View of EMERGING TREND OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA : SOME ISSUES, ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

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Vol. 05,Special Issue 02, (IC-IRSHEM-2020) February 2020, Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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EMERGING TREND OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA : SOME ISSUES, ADVANTAGES AND CHALLENGES

Dr. Suresh Purohit

Principal, Basic P.G. College, Bikaner

Abstract - E-Commerce stands for Electronic Commerce. E-Commerce is improving standard among the business community in worlds, about the opportunities offered by E- Commerce. The E-commerce has completely revolutionized the conventional concept of business. E-commerce deals with selling and purchasing of goods and services through internet and computer networks. In Indian Economy Electronic commerce (E-Commerce) as part of the information technology revolution became widely used in the world trade. With advancements in technology, there have been changes in the methodology for business transactions. India, being a rapid adaptor of technology is apace with the current scenario of electronic data exchanges and has taken to E-Commerce. The role of government should be to provide a legal framework for E-Commerce so that while domestic and international trade are allowed to expand their horizons, basic rights such as privacy, intellectual property, prevention of fraud, consumer protection etc are all taken care of. This paper examines issues, challenges, new trends, strategies and also attempts to highlight the different challenges faced by the E-commerce in India, understand the essential growth factors required for E-commerce, describes the prosperity of E-Commerce in India and retail E-Commerce sales in India. The study of this paper also focus on the world of E-commerce, the existence of the wholesalers is at the greatest risk because the producer can easily ignore them and sell their products to the retailers and the consumers. Wholesalers can take the advantage of E-commerce in establishing contracts with reputed producers and linking their business with the online. The study also found that, E-commerce provides the various types of opportunities to the wholesalers, retailers, producers and the People.

Keywords: E-commerce, New Trends, Challenges, Issues, Online Shopping, Evolution and Prosperity etc.

1 INTRODUCTION

E-Commerce stands for Electronic Commerce. Dealing in goods and services through the electronic media and internet is called as E-commerce. E-Commerce or E-Business involves carrying on a business with the help of the internet and by using the information technology like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). E-Commerce relates to the website of the vendor, who sells products or services directly to the customer from the portal using a digital shopping cart or digital shopping basket system and allows payment through credit card, debit card or electronic fund transfer payments. E-Commerce is the movement of business on to the World Wide Web (WWW). E-Commerce facilitates new types of information based business processes for reaching and interacting with customers. It can also reduce costs in managing orders and interacting with a wide range of suppliers and trading partners. For developing countries like India, E-Commerce offers considerable opportunities.

Electronic commerce or E-Commerce refers to a wide range of online business activities for products and services. It also pertains to “any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact.” E-Commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital information processing technology in business

1transactions to create, transform and redefine relationships for value creation between or among organizations and between organizations and individuals. Today E- Commerce in Indian society has become an integral part of everyday life. Accessibility to E- commerce platforms is not a privilege but rather a necessity for most people, particularly in the urban areas. India is in a prime position for the growth and development of the E- commerce sector.

Although business-to-business transactions play an important part in e-commerce market, a share of e-commerce revenues in rapidly developing countries like India is generated from business to consumer transactions. E-commerce provides multiple benefits to the consumers in form of availability of goods at lower cost, wider choice and saves time.

People can buy goods with a click of mouse button without moving out of their house or

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office. Similarly online services such as banking, ticketing (including airlines, bus, railways), bill payments, hotel booking etc. have been of tremendous benefit for the customers. Online businesses like financial services, travel, entertainment, and groceries are all likely to grow. E-commerce evolved in various means of relationship within the business processes. It can be in the form of electronic advertising, electronic payment system, electronic marketing, electronic customer support service and electronic order and delivery.

2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 To study the concept of E-commerce.

 To analyze the present trends of E-commerce in India.

 To study the various challenges faced by E-business players in India.

 To study the prospects of E-commerce in India.

3 CONCEPT OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA

 Multi Product E-Commerce

Some internet portals provide almost all categories of goods and services in a single site;

they are targeting customers of every possible product or service. Indian E-Commerce portals provide goods and services in a variety of categories like apparel and accessories for men and women, health and beauty products, books and magazines, computers and peripherals, vehicles, collectibles, software, consumer electronics, household appliances, jewelry, audio/video entertainment goods, gift articles, real estate and services, business and opportunities, employment and travel tickets etc. Examples : www.indiayplaza.com, www.thebestofindia.com, www.khoj.com, www.sify.com, www.rediff.com, www.indiatimes.com etc.

 Single Product E-Commerce

 In automobiles, the portals are http://www.indiacar.com and http://www.automatindia.com, on these sites we can buy and sell four wheelers and two wheelers new as well as old vehicles online. Some of the services they provide are car research and reviews, online evaluation, technical specifications, vehicle insurance, vehicle finance, dealer locator etc.

 In stock and shares markets some of the sites are http://www.equitymaster.com, http:// www.5paisa.com. Some of the services offered to registered members are online buying or dealing of stocks and share, market analysis and research, company information, comparison of companies, research on equity and mutual funds, tracking market trends etc.

 In real estate, the portals like http://www.indiaproperties.com. This website facilitate online dealing in real estate, they offer outright purchase or lease of a property through their portal. They also provide information on new properties as well as for resale. Some of the allied services are housing finance, insurance companies’ architects and interior designers, property management consultant services etc.

 In travel and tourism industry a major government of India portal is http://

www.tourismindia.com. The tourist destination sites are categorized according to the themes like eco-themes pertains to jungles, flora and fauna, beaches of India, architectural attractions, forts and places, hill resorts, adventure-trekking, mountain climbing etc. Other services offered are passport and visa, travel and accommodation information, weather information, festival and fair dates, shopping, tour operators etc. There are other sites like http://www.incredibleindia.org, it highlight the tourist destinations of a specific region in India, which covers North East India.

 In gift items, there are specific Indian websites making the act of gifting quick and easy to suit ones lifestyle. One such site is http://www.indiangiftsportal.com. The gifts are categorized as collectibles like paintings and sculptures, toys and games, chocolates, flowers, wood-craft and metal craft, luxury items like leather goods perfumes, jeweler boxes etc.

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 In case of hobbies, the most popular hobbies from time immemorial are reading books, listing music and watching films. On the Indian website http://www.firstandsecond.com, one can buy more than 3,00,000 titles of books, cassettes, VCDs and DVDs. The books cover a wide range of topics such as business, art, cookery, engineering, children’s stories, health, medicines etc. For music and videos, they are available in English and other Indian languages to cater to the needs of public and the topics range from devotional songs, old time favorites and pop etc.

 In case of matrimony, marriage portal like http://www.jeevansathi.com and http://

www.saadi.com. There is a saying, marriages are made in heaven, but in the world of E-commerce, they are made on marriage portals. On these websites one can search for a suitable match by region of residence, religion or caste. Once registered with these portals, they have e-mail facility and chat rooms, so that the couple gets to know more about each other before making the decision of their lives. Other services for registered persons are astrological services, information on customs and rituals, legal issues, health and beauty etc.

 In case of employment, two major portals like www.monsterindia.com and www.naukri.com are instrumental in providing job seekers with suitable employment facility. The service for job seekers is free and for employment they charge a nominal fee. Jobs are available online in fields, ranging from secretarial to software development and from real estate to education.

4 EMERGING TRENDS IN E-COMMERCE

In the ancient era business was done by from person to person but In modern era, the concept of E-Commerce took the place of the traditional way of business. In present condition E-Commerce get rapidly growth in the whole market. Some of emerging trends in E-commerce are as under :

 Immersive Commerce

Mostly, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) is used in gaming or learning applications. AR provides an immersive experience during shopping, which lets the customers choose the product from a virtual physical store (similar feel of shopping at a physical store but from home). It allows the customer to preview the product in different aspects such as color or style. They use the cameras of your smartphone to provide a view of the real world and add digital information like text or images on the top of the view.

Virtual reality projects the images or video of a product like you are viewing them in 3D. It allows the user to see in all possible angles and provides a better perspective of the product with a 360-degree product view. That is, you can move around and look in every direction as you were present physically there. Both AR and VR change the way the customers look into your store and provides them with great user experience. These technologies are slightly expensive to use now and, in some cases, they may be inappropriate.

 Voice Commerce

According to research reports, in 2020, almost 50% of internet searches will be done using voice search. Most of the customers use any one of the virtual assistants from Google, Amazon or Microsoft to conduct a voice search when using their smart devices. It is an alternative for using a keyboard or screen to purchase products online. It is not only finding the product that you want but also helps in ordering and buying the same product. Making a way to purchase the product easier, faster, and at any time made the voice search an essential feature in ecommerce. Features of the voice search are :

 Hands-free user interface for faster and easier shopping.

 Answer all the user queries instantly.

 Paves the way to buy products while doing other things as well.

 Making smart devices to understand natural language and process them are the challenges this technology is facing today.

 Social Commerce

Social commerce is buying the product directly from social media. That is, you can eliminate the links that direct to your website and make your customers complete the

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purchase on social media itself. For example, anyone can search, enquire, and place the order directly on social media like Facebook, etc. It combines both social media and ecommerce to offer these benefits:

 Increase customer trust and grow your user base.

 Smooth checkout process when compared to the traditional ecommerce.

 Users can easily recommend products to others.

 Chatbots

A chatbot is an artificial intelligence that simulates communication with a user in a natural language through websites, mobile apps, telephone or messaging applications. Chatbots for E-Commerce is designed to:

 Guide a customer during the purchase.

 Offer product recommendation as per the buyers’ interest.

 Provide 24/7 customer support.

 The major problem with the chatbot is, it only provides information to the customer with the pre-programmed data. It fails when a user’s requests or queries are out-of- the-box.

 Beacons

A beacon is a wireless transmitter that uses low-energy Bluetooth technology (BLE) to send signals to other nearby smart devices. It can deliver promotional messages through wireless communication. But the question is how to use the beacon for your ecommerce business.

Here are some ways :

 Sending welcome offers when a user is in a public place like traffic signals, shopping malls or in a cinema hall.

 Sharing links regarding advertisements and offers.

 Collecting data from various channels to bridge the gap between them and suggest relevant products.

 Beacons help to wake up the app if it’s not running.

 A major problem with beacon is, it is not secure and cost-efficient to leverage it for your business.

 E-Commerce Product Videos

In Present, mostly consumers have purchased an item by watching a product description video. A video gives a better understanding of the product and increases the customers’

trust. Some videos demonstrate how to use the product along with a detailed product catalog urging the users to make a purchase. Interactive video gives the user the ability to interact while watching the video through various activities like click, drag, hover or scroll.

This also provides a way for website owners to track the conversion and completion rates.

Interactive makes the viewers be part of your video which helps to analysis the user activities. They are time-consuming to create than images and requires specialized technology and more in-depth editing.

 Snapchat Collection Ads

Snapchat is a growing social media with more than 200 million users and people use at least 25 times every day. Snapchat collection Ads are full-screen ads on Snapchat in video format. They play with sound and 100% in-frame ads. You can upload product catalogs to Snapchat to create various ad formats that are more specific. The ads should target Snapchat users who use the site based on the website they visited. Snapchat Ads is a low- cost marketing strategy and it can be easily implemented by any ecommerce business.

 The Next-gen E-Commerce Platform

Apart from these, there are other ecommerce trends like Progressive Web Apps (PWA), omnichannel personalization, etc, that are already well-adopted by the online retail industry. But the trends and technologies discussed here change the way how people communicate, interact, search and buy for products, and make payments. They provide various opportunities for ecommerce store owners to interact with their customers in innovative ways to make enjoy shopping online. In 2020, ecommerce will be more

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automated with the help of next-gen ecommerce platform to enable wonderful retail experience for both sellers and buyers.

5 MAIN ISSUES OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA

In present busy schedule of life, people have a shortage of time, so they want to get products at home instead of going to the shops, so the trend of people is turning round towards e-commerce but it is really a thoughtful situation because there are so many issues like :

 Online Data Theft & Security

Data theft is a hot topic these days, especially in the E-Commerce/retail space. Data breaches happen on a daily basis, but some are bigger than others. Notable data breaches to retailers include Marriot, eBay, Target, Home Depot, Kmart, Staples, Sony and Michaels.

Selling products online is the new norm and must-have for retail. It’s a huge convenience for consumers and becoming their preferred way to shop. It’s an affordable way to an enter or scale in the retail space, relative to opening a whole bunch of physical stores. Online sellers though have a responsibility to their customers. They must ensure that their eCommerce transactions do not result in data theft or security breaches. Customers give you a lot of sensitive information to complete an E-Commerce transaction : Credit card numbers, Personal information like their address, Email addresses and a password, which they may share across many accounts.

 Choosing the Right eCommerce Platform

The first step in creating a secure site is using a platform that has the right resources and functionality to protect your data.

 Accurate Product Listing

E-Commerce is different from traditional retail. In Modern era the main issue of E- Commerce is the accurate product listing. It is compulsory for all the E-Commerce company that they make a policy for their product listing becasue any customer can’t touch the product they want to buy. They’ll look at pictures and videos that show the product in ideal lighting, Photoshop processing, and artistic touch. They’ll read descriptions that may say very little about the product. E-Commerce customers don’t get to see the exact item they’ll receive. Therefore, it’s important that the E-Commerce company make the effort to list your products accurately, completely, and honestly.

 Following Online Selling Laws

E-Commerce Companies need to make sure that the following law of online business. These are some of the online selling laws they need to think about them :

 Data compliance and privacy laws

 Tax regulations

 Online marketing laws like the CAN-SPAM act and laws about advertising disclosure

 International regulations

 Product-specific regulations

It’s important for E-Commerce companies to understand the above regulations.

 Selling Counterfeit Products

In this research paper I already cleared about accuracy of product listing. In present condition, there are so many E-Commerce companies doing their online business in the market.

Out of them some companies are selling counterfeit, and pirated Products. It is a very technical issue.

Web Accessibility

Web accessibility is not a new concept, but it’s often overlooked. It’s a set of standards that websites can adhere to make their sites useable for people with certain disabilities. For example, the visually impaired can use screen readers, which audibly dictate the contents for a web page. The Web is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of life:

education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, and more. It is essential that the Web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal opportunity

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to people with disabilities. An accessible Web can also help people with disabilities more actively participate in society.

6 ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE TO BUSINESSES IN INDIA

There is a rising awareness among the businesses in India about the opportunities offered by E-Commerce. Ease of Internet access is the critical factor that will result in rapid adoption of Net commerce. Safe and secure payment modes are fundamental along with the need to invent and popularize innovations such as Mobile Commerce. E-Commerce provides a new place for connect-ing with consumers and conducting transactions. Virtual stores operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Many virtual retailers represent a single company while others, such as Top Online Shopping (toponlineshopping.com), represent a association of companies. The main advantages of E-Commerce are as under :

 Global Trade

E-business is one of the major factors in the globalization of business. Other factors include decreases in trade barriers, globalization of capital markets. Indian e-business has grown at a compounded annual growth rate.

 Virtual Businesses

As a result of e-business, business firms now have the ability to become virtual businesses.

Virtual business uses electronic means to transact business as opposed to the traditional means of face to face transaction.

 Lower Search Costs

The Internet brings low search costs and high price lucidity. E-business has proved to be highly cost effective for business concerns as it cuts down the cost of marketing, processing, inventory management, customer care etc. It also reduces the load of infrastructure required for conducting business.

 Round The Clock

Customers can do transactions for the product or enquiry about any product/services pro- vided by a company any time, any where from any location.

 Greater Economic Efficiency

We have achieved greater economic efficiency (lower cost) and more rapid exchange (high speed, accelerated, or real-time interaction) with the help of electronic business. Key drivers in Indian e-commerce are:

 Increasing broadband Internet.

 Rising living standards and a growing, upwardly mobile middle class with high disposable incomes.

 Availability of much wider product range compared to what is available at brick and mortar retailers.

 Busy lifestyles, urban traffic congestion and lack of time for offline shopping.

 Lower prices compared to brick and mortar retail driven by disintermediation and reduced inventory and real estate costs.

 Increased usage of online classified sites, with more consumer buying and selling second-hand goods.

 Evolution of the online marketplace model with sites like eBay, Flipkart, Snapdeal, Infibeam, qnetindia.in and Tradus. The evolution of ebusiness has come a full circle with marketplace models taking center stage again.

7 VARIOUS CHALLENGES OF E-COMMERCE IN INDIA

We can understand E-Commerce like as a coin, which has two side. Although Web based E- Commerce has numerous advantages but it has also some challenges. These are as under :

 EXTERNAL CHALLENGES

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External forces impact how E-commerce companies plan their growth strategy and provide seamless customer experience onsite and post transaction.

 Product and Market Strategy : E-commerce companies have to address issues pertaining to rapidly evolving customer segments and product portfolios access information on market intelligence on growth, size and share manage multiple customer engagement platforms focus on expansion into new geographies, brands and products and simultaneously tackle a hypercompetitive pricing environment.

 Customer and Digital Experience : Companies have to provide a rich, fresh and simple customer experience not geared towards discovery, manage inconsistent brand experience across platforms; manage proliferation of technologies; and handle time to market pressure for new applications. In the recent past, social media has become more influential than paid marketing.

 Payments and Transactions : E-commerce companies may face issues around security and privacy breach and controlling fictitious transactions. Further, RBI restrictions for prepaid instruments or E-Wallets act as impediments. From a transactions perspective cross border tax and regulatory issues and backend service tax and withholding tax can have serious implications.

 Fulfillment : Companies will need to check if the physical infrastructure gets affected by the internet speed. Also the lack of an integrated end to end logistics platform and innovation focused fulfillment option could cause delivery issues.

Challenges around reverse logistics management and third party logistics interactions could also act as barriers to growth.

 INTERNAL CHALLENGES

Internal forces impact how E-commerce companies can organize to drive and sustain growth.

 Organization Scaling : E-commerce companies will have to make sure organization design keeps pace with the rapidly evolving business strategy, along with fluid governance, strong leadership and management development. From a growth perspective, indentifying acquisition op-portunities, fund raising and IPO readiness becomes necessary. From a technology perspective, it is important to transform IT as an innovation hub and address the lack of synergy between business, technology and operations functions of the enterprise.

 Tax and Regulatory Structuring : Companies will need to address issues around sub optimal warehouse tax planning imbalance between FDI norms vis-à-vis adequate entity controls, inefficient holding IPR or entity structure and international tax inefficiencies. Future challenges in-clude the new companies act, policy on related party transaction pricing and the uncertainty around GST roadmap.

 Risk Fraud and Cyber Security : From a risk perspective E-commerce companies could face issues around brand risk, insider threats and website uptime. Issues around employee vendor nexus, bribery and corruption make companies vulnerable to fines. Cyber security also raises some concerns around website exploitation by external entities.

 Compliance Framework : E-commerce companies have to comply with several laws, many of which are still evolving. Potential issues around cyber law compliance, inefficient anti cor-ruption framework, legal exposure in agreements or arrangements, indirect and direct tax compli-ance framework and rules and regulations could pose problems. Uncertainty around VAT implica-tions in different states due to peculiar business modes could cause issues.

8 CONCLUSION

Today E commerce has become an integral part of everyday life. Accessibility to E- commerce platform is not a privilege but rather a necessity for people, particularly peoples who are staying in urban areas. Due to fast adoption of internet enabled devices like Smartphone and Tablets, we have seen an unparalleled growth in E- commerce. The telecommunication technology has completely changed the way of our living, communication methods, shopping etc. It has a huge impact on how we communicate with friends and relatives how we travel, how we access the information and the way we buy or

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sell products and services. The growth of E-commerce volumes in India is attracting the attention of players around the globe. E-commerce creates new opportunities for business it also creates new opportunities for education and academics. It appears that there is tremendous potential for providing E-business education.

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