E-Tailing

WITH the economic slowdown many retailers who preferred having a physical presence are looking to go online at minimal costs and keep the cash registers ringing. Compared to a traditional brick and mortar storefront which has a commercial address and where customers can transact face-to-face,an e-commerce store is a relatively small, convenient and lowcost startup. The only costs involved in the e-commerce platform include the monthly hosting and ISP bills. With a website, an e-tailer has the capability to gauge the market condition and make alterations accordingly. Taking into account all its benefits, e-commerce can be considered ideal during a recession as it helps retailers to stay globally competitive.

Some of the currently most adopted e-business models are Eshops,Ecommerce,Eprocurement,Emalls,E-auctions,Virtual Communities,Collaboration platforms etc.

Advantages of E-tailing System.

1. Convenience:Online stores are usually available 24 hours a day, and many consumers have Internet access both at work and at home.Moreover, increasing fuel costs, large mall crowds and time constraints are motivating buyers to shop online.

2.Price and selection

One advantage of shopping online is being able to quickly seek out deals for items or services with many different vendors.Search engines, online price comparison services and discovery shopping engines can be used to look up sellers of a particular product or service. Some retailers also offer free shipping on sufficiently large orders.Searching an online catalog can be faster than browsing the aisles of a physical store.

Disadvantages:

1.Fraud and security,privacy concerns

As consumers are unable to inspect the product before purchase, they are at higher risk of fraud on the part of the merchant than in a physical store.Also there is risk in divulging out your credit card & personal information.

2. Lack of full cost disclosure

It is easy to compare the base price of an item online, it may not be easy to see the total cost up front as additional fees such as shipping are often not be visible until the final step in the checkout process which is especially evident with cross-border purchases.

Major oniline retailers.

Amazon.com , a Fortune 500 company which was started by Jeff Bezos in 1995 is located in Seattle, Washington, is the global leader in e-commerce. It started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified to various product lines such as VHS, DVD, music CDs and MP3s, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has websites in various parts of the world including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, and China. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.

eBay Inc. is an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide.The majority of the sales take place through a set-time auction format, but subsequent methods include a substantial segment of listings in the "Buy It Now" category.

Walmart is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It is the world's largest public corporation by revenue which was founded by Sam Walton.It has online presence too.

Future of E-tailing

Indian’s generally don’t buy online. They may buy a gift online, they compare prices online and mostly they gather information on their options through internet. Many Indian’s also to do a brief online research on the products they might like to buy, but generally they buy it from regular stores. Some leading Indian e-tailing websites like Naptol.com are offering online shopping along with price comparison. But the future of E-tailing in India is bright with many sites like Flipkart.com, Naptol.com, Infibeam.com, fabmall, shopping.rediff.com, indiatimes.com etc. providing good services and major retailers like VishalMegaMart entering the foray. Also FMCG’s like Amway is giving additional option to shop online. E-commerce retailers earn more than 10 billion in revenue on every portal they own, and this shows the shifting trend towards e-tailing.With the advent of new innovations like Web 3.0 and Kaboodle the etailing and retailing system will go in hand-in-hand.