India and Mexico. Amazon also offers international shipping to certain other countries for some of its products.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Dahiya Richa (2012), conducts a study on the role of demographic factors and their impact on the shopping behaviour of online customers. The study opines that e-business is a new form of business in India which has tremendous potential. It has been growing significantly ever since its introduction in the country. The author even comments that the War Between Flipkart and Amazon India: a Study on Customer Perception 393 NAAS Rating: 3.10- Articles can be sent to [email protected] field of E-Business will reshape the entire shopping scenario across the globe. Considering it to be the need of the hour every other company is now running their own online portals to sell their products and services.
Abhijit mitra. (2013), “e-commerce in India-a review”, international journal of marketing, financial services & management research. Concluded that the e-commerce has broken the geographical limitations and it is a revolution-commerce will improve tremendously in next five years in India.
D. K. Gangeshwar. (2013),” e-commerce or internet marketing: a business review from Indian context”, international journal of u- and e- service, science and technology.
Concluded that the e-commerce has a very bright future in India although security, privacy and dependency on technology are some of the drawbacks of e-commerce but still there is a bright future to e-commerce.
Dhevika et al. (2014) worked on a paper “Factors Affecting Online shopping of Customers”concluded that the most important factor influencing online shopping is- security, trust worthy shopping and website design/features and the least important factor influencing is bargaining shopping. It was found in the research that there is no significant association between security and website design/features of the respondents and their overall online buying behavior.
Balasubramanian & Isswarya (2017) in their research paper discusses on the customer satisfaction level between Flipkart and Amazon among the customers in an educational institution. The data were collected from 179 samples who basically post
graduate students and the tools for analysis were simple statistical tools like a percentage.
The study also ponders upon investigating the major factors that ultimately impact customer satisfaction towards Flipkart and Amazon. The questionnaire focuses upon the various domains which customers generally emphasises upon while shopping online like order tracking and delivery, website usage, product availability, payment procedures etc.
The paper concludes by stating that in the war between Flipkart and Amazon; Flipkart wins by providing an efficient delivery system, user-friendly website and exact tracking facility.
Ahuja (2018), makes a study on customer perception towards the purchase of electronic goods through Amazon and Flipkart. The study hovers around four basic aspects of viz.
Gender and satisfaction level towards Amazon, Gender and satisfaction level towards Flipkart, Income and satisfaction level towards Amazon and Income and satisfaction level towards Flipkart. The paper finds out that males are more interested in purchasing electronic goods online than females. However, people get the interest to purchase electronic goods online only when they are exposed to offers irrespective of their age and income.
Rodrigo et al. (2020) studied the topic “Customer Attitudes towards Online shopping A Literature Review. They found that online shopping is the most valuable platforms as marketing activities can be implemented effectively when they have the right knowledge and understanding of consumer attitudes. They suggested for designers of online shopping advertisers are to get singular customer dynamic on buying through the web.
3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The study is Descriptive in nature so only Secondary data have been used which was taken from various Research papers and Websites . The Secondary Data will help to make it more useful. It helps to improve the understanding of the problem. For this purpose various papers were reviewed by Researchers.
3.1 Objectives of the Study
To comprehend and gauge consumer perceptions and the variables influencing how they select e-commerce sites.
To understand how customers assess e-commerce websites before making a purchase.
To comprehend Amazon's and Flipkart's work processes in India.
To research the difficulties and obstacles that stand between e-commerce sites and their clients.
To learn about new possibilities and to be successful in those processes.
Achievements of Flipkart In E-commerce
In september 2015, sachin bansal and binny bansal entered forbes India rich list debuting at the 86th position with a net worth of $1.3 billion each. Co-founder of Flipkart, sachin bansal, got entrepreneur of the year award 2012-2013 from economic times, leading Indian economic daily. Flipkart.com was awarded young turk of the year at cnbc tv 18's 'India business leader awards 2012' (ibla). Flipkart.com- got nominated for Indiamart leaders of tomorrow awards 2011.
Failure in Music Industry
In October and November 2011, Flipkart acquired the websites mime360.com and chakpak.com. Later, in February 2012, the company revealed its new flyte digital music store. Flyte, a legal music download service in the vein of itunes and Amazon.com, offered drm-free mp3 downloads. But it was shut down on 17 June 2013 as paid song downloads did not get popular in India due to the advent of free music streaming sites.
Achievements of Amazon in E-commerce
On the mobile app side, Amazon had the fastest growing app download rate in 2015. In October alone, downloads increased 200 per cent. Amazon web traffic was the highest in October as per comscore data, at 30 million visitors. Amazon active customers have gone up 230 per cent year on year. The awards were conferred at e-tailing India's flagship conference and exhibition 2014, an event that brought together major stakeholders in the retail and e-commerce business in the country. The "path-breaking debut of the year"
award went to Amazon.in.
4 FAILURE
Amazon starts using India post and screws up its delivery system in India. At the time when the competition among online shopping portals in India is at its highest level possible and each player is pooling in millions from finding‟s and trying to beat each other with never- before discounts and amazing services, Amazon has taken the worst step ever possible.
Amazon India has chosen India post as its primary delivery partner and all “Amazon fulfilled” orders are now being shipped through India post. Anyone who lives in India or has some experience with the postal system in India needs no introduction about India post.
5 FINDINGS
Female respondents are showing more interest to do online shopping than male respondents.
Customers are preferring quality product from e-commerce sites, even it is bit expensive.
Flipkart is trying very hard to reach the top position but Amazon India is giving very tough competition.
Amazon is leading in every aspect of survey such as price, preferred and also suggesting to friends.
Undoubtedly Flipkart and Amazon made their impact on customers very strongly and captured loyal customers. And they are ready suggesting their online shopping site to rest of their friends.
Both Flipkart and Amazon India advertisings were very innovative and attractive. Both companies are expending so much money on advertising and promotions.
Every age group people are interested in offers, if they are in need or not they want to purchase.
6 CONCLUSIONS
India and all of the nation's cities, whether large and small, have seen an increase in online shopping. To improve customers' shopping experiences, it has offered them every function imaginable. Additionally, online retailers are attempting to reach the most distant regions.
Wherever possible, these e-commerce companies constantly take corrective action to improve the online purchasing experience. The survey discovered no distinction between Amazon and Flipkart's customer service and product quality. Additionally, it was discovered that the results were statistically insignificant. The study consisted with all the work flows of major e-commerce players in India, Flipkart and Amazon. How they are performing and how they are running perfectly in the competitive world has been explained. The innovative thinking of them to reach more and more consumers is appreciable. They increased their network as much as possible with ultimate aim of reaching more and more customers. They made consumers work more easy and comfortable. In this competitive market one has to be lead and rest will follow. Based upon consumer‟s survey we got our clear winner and it is Amazon. Even though it is an international company it understood Indians very well and made its roots stronger in India. Flipkart is also giving very tough competition to Amazon even though it is new company when compared to Amazon. May be it takes some time to overcome, but definitely they are doing very well in Indian e-commerce market. As a result, we can conclude that both e-commerce companies are engaged in fierce competition with one another in terms of client outreach and quality control.
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