Electronic commerce

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IntroductionHuman Computer Interaction

Electronic commerce is the merging business segment with the physical retailing of the products in the modern world of business. The growing needs of the consumers are being satisfied with the help of the online technology and E Commerce is certainly the most evolved form of developing the entrepreneurship and marketing through online portals. However, if seen from broad business perspective, E Commerce is still in the transitional phase of development. It is growing in the sense that regions like Asia are still experiencing the expansion of internet in the remote areas of its nations which is the primary requirement to do the marketing as well as to build the primary data base of customers. Thus, there are several challenges which are confronted by the E Commerce companies in the Asian region. The two nations selected to analyze the challenges faced by the E Commerce companies for the current research are India and China.

Objectives

In the context of analyzing the challenges of the E Commerce in India and China, the current study focuses on reviewing the objectives with which the consumer perception and their behavioral approach is developed towards the concept of e commerce, as presented by the companies. There are several challenges which seem to have dominated the scenario of e commerce; doing business in this segment is not an easy task to maintain because of the complex anticipations of the Indian users of E Commerce websites in particular. The bi-folded objectives are included in the process of E Commerce where the companies tend to develop their business sites in the growing economies of the world while the people of the nation prefer to set the environment of business as per their expectations. The objective of the current study is to see that trend or the pattern with which the E Commerce handling companies are approached in the recent years in India and China.

Scope

There are several dimensional tangents of reviewing the scopes of challenges faced by commerce companies in India and China in particular. As mentioned above, the growing needs and changes in the behavior of the modern consumers has originated this new form of business which provides the ease of transactions, easy delivery options and growth of market even in the remotest areas of the nations. In the wake of a fine technology, internet in itself serves as the root of E Commerce business. The scopes of the current research would include the analysis of the major perspectives involved in doing the business with Indian and Chinese clients along with looking at some of the major things involved in the process of developing E Commerce business in Asian regions like India and China in particular. The focus of this research would be generating valuable recommendations to the companies whose business is in the baby form in terms of gaining competency advantage in this new segment in India and China distinctively. There will be one more scope which can be enlisted as the reviewing the merging possibilities of the theoretical frameworks used by the organizations ding E Commerce in India and China. The growth of business will rely on such quality recommendations made after the analysis of the proper consumer behavior.

Literature Review

Reddy & Divekar (2014) perceive that their study, the research “A study of challenges faced by E-commerce companies in India and methods employed to overcome them” is to determine the challenges faced by e-commerce companies in India and measure employed by them to overcome these challenges. E-commerce is quickly becoming the most accepted means of doing business in this world. Day by day more and more consumers are choosing to buy various things online for daily groceries to very rare and expensive items. As more and more consumers move to online purchasing more and more service providers are emerging in this field. But, e-commerce from the very beginning has been a very difficult and loss making sector due to its nascent stage and lack of favorable environmental factors in order to do business. Their opinions are useful in the current research as they formulate the impacts in the perfect manner possible i.e. their approach merges the possibilities of doing online business with Indian consumers which has been perceived as the growing needs of the future clients especially residing in the urban regions of the nation. The important part of the study also comprises of the fact that the E Commerce has been assumed as a major fragment of the urban Indian culture while has yet to spread its roots in the rural surroundings or in the tier 2 and 3 cities of India. The culture of having portal based shopping has remained to the premises of metro cities and tier1 towns of India which shows that the challenges of business expansions, managing the work force and marinating a proper supply chain management in terms of making that expansion of delivery options in the rural areas if India could be some of the possible challenges for the companies preferring to have a solidified state of E Commerce based business in Indian context.

Srivastava, (2016), attempts rigorously to identify some of the major challenges which are foreseen by the organizations running their e portals in Indian context in particular. At first, the growth rate of E Commerce in Indian market shares the 5% of total retail sales as of now which is increasing with a decent pace of 10 to 15% per year—this speeding growth may vary as per the calculations and estimations made through market choices and areas selected for the study. It has to be understood, however, that the future of market in India belongs to the online shopping trend i.e. the growing awareness in people about the trend has been changing since the last few years and every year is marked with some considerable amount of growth which is made over the points like client’s retention policies and easy delivery options. Basically, he perceives that the personalization of the trend of marketing in online E Commerce is one of the prime factors which must be taken as a challenge by the organizations doing E Commerce with Indian consumers in particular. In other words, there is a wide variety and range of products which these companies make available on their portals. It simply confuses the first time visitor who prefers to have easy filtring methods to have a product selected. Thus, website navigations, filtering methods and personalized approach to operate the account are the growing needs and some of the major challenges which dominate the E Commerce business in Indian perspective. Known for their negotiations across globe, Indian consumers must have a level of satisfaction while buying a product so, offering a diversified provision and chances of giving discounts and negotiation possibilities are also challenges to do E Commerce business as well. Thus, by far, setting up business is one of the major challenges, if the portal based expectations and product based satisfactions are merged together in terms of doing business in Indian online markets.

Khurana (2013) analyzes the challenges confronted by the E Commerce companies in the light of common consumer behavior of Indian people. Despite that the low capita purchasing grade of Indian economical structure, the consumers in India have a complex attitude towards the buying of online products. An E Commerce running organization spends huge amounts in developing their supply chain network, establishment of the e commerce, online marketing and email based campaigning through social media networks i.e. it enforces the considerable amount of capital in developing a line of products, however, to their dismay, the major challenge faced by them in Indian context is the random return trend of Indian consumers. The increased rate of returned products is higher than any other nations here which are one of the growing concerns for the E Commerce companies. Ecommerce in India has many first time buyers. This means that they have not yet made up their mind about what to expect from ecommerce websites. As a result, buyers sometimes fall prey to hard sell. But by the time the product is delivered, they demonstrate remorse and return the goods. Though consumer remorse is a global problem, it is all the more prevalent in a country like India, where much of the growth comes from new buyers. Thus, the time and money invested by the company in the process of generating the order goes waste and end line loss belongs to the company merely because of the changed state of mind. Secondly, the status of internet is under experimental form in India especially in tier2 and trier3 cities where the connections breaks are frequent. The less accessibility to the networks makes it a complex thing to rely on the online transactions, the most reliable mode of payment to the organizations so; merging up with the telecommunication sector of the nation is another great issue which the E Commerce handlers confront in Indian context as well; unlike all other developed nations, the growth of the e commerce depends on the development of the telecommunication techniques, government policies and introduction of new gadgets that are digitally smart is one of the major things which these companies have to adhere with. Though the total number of mobile phone users in India is very high, a significant majority still use feature phones, not smart phones. So, for all practical purposes this consumer group is unable to make ecommerce purchases on the move. As per his observation, maintaining the logistics in Indian online market is another major challenge; the logistics challenge in India is not just about the lack of standardization in postal addresses. Given the large size of the country, there are thousands of towns that are not easily accessible. Metropolitan cities and other major urban centers have a fairly robust logistics infrastructure which has to be maintained by the local navigation network of the company so that the delivery of the product—if it is promised within the three or five working days—is done effectively. In the light of the analysis made by the researcher, the challenges are bi-folded for the companies doing online business in Indian context, they not only have to maintain their internal structure intact but also, they have to adhere with the consumer perceptions of the evolving online buying products. Also, the emerging issues are connected with the local telecommunication of the nation and its status hinders the smooth handling of business in the longer run.

Chen, Gan & Goh (2009) preview the challenges seen through the e commerce business in China and they find logistics handling one of the major issues in terms of maintaining a good business repo in China. The e commerce business in China comprises of its 90% of business to consumer, the B2C method which is growing at a rapid pace. The 2004 $75 million industry is now shaped and well set to move on to the point of $32 billion in 2009 and it is estimated that the growth rate will keep on dominating the online business trends in China. The growth of domestic business and reach to the complex geographical regions of the nation is yet to be resolved kind of situation to the e commerce handlers within the premises of the nation. As per the findings of the research, it can be argued that the express delivery system has improved within these remote regions of the nation, however, in terms of maintaining the logistics for online business, the merging of the local express suppliers and the companies running e commerce is still not done with effect, resulting in the gaps of handling the logistics effectively. The capital investment on setting up the warehouses in the various remote regions of China is another challenge to maintain the pace of the industry itself. It has to be done to meet out the expectations of the long lasting and credible customers who, in spite of their reach to the facilitations like internet and affordable economical structure, fail to avail the offers made by the e commerce companies because of the lack of resources which may make the delivery services smooth and convenient.

Li & Suomi (2017) perceive that E-commerce in China has grown at an astonishing rate in the past 10 years. E-commerce development in China has been influenced by the local environment. This article introduces the present condition of e-commerce development in China and analyses the obstacles in e-commerce development in China. It aims to find the influential factors which impede e- commerce development in China. In China government regulations, payment system and logistics system are the main factors which influence e-commerce development. The improvement on the above mentioned factors is critical in e- commerce if e-commerce is to live up to its potential in China.

Research Gaps

Based on the observations made by the previous studies, the major challenges are highlighted as the personalization of the e commerce segment and innovative techniques are required in the current context. However, there are certain gaps in the current study as it relies on the qualitative research methods mostly; it addresses the frameworks which are established on the previous notions and looks back to the same for the further analysis. However, there is a lack of connection in between the quantitative understanding of the problem in the broad business context. The study does not take into account the problems raised by the common feedbacks taken on the realistic grounds of the study i.e. the factual presentation of the data is missing from the end line of discussion. The study lacks the précised approach which is required to provide accuracy of analysis in the form of given feedbacks of the consumers to certain e commerce operators in the two nations. The issues are maintained throughout the course of discussion, however, the data based interpretation would make the approach better than it currently stands on the grounds of the theoretical frameworks established previously.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the Asian regions lie India and China are definitely one of the most promising and emerging places to expand the e commerce business. The nations are marked with the rapid growth and stable economical structures of the people. However, in terms of having proper approach to the future of the shopping (e commerce), they still tend to stick to the conventional ways. A very thin line of distinction has been drawn between the traditional business and the online segment of the same. It needs formal addresses and state of resolutions must be achieved by the e commerce handlers in Indian and Chinese context. The current study would recommend handling the consumer perception with effect about the expansion of business trends and possibilities lie in the fact that the organizations running e commerce portals should make their logistics handling better to reach to the remote areas of the nations at first. Secondly, the companies will have to gain trust of the buyers and will have also to make their online modes of selling products easy and consumer friendly in the best manner possible.

References

Reddy N Anubhav & Divekar Rajiv (2014), “A Study of Challenges Faced By E-commerce Companies in India and Methods Employed to Overcome Them” Science Direct, Retrieved From: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212567114002202

Srivasta, Prasoon, (2016), “10 Challenges Faced By Indian Ecommerce Businesses – And How To Overcome Them” INC Retrieved From: https://inc42.com/resources/10-challenges-indian-ecommerce-businesses-overcome/

Khurana Preet, (2013), “8 Challenges for E Commerce in India”, Pitney Bowes, Retrieved From: http://blogs.pb.com/ecommerce/2013/12/23/8-challenges-ecommerce-india/

Karen Chen, Chee Wee Gan, Apple (Yijun) Zhang, and Mui Fong Goh, (2014), “China’s E-Commerce Market: The Logistics Challenges” At Kearney, Retrieved From: https://www.atkearney.com/consumer-goods/article?/a/china-s-e-commerce-market-the-logistics-challenges

Li H & Suomi R (2017), “E-Commerce Development in China: Opportunities or Challenges?” Research Gate, Retrieved From: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/31597170_E-Commerce_Development_in_China_Opportunities_or_Challenges


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