E-TAILING – HARNESSING THE POWER OF DIGITAL MEDIA

Abstract

It is no secret that retailing has undergone more changes during the past two years than perhaps the preceding twenty years. Staying current with the dizzying array of technologies and trends has emerged as a daunting tasks for retailing organizations. Today it is the pressing need to be tech-savvy and marketing smart in order to get an edge over competitors. Retailers who fail to realize social media's or digital media’s or personalized communication’s potential for customer interaction and customer retention are being left behind. Present era is the era of technology. A digital world compresses, accelerates and scales how events take place in new ways. Ahead of the general elections, political parties in India attempted to woo voters by using online platform for the first time. This is all because of use of digital media. The idea of connecting with “always-on” consumers is due to the application of latest mode. Digital is shaping the way consumers buy, and its outcome is etailing. E-tailing is an integrator of technology, logistics, and infrastructure, and creates a relatively efficient marketplace for vendors and consumers. E-tailing is emerging as a viable third alternative by which organized retail can expand its share of the total retail pie. Etailing has come a long way but the growth story is not devoid of challenges common to the industry, both globally and locally. Consumers, for the longest time, have been accustomed to going to a store and shopping for their apparel and jewellery. Online shopping is a drastic shift for traditional shoppers as they can’t “touch and feel” the products. There are currently 35 million people buying online and this will increase to 100 million in the next two years, quoted by Gaurav Kapur, head of industry for retail and automotive, Google India at the Retailers Association of India’s Retail Leadership Summit 2015 in Mumbai. This paper aims to analyze the digitalization and its impact on retailing. At the same time it also discusses the growth drivers to electronic retailing in India. The present scenarios of e-tailing opportunities, its market, the viabilities and trends etc., have been discussed in this paper. This paper concludes with the likely impact of digital media including both the latest trends like electronic shopping and mobile marketing on an ongoing transformation of Indian retail industry. Changing lifestyles, time constraints, worsening traffic, easy availability of broadband, and growing aspirations of non-metro youth, coupled with cash-on-delivery option, are jostling factors for online shopping and bargain hunting in India. The sudden growth of e-tailing in India in the last couple of years has attracted large investments and new entrepreneurs into the industry.