Sunday 12 May 2013

Top 5 Concerns that are making Online Shopping not-so-favorite among Indian Consumers






Despite attractive discounts and offers like "Try before buy", common Indian consumers still hesitate to buy stuff online. Even, in many cases, one time online buyers also don't come back for more. 


  1. Lack of Customer Service support in terms of "Product" information: Even though all major market players have worked very strongly and invested heavily on their Customer Service Support system, there is usually the lack of "Product" information support on-call for the customers. "Customer will buy the information first and then the Product". 
  2. Increasing shopping limit of free Delivery: Started with minimum purchase order of INR 50, online retailers have now started to charge INR 50- 100 for orders less than INR 500, making customers lose on to what they get in terms of discounts. 
  3. Delivery Delays: Consumers have developed greater expectations in previous few years. They now expect Pizza like delivery or at least same-day-delivery of their products. Probably, on-line stores will now need to work more on their procurement, delivery channels and logistics. 
  4. The lot they offer, the more they confuse me: Shopping online is now a trend, not only with urban consumers but also attracting rural buyers. Online shopping websites are now not limited to 1,2 or even 10... selling similar products with almost same discounts and offers. Market is more discount driven than service driven. More often than not, resulting into cancelling the orders on payment page or after booking the product. 
  5. Unclear policies: The most annoying experience a buyer faces when the delivery of the product crosses it's mentioned time limit, even worse when there is not trace of the product for too long and suddenly the tracking says your order has been cancelled due to unavailability of stock... how many of us have faced that? There also seem to be no coordination between the sellers and their delivery service providers. Delivery person, not knowing replacement or money back policy walks away giving no useful information which generates mistrusts especially among first time buyers. 

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