Impact of E-commerce on Traditional Retail Business

The impact of e-commerce on traditional retail business has been substantial

and far-reaching. With the rise of the internet and technological advancements,
e-commerce has gained immense popularity as a convenient and accessible
way of buying and selling goods and services. This shift in consumer
behaviour has presented both advantages and challenges for traditional retail
businesses.
Rise of E-commerce
E-commerce has experienced exponential growth over the years. Factors, such
as the increasing prevalence of smartphones, improved internet connectivity,
and changing consumer preferences have contributed to its rise. Online
marketplaces and dedicated e-commerce websites have emerged as major
players in the global retail industry. Companies, like Amazon, Alibaba, and
eBay have transformed the way people shop, creating a highly competitive
environment for traditional retailers.
For example, A traditional retail clothing store that has been operating for
decades decides to embrace e-commerce to reach a wider audience. They
establish an online store where customers can browse their product catalogues,
make purchases, and have the items delivered to their doorstep.
Impact of E-commerce on Traditional Retail Business
1. Increasing Competition:
Traditional retail businesses face intense competition from various sources,
including online retailers, e-commerce platforms, and big-box stores. These
competitors often offer a wide range of products, competitive pricing, and
convenient shopping experiences, attracting customers away from traditional
brick-and-mortar stores.
For example, A local bookstore faces competition from online retailers like
Amazon, which offers a vast selection of books at competitive prices. Many
customers choose the convenience of online shopping and opt for digital books
or e-books instead of visiting the physical store.
2. Changing Consumer Behavior:
The shift in consumer behaviour towards online shopping and digital
experiences has posed a significant challenge for traditional retail businesses.
Today, consumers increasingly prefer the convenience of shopping from their
homes, comparing prices online, and having products delivered to their
doorstep.
For example, A traditional clothing retailer faces challenges as more
customers prefer to browse and purchase clothes through online platforms.
Consumers can easily compare prices, read customer reviews, and order
clothes without leaving their homes, reducing foot traffic to physical stores.
3. Comparing Product Options:
As compared to traditional business, e-commerce provides customers with a
wide range of alternatives while shopping. It gives the customers an
opportunity to check out the merchandise and simultaneously compare similar
products on different websites. By doing so, e-commerce also helps customers
in comparing prices which is not an easy process in traditional business.
Therefore, customers shift from traditional business towards e-commerce.
For example, it is easy to compare clothes and their prices (including
discounts) on different websites like Flipkart, Amazon, Myntra, etc., then to go
to a physical marketplace and search for clothes at different shops.
4. Changes in Supply Chain:
With the rise in e-commerce, there have been numerous changes in the supply
chain. It is because retailers have had to adapt to the increased demand for
efficient and fast shipping. This change in the supply chain has resulted in new
logistics and fulfilment challenges for traditional retailers.
5. Opportunities for Integration:
Besides the negative impacts, e-commerce has also given traditional
businesses some opportunities. It includes integration between the online and
offline channels. With e-commerce, traditional retailers have successfully
developed omnichannel strategies allowing their customers to shop online and
pick up products in-store or to order the product online, and then return them
(if required) at the physical store. Examples of businesses using omnichannel
strategy include Decathlon, H&M, etc.
In conclusion, the impact of e-commerce on traditional retail businesses has
been profound. Traditional retailers must adapt to the changing landscape,
embrace e-commerce, and provide a seamless online and offline shopping
experience to thrive in the evolving retail industry. By understanding the
challenges and advantages of e-commerce, traditional retailers can position
themselves for success in a highly competitive market.

Abstract In the modern business world, E-commerce is emerging as the biggest

player and contributor towards the growth and development of global economy.
India is also witnessing this revolution of ecommerce business in its domestic
market. In the context of India, e-commerce players on one hand, created new
and ample opportunities of employment, improved the quality of products as
well as services and providing maximum satisfaction to the Indian consumer
through discounts, cash-backs and other attractive offers. But on the other hand,
it is giving intense competition and creating great obstacles in the ways of
traditional business institutions and unorganized sectors of India. So, this
research paper deals with the study of positive and negative impact of e-
commerce on traditional businesses as well as on the Indian economy as a
whole. Introduction When the business activities i.e. selling of goods and
services are carried out through electronic medium, then it is termed as e-
commerce business. With the advent of globalisation in the Indian economy and
evolution of new technologies along with development of digital infrastructure,
rapid growth has been witnessed in the e-commerce sector of Indian economy.
Along with global e-commerce companies like Amazon, ebay, etc., e-commerce
companies of India like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola, Book my show, Make my trip,
etc. captured the Indian market with lips and bounce. But the Indian economy is
more traditional, agriculture driven and labour intensive. The major portion of
Indian business sector is unorganized and with minimum use of technologies in
the business activities. In recent times, it has been observed that e-commerce
business is adversely affecting the traditional unorganized business sector of
India.

Aims and Objectives

 To study the positive and negative effects of e-commerce

 To study how e-commerce has shaken the traditional business in India

 To study in detail the changes witnessed by retailers and consumers with the
advent of e-commerce

 To suggest remedies to the traditional businesses for overcoming the menace

of e-commerce Effects of E-commerce The impact of e-commerce on different
retailers and consumers is both in positive as well as negative forms. Hence, we
have to study the impact of business on retailers as well as consumers from both
aspects.

A. Positive Effects

1. Convenience & easiness For many people in the world, e-Commerce

becomes one of the preferred ways of shopping as they enjoy their online
because of its easiness and convenience. They are allowed to buy products or
services from their home at any time of day or night.

2. Reduces energy consumption One positive effect of the emergence of e-

commerce is that it may save energy. Consumers who shop online rather than
drive to stores use less fuel and their cars emit less pollution. Also, because e-
commerce reduces the need for warehouse space to house goods near retail
stores, these warehouses use less energy.

3. Cost Reduction E-commerce can reduce costs for consumers when

companies cut down on middlemen involved in distributing goods, warehouse
space to store the goods and personnel expenses. E-commerce also enables
companies to manage their inventory better. To be competitive, businesses are
likely to pass down at least some of these savings to consumers.

4. Decreasing cost of inventory Management With e-commerce business, the

suppliers can decrease the cost of managing their inventory of goods that they
can automate the inventory management using web-based management system.
Indirectly, they can save their operational costs.

B. Negative Effects

1. Privacy It is easy to collect a lot of personal information from a consumer

using an e-commerce website, sometimes too easy. Since all online transactions
are recorded, it's relatively easy to create an online profile of the buyer, and use
that to send targeted advertisements. However, many will agree that this is an
intrusion on a consumer's right to privacy, and it's something that is heavily
regulated on many countries. This means small businesses aiming to establish
an online presence using e-commerce need to be aware of the legislation that
applies, as mistakes can be costly both in terms of fines and customer trust.

2. Security Another negative effect of e-commerce is its effect on consumers'

security. Online transactions are inherently more insecure than those conducted
in person because there's no way to guarantee that the person making the
payment is the actual owner of the credit card used. At the same time, when the
customer inputs the payment information they risk a third party intercepting it if
the website doesn't comply with the adequate security measures, giving rise to
credit card fraud and identity theft. Merchants need to be aware of the risks
electronic transactions carry, and work towards securing the s ystems to the
highest standards.

3. Price Wars Merchants used to selling at their shop may often find selling
online an extremely competitive marketplace. Their products are displayed
alongside competitive offers, often from different countries or bigger retailers
with access to better wholesale prices. This can affect the retailer negatively, as
they cannot sell as much as they expected to actually make a profit or the
consumer's when online stores cut corners in order to become more competitive
or products are purchased from illegitimate retailers because they had the best
price.

4. Returns & Complaints Selling online means usually a higher return rate on
products than when the purchase was conducted in person. This is due partly to
the fact that customers haven't seen the goods in person prior to purchase, but
also to the fact that many online shoppers buy things on impulse, and by the
time they receive them at their home they have changed their mind and make
use of favourable return policies. While a big retailer would have no problem
accommodating this, it can be highly disruptive for a small business with
limited stock management. E-Commerce – Shaking the very Foundations of
Traditional Business The threat from e-commerce applies to all – from tiny
start-ups to large corporations. Just because a company is an industry leader
today, there’s no guarantee that it would retain its competitive edge tomorrow.
The threat from e-commerce is high, especially for old-school businesses, that
aren’t ready to embrace the changing commercial landscape.

Here are some significant ways in which traditional business practices have
been put on the backburner by ecommerce strategies:

1. Low Cost of Initial Business Setup Just a few decades back, to set up a
business, you required massive capital costs. However, ecommerce changed all
this. Today, it’s possible to set up a company out of one’s garage with minimal
investments. You know the story of Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart? It was
started in a 2 BHK apartment and Walmart recently bought it for $16 billion.

2. Vertical Integration is no longer Relevant Vertical integration was considered

to be the backbone of traditional businesses in India from several decades.
Business houses used to undertake all business activities from market research,
advertisement, legal advice, etc. by having their own team of experts. It
enhanced their overhead costs and reduces their efficiency and profitability. The
new e-commerce companies outsourced maximum work like web designing,
maintenance of websites, advertisement on social media, distribution through
courier services or drop shipping, etc. to external companies at cheaper rates, e-
commerce companies saved lot of costs and kept on improving their
profitability.

3. Law of Returns to Scale proven incorrect In economics, a classic theory is the

Decreasing Returns to Scale. According to this law, even when an increase in
all inputs (inclusive of capital and labour) occurs, the output is not proportional.
It states that all businesses cannot grow profitably forever. However, this classic
economic principle doesn’t apply to the world of e-commerce. E-Businesses
have proved that they can sustain incredible growth, while continuing to offer
excellent returns. One of the primary reasons for this is that ecommerce doesn’t
need high investments unlike traditional businesses.

4. Vast Outreach Just a few years ago, it was next to impossible for businesses
to reach out to other customer markets. Ecommerce has now made it a cakewalk
to sell your products and services, to people located anywhere on the planet.
Yes, you can now sell your wares not just to your local market but to people in
any corner of the world.

5. Removal of Middlemen Today, businesses can directly sell to customers

without the need for any middlemen. Say, you’re a small business owner selling
local fabric. Earlier, you had to depend on vendors and brokers to distribute
your fabrics to geographical locations beyond your immediate vicinity.
Ecommerce has put an end to all these middlemen. Now, all you have to do is
approach aWoocommerce development company and design an online store for
your business.

6. 24 x 7 service to customers In the world of ecommerce there is no downtime.

Businesses are open 24 x 7, 365 days of the year. And, sales can happen at any
time of the day. Traditionally, businesses had to close shop at the end of the
day. This means shoppers were restricted and had to complete their purchases
within a particular time.Today, with the emergence of ecommerce platforms,
shoppers can shop at any time convenient for them. Be it in the middle of the
night or while lounging on their couches over the weekend.

7. Ecommerce has changed the Way Businesses Advertise Ecommerce has

radically changed the way people purchase. With changes in the purchase
tactics, it’s only right that advertising techniques also vary accordingly. Today,
even consumers who shop at a brick and mortar store, look up products online,
read reviews and compare prices before they make the decision to buy.So,
businesses today no longer can depend on traditional marketing techniques
alone. They must consider digital marketing to meet the demands of the tech-
savvy consumers of today.
 Recommendations & Remedies The traditional business entrepreneurs can
adopt following remedies to compete with e-commerce companies and sustain
for longer period in the market:

1. Bulk Purchase Different small and medium entrepreneurs can come together
and purchase goods in bulk. This bulk purchase will allow them to save at least
10% in their purchasing cost as they will receive discount due to purchase in
such large quantity. They can pass on this benefit to their consumers and can
overcome competition with e-commerce companies to certain extent.

2. Improvement in services Traditional business entrepreneurs need to change

their attitude and should provide some extra and free of costs services like free
home delivery, credit facilities, speedy distribution of goods, attractive offers,
etc. to enhance time and place utilities of the consumers.

3. Long term relationship with consumers Traditional entrepreneurs should

focus on long term objectives rather than remaining statics. They should keep
themselves in touch with consumers even after the completion of sale.

4. Excessive use of social media Traditional business entrepreneurs should now

start using social media extensively for advertising their products. It is not just a
cheaper but a very speedy mode of advertisement which can play a vital role in
increasing their total sales volume. Conclusion No doubt, e-commerce emerged
as a revolution and attracting consumers through various means and creating a
cut throat competition for traditional businesses in India. But with innovation,
consumer friendly policies, better services, unique selling techniques, etc.
Traditional retailers still not only survive but can grow and can earn satisfactory
profits on their sale.

The rise of eCommerce has been one of the biggest disruptions in the retail
industry in recent years. With the convenience of online shopping and the ever-
increasing range of products available, traditional retail models have been
challenged like never before. Retailers that have been slow to adapt to the
changing landscape have struggled, with many even going out of business.

In this article, we will explore how eCommerce has disrupted traditional retail
models and discuss how retailers can adapt and compete in an increasingly
eCommerce-driven world.
The Rise of eCommerce
Online shopping has revolutionized the way people shop, with consumers now
able to browse and purchase products from anywhere, at any time. And
with eCommerce logistic options expanding, customers can often receive their
products the same day they order them. eCommerce has brought a level of
convenience and accessibility that traditional retail models simply cannot
match.
Online shopping has also allowed consumers to compare prices and products
easily, leading to increased competition and pressure on retailers to offer better
value for money.

How eCommerce Impacts Traditional Retail Models

The growth of eCommerce has had a significant impact on traditional retail
models. Brick-and-mortar stores are struggling to compete with the convenience
and accessibility of online shopping. Retailers have had to adapt their business
models to incorporate eCommerce, whether by building their own online
stores or partnering with established eCommerce platforms such as Shopify or
Amazon.
Some retailers have also invested in experiential retail, creating a unique
shopping experience that cannot be replicated online. This involves providing
customers with an in-store experience that cannot be found online, such as
interactive displays, personalized recommendations, and exclusive events. By
focusing on the customer experience, retailers can create a loyal customer base
that values the in-person shopping experience.

Adapting to an eCommerce-Driven World

To adapt to an increasingly eCommerce-driven world, retailers must focus
on creating a seamless omnichannel experience for customers. This involves
integrating their online and offline operations to provide a consistent shopping
experience, regardless of how customers choose to shop. Here are some
strategies that retailers can use to adapt:
1. Invest in eCommerce
Retailers must invest in their online presence and eCommerce operations to
remain competitive. This includes building a user-friendly online store,
optimizing the customer journey, and leveraging digital marketing to reach new
customers.
2. Offer In-Store Pickup and Returns
Retailers can leverage their physical stores by offering in-store pickup and
returns for online orders. This provides customers with a convenient way to
 shop online and pick up their orders at a nearby store, reducing delivery times
and shipping costs.

3. Create Unique In-Store Experiences

Retailers can differentiate themselves from online competitors by creating a
unique in-store experience that cannot be replicated online. This includes
offering exclusive products, hosting events, and providing personalized
recommendations for in-store items.

4. Leverage Data Analytics

By tapping into data analytics, retailers can gain insights into customer behavior
and preferences. This data can be used to create targeted marketing campaigns
and improve the customer experience across all channels.
5. Partner with eCommerce Platforms
Retailers can partner with established eCommerce platforms such as Amazon or
Shopify to expand their online reach and benefit from their existing customer
base. For example, by joining Amazon Marketplace, retailers can tap into a
large, engaged audience to sell their goods online.
How to Utilize Email Marketing to Remain Competitive
Email marketing can be a powerful tool for retailers looking to adapt and
compete in an increasingly eCommerce-driven world. Here are some ways in
which email marketing can help retailers:
 Building and Nurturing Customer Relationships: Email marketing allows
retailers to communicate directly with their customers, building and nurturing
relationships with them. By sending regular emails that are relevant,
personalized, and engaging, retailers can stay top of mind and build brand
loyalty.
 Promoting eCommerce Channels: Email marketing can be used to promote
eCommerce channels such as online stores, mobile apps, and social media
platforms. Retailers can use email to showcase new products, promotions, and
discounts, encouraging customers to visit their online channels and make
purchases.
 Offering Personalization and Customization: Email marketing allows retailers
to offer personalized and customized content based on customer preferences and
behaviors. By using data analytics and segmentation, retailers can send targeted
emails that are more relevant to customers, improving engagement and driving
sales.
 Creating a Sense of Urgency: Email marketing can be used to create a sense of
urgency and encourage customers to take action. By offering limited-time
promotions, exclusive discounts, and special offers, retailers can incentivize
 customers to make purchases and create a sense of urgency that encourages
them to act quickly.
 Providing Customer Service and Support: Email marketing can be used to
provide customer service and support, answering questions and addressing
concerns. By including contact information and links to customer
service resources, retailers can make it easy for customers to get the help they
need.
Email marketing can be a powerful tool for retailers looking to adapt and
compete in an increasingly eCommerce-driven world. By building and nurturing
customer relationships, promoting eCommerce channels, offering
personalization and customization, creating a sense of urgency, and providing
customer service and support, retailers can use email marketing to drive sales,
improve customer loyalty, and succeed in the new retail landscape.

Ecommerce has disrupted traditional retail models and created new challenges
for retailers. To compete in an increasingly eCommerce-driven world, retailers
must adapt their business models to incorporate eCommerce and create a
seamless omnichannel experience for customers. By investing in their online
presence, leveraging physical stores, creating unique in-store experiences,
leveraging data analytics, and partnering with eCommerce platforms, retailers
can remain competitive and succeed in the new retail landscape.

ONLINE SHOPPING:

Online shopping founder of Michael Aldrich (22 August 1941-19 May 2014)
Was an English inventor, innovator and entrepreneur. In 1979 he invented
online shopping to Enable online transaction processing between consumer and
business, or between one business and another ,a technique known later as E-
commerce . In 1980 he invented the Teleputer, a multi-purpose home
infotainment centre that was a fusion of PC,TV and Telecom networking
technologies . In 1981 he develop the concept of interactive broadband local
loop cable TV for mass market consumer telecommunication. Online shopping
is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumer to directly Buy goods
or services from seller over the internet using a web browser or a mobile app.
Consumer find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer
directly Or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search
engine, which display the same product’s availability and pricing at different e-
retailers. As of 2020, customer can shop online using a range of different
computers and devices, including desktop computer, laptops, tablet computers
and smartphones. An online shop evokes the physical analogy of buying
product or services at a regular “bricks-and-mortar” retailer or shopping center;
the process is called business -to-consumer (B2C) online shopping. When an
online store is set up to enable business to buy from another businesses, the
process is called business to business (B2B) online shopping. A typical online
store enables the customer to browse the firm’s range ofproduct and services,
view photo or image of the product, along with information about the product
specification, features and prices. Online Stores (either e-commerce or e-
commerce in e-commerce) is a type of e-commerce that allows customer to
purchase and manage products through virtual stores directly through the
network. Some of the most important online stores in India today are Amazon,
Flip kart, Snap deal, Home shop 18, Myntra etc. OFFLINE SHOPPING: Offline
shopping is the traditional way of shopping being present at the counter or shop
or store. While online shopping is buying anything though the internet from
your house. But the Indian economy is more traditional, agriculture driven and
labour intensive. The major portion of Indian business sector is unorganized and
with minimum use of technologies in the business activities. In recent times, it
has been observed that e-commerce business is adversely affecting the
traditional unorganized business sector of India. Retail is the process of
delivering goods and services to customers through other sales channels. Retail
stores may be small. However, in most cases, this works the same as “closing a
deal”. Retail business is as old as human development and the most important
type of business. Retail is the sale of goods and services to customer through
various sales channels. Retail stores may be large or small, but most of them
operate in the same way as buy-for-sale. Types of retail stores, such as
departmental stores, grocery stores, shopping centre, etc. Effects of E-
commerce:

The impact of E-commerce on different retailer and consumer is both in positive

as well as negative forms. Hence, we have ton study the impact of business on
retailer as well as consumers from both aspects.

Positive Effects:

1. convenience & easiness For many people in the world, E-commerce become
one of the preferred ways of shopping as they enjoy their online because of its
easiness and convenience. They are allowed to buy product or service from their
home at any time of day or night.
2. Reduces energy consumption one positive effect of the emergence of E-
commerce is that it may save energy. Consumer who shop online rather than
drive to store use less fuel and their cars emit less pollution. Also, become E-
commerce reduce the need for warehouse space to house goods near retail store,
these warehouse use less energy.

3. Cost Reduction E-commerce can reduce costs for consumers when

companies cut down on middlemen involved in distributing goods, warehouse
space to store the goods and personnel expenses. E-commerce also enables
companies to manage their inventory better. To be competitive, businesses are
likely to pass down at least some of these savings to consumers.

4. Decreasing cost of inventory Management With e-commerce business, the

suppliers can decrease the cost of managing their inventory of goods that they
can automate the inventory management using web-based management system.
Indirectly, they can save their operational costs.

Negative Effects:

1. Privacy It is easy to collect a lot of personal information from a consumer

using an e-commerce website, sometimes too easy. Since all online transactions
are recorded, it's relatively easy to create an online profile of the buyer, and use
that to send targeted advertisements. However, many will agree that this is an
intrusion on a consumer's right to privacy, and it's something that is heavily
regulated on many countries. This means small businesses aiming to establish
an online presence using e-commerce need to be aware of the legislation that
applies, as mistakes can be costly both in terms of fines and customer trust.

2. Security Another negative effect of e-commerce is its effect on consumers'

security. Online transactions are inherently more insecure than those conducted
in person because there's no way to guarantee that the person making the
payment is the actual owner of the credit card used. At the same time, when the
customer inputs the payment information they risk a third party intercepting it if
the website doesn't comply with the adequate security measures, giving rise to
credit card fraud and identity theft. Merchants need to be aware of the risks
electronic transactions carry, and work towards securing the systems to the
highest standards.

3. Price Wars Merchants used to selling at their shop may often find selling
online an extremely competitive marketplace. Their products are displayed
alongside competitive offers, often from different countries or bigger retailers
with access to better wholesale prices. This can affect the retailer negatively, as
they cannot sell as much as they expected to actually make a profit or the
consumer's when online stores cut corners in order to become more competitive
or products are purchased from illegitimate retailers because they had the best
price.

4. Returns & Complaints Selling online means usually a higher return rate on
products than when the purchase was conducted in person. This is due partly to
the fact that customers haven't seen the goods in person prior to purchase, but
also to the fact that many online shoppers buy things on impulse, and by the
time they receive them at their home they have changed their mind and make
use of favourable return policies. While a big retailer would have no problem
accommodating this, it can be highly disruptive for a small business with
limited stock management.

E-Commerce – Shaking the very Foundations of Traditional Business:

The threat from e-commerce applies to all – from tiny start-ups to large
corporations. Just because a company is an industry leader today, there’s no
guarantee that it would retain its competitive edge tomorrow. The threat from e-
commerce is high, especially for old-school businesses, that aren’t ready to
embrace the changing commercial landscape. Here are some significant ways in
which traditional business practices have been put on the backburner by
ecommerce strategies:

1. Low Cost of Initial Business Setup Just a few decades back, to set up a
business, you required massive capital costs. However, ecommerce changed all
this. Today, it’s possible to set up a company out of one’s garage with minimal
investments. You know the story of Indian e-commerce giant Flipkart? It was
started in a 2 BHK apartment and Walmart recently bought it for $16 billion.

2. Vertical Integration is no longer Relevant Vertical integration was considered

to be the backbone of traditional businesses in India from several decades.
Business houses used to undertake all business activities from market research,
advertisement, legal advice, etc. by having their own team of experts. It
enhanced their overhead costs and reduces their efficiency and profitability. The
new e-commerce companies outsourced maximum work like web designing,
maintenance of websites, advertisement on social media, distribution through
courier services or drop shipping, etc. to external companies at cheaper rates, e-
commerce companies saved lot of costs and kept on improving their
profitability.

3. Law of Returns to Scale proven incorrect In economics, a classic theory is the

Decreasing Returns to Scale. According to this law, even when an increase in
all inputs (inclusive of capital and labour) occurs, the output is not proportional.
It states that all businesses cannot grow profitably forever. However, this classic
economic principle doesn’t apply to the world of e-commerce. E-Businesses
have proved that they can sustain incredible growth, while continuing to offer
excellent returns. One of the primary reasons for this is that ecommerce doesn’t
need high investments unlike traditional businesses

4. Vast Outreach Just a few years ago, it was next to impossible for businesses
to reach out to other customer markets. Ecommerce has now made it a cakewalk
to sell your products and services, to people located anywhere on the planet.
Yes, you can now sell your wares not just to your local market but to people in
any corner of the world.

5. Removal of Middlemen Today, businesses can directly sell to customers

without the need for any middlemen. Say, you’re a small business owner selling
local fabric. Earlier, you had to depend on vendors and brokers to distribute
your fabrics to geographical locations beyond your immediate vicinity.
Ecommerce has put an end to all these middlemen. Now, all you have to do is
approach a E-commerce development company and design an online store for
your business.

6. 24 x 7 service to customers In the world of ecommerce there is no downtime.

Businesses are open 24 x 7, 365 days of the year. And, sales can happen at any
time of the day. Traditionally, businesses had to close shop at the end of the
day. This means shoppers were restricted and had to complete their purchases
within a particular time. Today, with the emergence of ecommerce platforms,
shoppers can shop at any time convenient for them. Be it in the middle of the
night or while lounging on their couches over the weekend.

7. Ecommerce has changed the Way Businesses Advertise Ecommerce has

radically changed the way people purchase. With changes in the purchase
tactics, it’s only right that advertising techniques also vary accordingly. Today,
even consumers who shop at a brick and mortar store, look up products online,
read reviews and compare prices before they make the decision to buy. So,
businesses today no longer can depend on traditional marketing techniques
alone. They must consider digital marketing to meet the demands of the tech-
savvy consumers of today.

Recommendations & Remedies:

The traditional business entrepreneurs can adopt following remedies to compete

with e-commerce companies and sustain for longer period in the market:

1. Bulk Purchase Different small and medium entrepreneurs can come together
and purchase goods in bulk. This bulk purchase will allow them to save at least
10% in their purchasing cost as they will receive discount due to purchase in
such large quantity. They can pass on this benefit to their consumers and can
overcome competition with e-commerce companies to certain extent.

2. Improvement in services Traditional business entrepreneurs need to change

their attitude and should provide some extra and free of costs services like free
home delivery, credit facilities, speedy distribution of goods, attractive offers,
etc. to enhance time and place utilities of the consumers.

3. Long term relationship with consumers Traditional entrepreneurs should

focus on long term objectives rather than remaining statics. They should keep
themselves in touch with consumers even after the completion of sale.

4. Excessive use of social media Traditional business entrepreneurs should now

start using social media extensively for advertising their products. It is not just a
cheaper but a very speedy mode of advertisement which can play a vital role in
increasing their total sales volume.

Comparison of online and offline shopping in light of five stage consumer

decision making model: Even though online and brick and mortar shopping
channels are two entirely different mode of shopping, the five stage consumer
decision making model is equally applicable for both the mode of purchase.

Let us discuss each of the five stage consumer decision making model below.
1. Need recognition Irrespective of the mode of the purchase, most decision
making starts with some sort of problem. The consumer feels a difference
between the present stage he/she is in and the ideal stage he/she wants to be in.
That missing thing which can satisfy the customer’s dissatisfaction, is the need
of the customer. Marketers need to identify this stage and offer products and
services as per the requirement. For example, if a customer needs to buy a new
set of dress to attend an upcoming marriage ceremony, then this is the need of
the customer.

2. Information search Most of us are not experts on everything around us. In this
stage we evaluate the products and services which can satisfy our needs. Apart
from our friends, family members and neighbours, nowadays we can look for
information on the websites as well. The major difference between online and
offline shopping regarding this particular stage is the search cost involved in it.
Whereas in case of offline shopping, it’s time consuming and physically
demanding, in case of online shopping, the search cost is extremely low and it’s
a matter of pressing some keys. This is the stage where risk management
commences. Consumers evaluate the pros vs cons of purchasing a product.
Since customers remember good experiences over bad ones more, it’s advisable
to spend considerable amount of time on this stage as customers don’t want to
regret later about the decision they made regarding purchase of a certain product
or service.

3. Evaluation of alternatives This is the stage where products and services are
compared with each other to choose the best ones available. Now this decision
is absolutely subjective as consumer choice varies from person to person. One
advantage online shopping companies have over their brick and mortar
counterparts is the variety of products available online. Due to the higher
varieties, customers have more options to choose from. Apart from that, the
customer review option available online helps customers to go through the
reviews and choose for themselves from the alternatives available. But one
advantage of offline shops in this aspect is the tangibility factor. Customers can
touch and feel the product. They can also get a first hand demo and try it on
themselves. They can also interact with the salespeople of the store. That
definitely helps them to make informed choices.

4. Purchase This is the stage where products and services are purchased after
deliberations. In case of offline shopping, products and services can be used
immediately, whereas in case of online shopping, customers have to wait for the
courier company to deliver the product. In case of services like software, it can
be downloaded directly from the websites and can be used. At this stage a
customer has either assessed all the facts and come to a logical conclusion,
made a decision based on emotional connections/experiences or succumbed to
advertising/marketing campaigns, or most likely a combination of all of these
has occurred.
 5. Post purchase evaluation The review stage is a key stage for the company
and for the customer likewise. Did the product deliver on the promises of the
marketing/advertising campaigns? Did the product match or exceed
expectations? In case the customer is not satisfied with the product and want a
replacement for it, he/she needs to act differently online and offline. In case of a
brick and mortar shop, the replacement can be obtained by visiting the shop
during the scheduled working hour. Whereas in case of an online shop, it
requires calling up the customer care to lodge a complaint, waiting for the
courier company to pick up the product and wait for the replacement to arrive.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Comparison of online and offline purchase based on certain parameters:

1. Convenience: Now, that’s one of the benefits of purchasing through online

medium. Unlike in case of offline purchase, in case of online shopping,
consumers don’t need to travel all the way to the brick and mortar shop, jostle
with other consumers during festive seasons rush and face difficulty finding
proper parking space for their vehicles. Online shops are open and products are
delivered to the residences or offices of the customers according to their choice.
So a consumer can just wake up in the middle of the night and place an order
for a smart phone or some apparels. This is one of the major reasons for the
popularity of online shopping.

2. Variety: An online shop is a customer’s delight. No offline shop can offer as

much variety in different product categories as an online shop can. Since online
shops do not have to bother about space crunch, they can make available large
varieties of product at the same place. This large variety gives consumers vast
choice which was not available before the advent of this medium.

3. Consumer review: This is one of the benefits of the online shopping which
helps the prospective customers to learn about the performance of products
from somebody like them even before they can lay their hands on the products.
Once a product is purchased by a customer through an online store, the
customer is requested by the shopping company to upload their experiences
with the product on the portal so that customers other customers can read that
and decide for themselves if they want to purchase it or not. That helps
customers to choose the best products for themselves.
4. Comparison shopping: As customers, we like to visit few shops before
purchasing a product. In case of offline shopping, that means physically
traveling to each and every shop to check out the products. That’s both time
consuming and physically demanding. But in case of online shopping, we can
effortlessly pull up number of online shopping sites on our devices and compare
the products on them. Based on the comparison and best deal available, we can
decide to purchase from a particular site.

5. Discounts: This is one of the major reasons for consumers specially

youngsters purchasing online. Since online sellers don’t need to go for costly
decoration of their shops, employ large number of salespeople and due to
disintermediation, they can offer products and services at a considerable amount
of discounts compared to their brick and mortar counterparts.

6. Availability of unique products: Nowadays it has become almost a fashion

for manufacturers of electronic devices and other product categories to launch
their brand new products exclusively on a particular shopping portal. These
products are not at all made available in any offline shops and only the specific
online portal gets the exclusive right to sell the product. In that case, customers
are left with no options but to purchase these products on that portal.

7. Tangibility and trialability: That’s one of the draw backs of online shopping.
In case of brick and mortar stores, customers can touch the products, feel the
products, can get a first hand demo and in case of apparels try it out on
themselves before purchasing them. Whereas, online portals offer customers
only the pictures and specifications of products which might not be sufficient in
some cases to undertake informed buying. Even though nowadays some of the
E-retail are offering free trials upon delivery where a customer if not satisfied
with the product or service, can return it immediately. Despite of that, this is
one area which will always hand an advantage to the offline stores against their
online counterparts.

8. Shopping experience: It’s said, shopping is not only about just going through
the motion and making the purchase. The shopping process itself, where we sift
through products and feel the colours, textures and feel them can be extremely
enjoyable. Apart from that, shopping in India is known to be a family outing on
weekends or holidays where the entire family goes out together, purchase
products, catch some movies, visits a restaurant to take their meals. It becomes
virtually a get together for families on weekends or holidays which otherwise is
not possible because of hectic work schedules of the family members. Online
shopping can’t offer similar experience. You might be able to purchase products
more easily online, but the experience of spending valuable times with your
family members is something which can’t be replicated by them.

9. Delivery of products: Unlike in case of brick and mortar shops where upon
purchase, customers can immediately use the products, in case of online
shopping, there is considerable amount of lag time between placing the order
and delivery of products which sometimes can extend up to weeks. As a result,
products which are of immediate use, can’t be purchased online. To tide over
this problem, online portals have started offering same day delivery or next day
delivery of products as premium services in exchange of certain extra payments.
10. Return of products: That’s something which always pulls down online
shopping companies. Whereas in case of offline shops customers can visit the
respective shop to exchange their products if not satisfied, in case of online
shopping it entails calling up customer care, waiting for the courier for reverse
logistics, getting the money back or getting the products exchanged. Sometimes
the entire process might take an entire month. Even though most of the online
shopping sites offer money back guarantees or product exchange facilities, the
experience could be harrowing. CONCLUSION: The population of India is
known for its high growth potential. Retail growth is largely dependent on
consumer spending. The use of technology for fixed and online services is
critical to expanding market share. All retail sectors should consider their
challenges for market growth. Fixed- line retailers must follow the strategy
outlined in the survey to register various competitors. Whether online or offline
India needs to grow its retail business and contribute to GDP in order to build
trust, trust and satisfaction for its diverse customers. This conceptual review
analyses online purchases or conversions, and analyses changes in customer
behaviour with online purchases. It also describes specific strategies that must
be followed to increase sales in offline stores. Strategy can help retailers
increase sales over the next few years. As a result, online retailers and offline
retailers may conclude that they should focus on build stable relationships
between manufacturers and customers to improve your business and accelerate
economic growth. REFERENCE:  Sridhar S (2012),” Srinivasan R. Social
influence effects in online product ratings”, Journal of marketing.  Menal
Dahiya (2017),” Study on e-commerce and its impacts on market and retailers
in India”, Advances in Computational Sciences and Technology.  Kavya
(2016),” A conceptual study on the impact of online shopping towards retailers
and consumers”, International Journal of Advanced Trends in Engineering and
Technology (IJATET).  Jyoti Meshram (2016), “Study of online shopping on
conventional shopping methods by today’s youth with respect to clothing and
accessories”.  Juao C Cost (2016),” Impact of online shopping on conventional
retails stores in South Goa (India)”, J A Social Sci Humanities.

1. Introduction Electronic commerce offers unprecedented opportunities to both

developing and developed countries. In the short run, the gains are likely to be
concentrated in developed countries but, in the long run, developing countries
have more to benefit. In the short run, developing countries lack the
infrastructure necessary to take full advantage of Internet. But in the long run,
they can leap frog, skipping some of the stages in the development of
information technology through which developed countries have had to pass
[1]. The advancement of technology has aided international business. Millions
of people worldwide use the Internet to do everything from research to
purchasing products online. The Internet is profoundly affecting almost all
businesses. The various uses of the Internet by business entities include the
ability to advertise, generate, or otherwise perform regular business functions.
Therefore, many firms are embracing the Internet for many of their activities.
One impact for e-commerce is to intensify competition and producing benefits
to consumers in lower prices and more choices [2]. Electronic commerce is
expected to directly and indirectly create and destroy jobs. New jobs will be
generated in the information and communication technologies sector, while the
indirect creation of jobswill occur via increased demand and productivity. At
the same time, some reallocation and destruction of jobs are expected as a
consequence of changes in the way of doing business. The net effect on
employment will be the resultant of a complex set of interactions and will by no
means be uniform across countries, geographic areas, industries or skill groups
[3]. This article proceeds in the following manner. Following section provides
an overview of electronic commerce. Section II includes some indicators that
shed light on the growth e-commerce and and its economy-wide effects. Section
III highlights the relevant issues dealing with the impact of e-commerce on
international trade and employment. Finally, Section IV presents concluding
remarks. 2. E-commerce: An overview E-commerce can be defined as the use of
the Internet to conduct business transactions nationally or internationally [4]. E-
commerce has come to take on two important roles; first as a more effective and
efficient conduit and aggregator of information, and second, as a potential
mechanism for the replacement of many economic activities once performed
within a business enterprise by those that can be done by outside suppliers that
compete with each other to execute these activities [3]. The Internet is
dramatically expanding opportunities for business-to-business and business-
toconsumer e-commerce transactions across borders. For business to consumer
transactions especially, the internet sets up a potential revolution in global
commerce: the individualization of trade. It gives consumers the ability to
conduct a transaction directly with a foreign seller without traveling to the
seller’s country. The Internet allows sellers to put their storefronts, in the form
of Web pages, in front of consumers all over the world. Technology has
expanded the consumer marketplace to an unprecedented degree [5]. The
Internet and e-commerce are transforming the way firms operate by redefining
how back-end operations – product design and development, procurement,
production, inventory, distribution, aftersales service support, and even
marketing – are conducted. In this process, the Internet and e-commerce alter
the roles and relationships of various parties, fostering new supply networks,
services and business models. The end results are efficiency improvements,
better asset utilization, faster time to market, reduction in total order fulfillment
times, and enhanced customer service [3]. Numbers can indicate the importance
of the e-commerce growth. In 1999, global e-commerce was worth over $150
billion [6]. Around eighty percent of those transactions were between one
business and another. According to Inc. Magazine although the US and Canada
lead the world in ecommerce spending, other countries are increasingly
shopping online. By 2014, global ecommerce spending is projected to increase
more than 90 percent. A sizable portion of that growth is expected to come from
Latin America, where the amount spent online is projected to more than double.
If these projections are accurate, annual ecommerce spending, in billions for
2014 will be: North America $202.8; Western Europe $166.5; AsiaPacific
$93.2; Latin America $27.1; Eastern Europe & Russia $27.0; Australia $4.9;
Africa & the Middle East $3.0 [7]. The number of Internet users also reached
two billion worldwide and is growing [8]. The influence of e-commerce
stretches farther. It is used more as a trading system in which buyers, and sellers
could establish a genuine market price. For example, with more than 90 million
active users globally, eBay is the world's largest online marketplace, where
practically anyone can buy and sell practically anything. Founded in 1995, eBay
connects a diverse and passionate community of individual buyers and sellers,
as well as small businesses. Their collective impact on e-commerce is
staggering: In 2009, the total worth of goods sold on eBay was $60 billion --
$2,000 every second [9].

3. Benefits of e-commerce on economy

The benefits of e-commerce on economy are classified into three groups: firms,
prices, productivity. A combination of technological and market forces have
compelled companies to examine and reinvent their supply chain strategies. To
stay competitive, firms have searched for greater coordination and collaboration
among supply chain partners to wring out the inefficiencies that might exist
within firm transactions. Many of the transactions can be done externally, via
electronic markets. The Internet and its applications have thus served to enhance
the process to increase efficiencies in supply chain management [3]. Moreover,
ICTs allows firms to identify the market for the inputs they need in production
and substantially reduces the cost of gathering and processing information about
the prices and input characteristics of different goods and services. In addition,
information and communication technologies make it easier to integrate and
control remote operations without incurring prohibitive costs. Better ICTs
enable optimized operations to be established in low cost domestic locations
and countries where comparative advantage is present for the outsourced task.
E-commerce thus facilitates the efforts of companies to separate and spin out
every conceivable activity in the production process to entities outside the firm
[3]. The available empirical evidence on price is mixed. Some of the first
studies found that prices of goods sold through the Internet were on average
higher than their equivalent purchased through traditional retailers. A more
recent study, however, found prices for books and CDs on average to be about
10 per cent lower on the Internet compared with traditional retailers in the
United States [10]. Evidence on demand sensitivity to price is also mixed, with
some work suggesting a low [11] and others a high price elasticity of demand
[12]. Evidence from countries were the use of information and communication
technologies is widespread suggests substantial improvements in productivity.
In an analysis of the contribution of information and communications
technology to economic growth in nine OECD countries, over the past two
decades, ICTs contributed between 0.2 and 0.5 % per year to economic growth
[13]. During the second half of the 1990s, this contribution rose to 0.3 to 0.9%
per year. Effects were the largest in the United States, followed by Australia,
Finland and Canada [13]. Another study suggests that the rise of B2B e-
commerce will in the long run increase the level of GDP by 5 per cent [14]. In
addition, it has been argued that Internet related technologies could increase the
speed of financial operations, which raises the issue as to how interest rates
should be set and whether the short end of interest setting needs to become
shorter i.e. time units smaller than a day [15]. Moreover, several studies
conclude that information and communication technologies were an important
factor in improving the overall efficiency of labor and capital, in the United
States [16; 17]. Most importantly, productivity increased not only in the
information and communication producing sectors but in sectors of the
economy that do not produce information and communications technology [18].
In other words, users of these technologies also benefited from increased
productivity. In addition, the data seems to reveal that workers in the US may
have also benefited from increased productivity induced by e-commerce and
ICTs [19]. 4. Effects of e-commerce on international trade and employment
Electronic commerce offers important opportunities to both developing and
developed countries. The development of e-commerce is likely to have both
direct and indirect impacts on international trade as well as the labor markets.
4.1. E-commerce and International Trade The use of electronic means and the
internet can make the process of initiating and doing trade a lot easier, faster,
and less expensive. Collecting information is a costly activity when it involves
acquiring information across national borders. In fact, these costs can be so high
that they can be considered asubstantial barrier to trade. Finding the right
supplier, specifying the product’s requirements and quality, negotiating the
price, arranging deliveries and marketing products is also very costly. With the
internet and e-commerce applications, a whole range of these activities can
occur without having buyer and seller in close physical proximity. In this
respect, the internet will likely promote trade much in the same way as lifting
other trade barriers would. Thus, it is the volume of international trade will
likely increase [3]. Especially, the internet when organized via electronic
markets through e-commerce applications, reduces information costs and allows
consumers and sellers to be matched and interact electronically, reducing the
significance of geographic proximity and traditional business networks [3]. A
study found ample evidence that, development of global markets via the Internet
makes historical linkages less important and suggest that countries with the
fewest past trade links have the most to gain from the Internet, especially for
developing countries [20]. An evident from a 1998 survey of enterprises in 15
low and middle-income countries suggests that firms in these countries use
search engines to research market opportunities [21]. However, whether e-
commerce promote international trade will depend on the nature of the good.
On the one hand, a number of products that traditionally have required physical
delivery can be delivered to a customer via a network in digital form. Examples
of these include media products, such as text, film and computer software. On
the other hand, most of the goods traded internationally are not deliverable in
digital form and therefore transportation costs will continue to play a significant
role [3]. In this regard, world trade in digital media products amounted to about
US$44 billion in 1996, less than 1 per cent of total world trade. For most
countries, trade in digital media products was less than 2% of total trade. The
rate of growth of trade in digital media products is high and above the average
rate growth of total trade: the growth in trade for digital media products on
average was about 10% between 1990 and 1996, 1.5 times faster than total
world merchandise trade [22]. E-commerce will also have a significant impact
on trade in services. The most relevant change in trade in services is e-
commerce’s and information technology’s ability to make non-tradable services
into tradable. Activities that were previously non-tradable (i.e. research and
development, computing, inventory management, quality control, accounting,
personnel management, marketing, advertising and distribution) will be traded
through the use of e-commerce. All that is required is that the quality, speed and
cost of communication between buyer and seller be adequate. International
cross-border trade in a wide range of services, financial, legal,
telecommunications and customized software will increasingly be carried out by
electronic means [3]. Internet effectively opens markets that were previously
closed; it is tempting to think of it as another form of trade liberalization. A
technical improvement lowers costs of transactions and generates far larger
benefits than the triangular efficiency gains from trade liberalization. Indeed,
the decline in costs increases potential benefits from trade liberalization in many
services sectors [1]. As communications costs continue to fall, the potential for
international outsourcing grows. As a result, outsourcing management and
production activities will become more important. Obviously, some sectors and
activities throughout the world are more prone than others to be affected by
developments in e-commerce. In this respect, there have been attempts to
identify industries or sectors that may be more predisposed to the effects of
developments in e-commerce and technology [3]. For example, a research,
based on criteria that weighed the effect of cost savings, increases in
productivity, industry readiness and product fitness to e-commerce, has
elaborated an index of Internet intensiveness. The finding based on data from
the United States and Europe suggests that the most internet intensive sectors
are electronic components, food, pharmaceuticals and forest/paper products. It
is likely to expect that in other regions, these same sectors and industries will be
affected by e-commerce via outsourcing [23]. At the same time, recent evidence
suggests that transnational corporations are likely to be the most intensive users
of electronic commerce [24]. The potential benefits from international e-
commerce to a developing country arise from a reduction in the cost of imports
as much as from an increase in the price received for exports. Even if a country
doesnot export any services, it can benefit from imports of services, paying for
them in terms of goods. Cheaper availability of medical, engineering and
architectural services, long-distance learning and reduced costs of transactions
can confer benefits even if the country does not immediately export the services
traded through Internet [1]. Several recent studies have suggested that trade also
stimulates internet use. For example, a study suggests that the extent to which a
country is integrated into the global economy can play a role in its access to IT.
Countries with greater contact, either via trade, tourism, or geographical
location, with the outside world, are more likely to be advanced in digital
technology than other countries [25]. Similarly, another study argues that
countries open to imports from high-income OECD economies will benefit from
knowledge spillovers and, hence, be more likely to adopt new technologies [26].
Following figure and table shows world trade volume and the growth of world
internet usage. According to figure 1, although world trade volume fluctuated
between 2000 and 2010, it had a positive situation until 2008. After 2008, it
declined because of the global financial crisis and then started to increase again.
World internet usage increased all regions between 2000 and 2010.

Empirical studies of internet adaption have found that internet use is correlated
with openness to trade, even after controlling for other factors, that might
correlated with both. For example, one of the studies found that internet users
made up a greater share of the population in developing countries that were
more open to trade [27]. Other studies have also found that additional measures
of ICT use and investment are correlated with various measures of openness.
For example, a research, which looks at the determinants of IT used in 54
countries in Africa, found that IT use tended to be higher in countries that are
more open [25]. One research shows that enterprises that are more
internationalized are more likely to engage in business to business e-commerce,
but not in business-to-consumer e-commerce [28]. Another research shows that
ICT investment is higher in countries that import more manufactured goods
from countries in the OECD [26]. Finally, a study, which uses enterprise
country level data on Internet use in Eastern Europe and Central Asia fails to
find a positive correlation between openness to imports at the country level and
internet use at the enterprise level [29]. In fact, in some model specifications,
same study finds a negative correlation. This negative result, however, be due to
imports from low and middle-income countries. Imports from high-income
countries are positively correlated with Internet connectivity [29]. For example,
a study shows that the correlation between openness and investment in ICT is
stronger for countries that do not export computers [26]. Several recent studies
have asked whether internet use affects trade. For example, using data from 20
low and middle income countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a
research shows that enterprises with internet connections export more, as a
share of their total sales, than enterprises without connections [29]. In addition,
using a gravity model of trade, another research find that Internet use appears to
be significantly correlated with trade after 1996, although it finds only a weak
correlation in 1995 and 1996. The same research also found that internet has a
greater effect on trade in developing countries than it does in developed
countries. In a second paper, same researchers find that exports of services to
the United States grew more quickly for countries with greater internet
penetration in a sample of 31 middleand high-income countries [20].
Developing countries with higher Internet penetration export more to high-
income countries than do developing countries where penetration is lower.
However, they do not appear to export more to other developing countries and
high-income countries with greater Internet penetration do not appear to export
more to either developing or developed countries. These results make intuitive
sense. First, Internet access is so common among manufacturing enterprises in
high-income countries that the differences in the number of internet users as a
percent of the population probably reflects differences at the consumer, rather
than the enterprise, level in developed countries. In developing countries,
contrarily, many manufacturing enterprises remain unconnected. Second,
because Internet access is less common in developing countries than in
developed countries, being connected to the Internet would seem to be a greater
advantage for enterprises in developing countries with respect to exporting to
developed countries. Finally, because of strong regional differences in income,
and taking into account the fact that most exports from developing countries to
other developing countries will be within the same region, communication costs
will presumably be greater for exports to distant developed countries than it
would be for exports to neighboring developing countries [30]. 4.2 Employment
and e-commerce As e-commerce continues expanding, its impact on
employment and wages will be the result of a complex set of interactive forces.
Electronic commerce is expected to directly and indirectly create new jobs as
well as cause job losses. New jobs will be gained in information-related goods
and services, entertainment, software and digital products, for instance. Indirect
creation of jobs will occur via increased demand and productivity. Jobs will be
lost when e-commerce substitutes for the traditional way of doing business. The
jobs most likely affected, as preliminary evidence suggests, are those in the
retail sector, postal offices and travel agencies. However, the effects will not be
uniform across countries, geographic areas, industries or skill groups [3].
Evidence for the United States and the European Union reveals that
employment in ICT-related industries and in the finance, business and
commerce-related sectors account for almost one- third and one-fourth of total
employment, respectively. More importantly, they accounted for 28% and 35%
of job creation in 1993-96 [31]. In addition to the net employment gains and
losses, e-commerce will have an impact on the demand for certain skills. The
evidence suggests that ICTs and e-commerce demand a whole set of new skills
where responsibilities and decision-making becomes more information based.
This “skilled-bias technical

change” generates demand for individuals with skills and talents to manage not
only the information technology but also to exploit the large quantities of
information about customer demands and production processes. In fact,
preliminary findings in a study note that new technologies will increase the
demand for high-skilled workers to run them [32], but also of new managers
that have to make decision in more information-intensive organizations [3].
This increased demand for high-skill workers, with augmented managerial and
executive responsibilities and a greater need for specialized expertise, who will
command higher wages are viewed by some researchers as a cause of worsening
of income distribution. Evidence for the U.S. seems to suggest that demand has
shifted from low and middle-wage occupations and skills toward highly
rewarded jobs and tasks requiring specific talent, training or management
ability. Much of the labor demand shift is being explained by skill-biased
technical change [32]. Overall, low wage, low-skill production, did not enjoy
the wage increases that IT-intensive, high productivity growth industries
experienced. Thus, real wages grew in IT-intensive industries, were wages were
already relatively high and did not change in IT-poor industries that faced
workforce reductions and were already employing low-wage workers [3].
Among developing countries, countries best situated to benefit from e-
commerce through export expansion are those with a substantial pool of skilled
labor, capable of working on or near the frontier of computer technology. The
case of India, which is already benefiting from e-exports in a big way, best
illustrates this point [1]. A consulting firm made a estimate to calculate the
multiplier effects of e-commerce on employment in France, Germany, Italy and
the U.K. By utilizing input-output framework and methodology, three types of
economic effects were obtained – direct effects produced by e-commerce
revenues in the industries directly involved, indirect effects generated by inter-
industry linkages, and second order effects determined through the basic
Keynesian income-consumption circuit from the value added generated in the
first-order round. The results reveal that indirect and second-order effects for
employment requirements are large enough to counterbalance the direct losses
of jobs (assuming a 100% substitution rate of e-commerce with traditional
industries), with the exception of the case of Germany. This also confirms the
potential of ecommerce to create jobs in the future. Their estimates also show
that ecommerce businesses that rely on labor -intensive intermediaries will
directly eliminate a larger share of direct jobs [33]. Following table shows the
share of ICT employment in business sector employment between 1995 and
2008 as a percentage. According to figure, the share of ICT employment in
business sector employment increased in many countries.

5. Conclusion This article concludes following results. Internet will promote

international trade much as lifting other trade barriers would. Thus, the volume
of international trade will increase via e-commerce. The countries open to
imports from high-income economies will benefit from knowledge spillovers.
E-commerce can also have a significant impact on trade in services. In addition,
electronic commerce is also expected to directly and indirectly create new jobs
as well as cause job losses. New jobs will be generated in the information and
communication technologies sector, while the indirect creation of jobs will
occur via increased demand and productivity. The net employment gains and
losses will depend on the demand for certain skills.

1. Introduction E-commerce growth has grown exponentially in recent years.

An e-commerce transaction starts when the seller advertises products on a
website, and customers show acceptance, evaluate the products’ features, prices,
and delivery options, buy products of interest, and then check out (Ribadu &
Rahman, 2019). Tailoring these products to specific markets and targeted
customer groups increases online retail sales volumes and reduces the costs for
updated information that customers access, showing the important role that e-
commerce plays in determining how effective online retailers can leverage
innovative technologies to deliver customer satisfaction value (Gupta et al.,
2020). The existing research in the literature seeks to measure the factors
affecting customer satisfaction in e-retail such as information quality, perceived
security, and privacy concerns (Ahmad et al., 2017; Rita et al., 2019; Vasic et
al., 2019). In 2017, global retail e-commerce sales reached US$2.3 trillion, an
increase of 24.8% over the previous year (eMarketer, 2018), leading to global e-
retail sales contributing 10.2% of the overall global retail sales. This figure was
expected to reach 17.5% in 2021 (Chiu & Cho, 2019; Statista, 2018), amounting
to US$4.9 trillion (Vakulenko et al., 2019). The South African e-commerce
market, estimated to have been worth US$3bn in net sales in 2019, was
expected to grow by an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13%
from 2019 to 2024 (Schaefer & Bulbulia, 2021). Achieving these financial
objectives requires a clear and strategic approach to understanding the online
shopping attributes that have an impact on the development of customer
satisfaction and loyalty towards web stores in South Africa. Although one key
advantage of the Internet is its ability to simplify information searches and to
facilitate transactions (Bilgihan, 2016), improvements in innovative website
technology usage require e-retailers not only to present product information but
also cultivate positive relationships with customers by offering a satisfying
shopping experience (i.e., ease of navigation, information quality, web design,
security, etc.), which is fundamental for the long-term success of online retail
(Brusch et al., 2019; Sharma & Aggarwal, 2019). Thus this study aims to
measure the moderating effects of online shopping experiences in the e-retail
sector of South Africa. When interacting with a seller’s website, online
customers navigate the web pages and search for relevant product information
before they generate a purchase intention or a commitment to buy (Mortimer et
al., 2016; Pandey & Chawla, 2018; Tzeng et al., 2020). Customers search for
fun, enjoyment, recreation, and amusement when shopping online, including
deals and bargains for goods (Alavi et al., 2016), and comparing prices from
different online retailers and choosing the lowest acceptable competing price
(Pandey et al., 2019). In addition to searching for enjoyment and pleasurable
shopping, consumers search for modern products, look for trendy styles, and
seek product diversity (Alavi et al., 2016). Shih (2004) found that consumers
who recognise the importance of information quality prefer to purchase physical
or digital products from a website that facilitates online payments. As payments
are processed through a debit or credit card in online shopping, consumers also
give attention to information about the e-retailer as a source of protection (Vasic
et al. 2018). Dimensions such as fulfilment, ease of use, reliability, security, and
privacy are important for websites that market products that need physical
delivery (Yang et al., 2005), and customers’ demand for delivery deadlines,
security, and reliable e-commerce services isvery high (Garcia et al., 2020).
Shih (2004) reports a significant and positive impact of website security on
users’ acceptance of taking online delivery. In general, his overall model
explained 26.5% of the variance in customers’ acceptance of online delivery.
Notably, creating and maintaining customer satisfaction through its antecedents
is an appropriate and necessary strategy for developing customer satisfaction.
Managers who understand the factors driving customers’ satisfaction and their
choice of online store help their businesses to benchmark and guide future
improvements (Vasic et al. 2018). Online marketing research postulates that
consumers shop online for benefits, including the variety of products and the
assurance of reliable delivery options (Torkzadeh & Dhillon, 2002; Xiao et al.,
2018), which contribute significantly to greater website satisfaction (Alavi et
al., 2016; Ladeira et al., 2016; Tzeng et al., 2020), better attitudes toward online
shopping (Park et al., 2015), and greater online store loyalty (Garcia et al.,
2020; Pandey & Chawla, 2018; Pandey et al., 2019). The current study is the
first to show the inclusion of measures of both product variety and product
delivery in the online retail framework in the context of an emerging market
such as South Africa. The study examines the moderating effects of e-
commerce experience on the relationships between online shopping attributes,
customer satisfaction, and loyalty towards web stores. The study theorises and
tests a conceptual model with information quality, privacy concerns, perceived
security, product variety, and product delivery as antecedents of customer
satisfaction and loyalty towards retail websites. The research findings endeavor
to improve the managerial implications of online retailing in the context of a
modern society, and to enhance the existing literature by projecting how the e-
commerce experience moderates the online shopping behaviour of South
Africans. Following this introduction, the paper discusses the literature,
outlining the effects of the variables in the model, and defines its hypotheses.
The paper then explains the research methodology used in data collection and
data analysis. Thereafter the results are presented and discussed, and the paper
ends with theoretical and managerial implications, including the limitations of
the study. 2. Literature review In South Africa, total retail spending increased
from 1.2% in 2016 to 1.8% in 2017, with retail sales reaching the R1 trillion
mark. This growth accounted for an increase of 22% annually from 2016, or R8
billion in extra value. In developed economies, the overall retail spending on
online shopping has advanced (e.g., Britain is 19%, Australia is 7.2%, the
United States of America is 10%, France is 14%, and Germany is 17%). Against
these figures, the online retail market in South Africa is lagging behind, and
many opportunities exist for growth in this market (Prinsloo, 2018). By 2018,
the African e-commerce market was estimated at US$50 billion, and South
African retail sales were expected to increase in the e-commerce channel share
of total retail sales from 0.26% in 2011 to 1.93% in 2020 (Dennis & Piatti,
2015). To accelerate the growth of the e-commerce market, rigorous research is
needed to understand the online shopping behavioural responses of South
Africans towards e-commerce. Online retailers should strive to achieve the
strongest possible customer loyalty as their goal. As confirmed in the literature,
this is influenced by satisfaction and various quality factors (Brusch et al.,
2019). Studies continue to examine the impact of various factors on e-
commerce satisfaction and loyalty (Al-dweeri et al., 2019; Faraoni et al., 2018;
Garcia et al., 2020). Recent studies suggest that, when a website design can save
shoppers time, makes it easy to use, offers information about product variety,
and delivers items quickly, customers can become highly satisfied (Brusch et
al., 2019; Raman, 2019). However, the measures of product variety and product
delivery are seldom found in various e-service quality scales in the literature.
Despite their significance as crucial e-commerce factors that influence customer
satisfaction and loyalty, product variety and product delivery are hardly ever
measured in the literature (Brusch et al., 2019; Haridasan & Fernando, 2018).
Ahmad et al. (2017), Brusch et al. (2019), and Rita et al. (2019) recommend
including the variety of available products and delivery in future studies as key
factors that might contribute to building e-loyalty. In closing this gap, this study
builds and tests a conceptual model that examines the influence of information
quality, privacy concerns, perceived security, product variety, and product
delivery on online shopping customer satisfaction and loyalty in South Africa.
The literature indicates that product delivery, product variety, and product
return are indispensable factors in customer service (Arora & Aggarwal, 2018;
Raman, 2019). Rudansky-Kloppers (2014) shows that convenience, delivery,
and time saving are key motives for customers’ online shopping, while branding
was the least relevant factor. She urges e-retailers in South Africa to improve
their web design and product descriptions, price policies, advertisements, and
delivery options, which would enhance online shopping, online customer
satisfaction, and online sales, and ultimately close the gap between online
shopping in South Africa and that in global markets. Business-to-Consumer
(B2C) e-commerce in South Africa is largely untapped, and the competitive
environment in online retail remains largely fragmented (Dennis & Piatti,
2015), with many traditional retailers’ websites competing with mainstream
online stores (such as bidorbuy.co.za and Takealot.com). Rivalry is intensified
by the rapid rate at which these online stores attract customers’ attention, and
this eliminates the market opportunities for many traditional retailers to develop
e-commerce customer loyalty. E-loyalty refers a “consumer’s intention to
purchase from a specific website, and not change to another website” (Cyr,
2008, p. 48). Today it is very difficult to identify a product that cannot be
bought on Amazon.com or Amazon Marketplace (Brusch et al., 2019), which
raises the guiding research questions of this study: Which online shopping
attributes affect customers’ satisfaction and loyalty towards web stores in South
Africa?, and How does the e-commerce experience moderate the
interrelationships among online shopping attributes, customer satisfaction, and
customer loyalty? Despite the exponential growth of e-commerce in South
Africa (Dennis & Piatti, 2015), research has not yet been conducted to identify
and examine the online shopping attributes that affect customer satisfaction and
loyalty, moderated by e-commerce experience, which is a unique contribution
of this study. A discussion of the development of hypotheses to enhance the
understanding of the paths in the conceptual model follows. 3. Information
quality and customer satisfaction Information quality refers to “a consumer’s
perception of the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, completeness, consistency and
the format of information presented on the website about products and
transactions” (DeLone & McLean, 2003, p. 15). Product information pertains to
detailed information about product features, consumer recommendations,
evaluation reports, etc., and service information pertains to FAQs, promotional
notifications, membership information, orders and delivery information, etc.
(Tzeng et al., 2020). Customers generally expect quality information about
products or services to help them make smarter purchase decisions, whether
they are shopping in a physical store or online (Cyr, 2008); and potential
customers on the Internet are particularly attentive to the quality of website
information to help them make good purchasing decisions (C. Kim et al., 2008).
Information quality is an important attribute for shoppers in an evaluation of the
effect of website use, especially during the pre-purchase information search for
products and services in e-retail (Tzeng et al., 2020). Without the opportunity to
evaluate the physical product, shoppers act on incomplete information that
might be incorrect, and face the consequences of risk or uncertainty in their
purchase decisions (C. Kim et al., 2008). “E-retail perceived risk” refers to
customers’ belief that online purchases could have serious consequences, such
as losses caused by the Internet retailer, such as the non-delivery of products
and the unauthorised use of the personal information that customers disclose
(Fortes & Rita, 2016). Thus a well-designed website helps consumers to
navigate and find the relevant quality information easily, reduces their
uncertainty, and minimises e-retailer’s efforts to deliver post-purchase
satisfaction (C. Kim et al., 2008; Luo et al., 2012; J. v. Chen et al., 2013).
Customers who are dissatisfied with a website’s information content will leave
the website without making any purchases (Cyr, 2008). Research shows that
websites that present quality information positively and significantly increase
customer satisfaction (Sabiote et al., 2012; Szymanski & Hise, 2000; Tzeng et
al., 2020). Park and Kim (2003) found that product information quality is the
most significant factor directly influencing user satisfaction, and that it is
stronger than service information quality. Websites that present information
quality help to cultivate consumer loyalty. Wang et al. (2009) confirmed that
information quality and the perceived value of firm-supported online
communities directly and significantly affect customer trust, but that only
information quality has a direct and significant impact on consumer loyalty. Al-
Tit (2020) found that the information quality provided on an online store
represents the e-retailer’s quality dimension that contributes to developing
consumer loyalty, as long as it is accurate, relevant, etc. Given these findings,
the hypotheses proposed for the present study are: Hypothesis 1: Information
quality positively affects customer satisfaction with online retail websites
Hypothesis 2: Information quality positively affects customer loyalty to online
retail websites 4. Privacy concerns and customer satisfaction “Privacy
concerns” refers to a person’s beliefs about the risks and the potentially negative
consequences of sharing private information (Gogus & Saygın, 2019). “Internet
privacy concerns” is a multi-dimensional concept. First, e-retailers relate them
to concerns about the data collection process itself; second, the term refers to
the inadequate use of this information (Roca et al., 2009). Users’ concern about
organisational information privacy practices include collection, errors,
unauthorised access, and the secondary use of data (Hwang & Kim, 2007).
Privacy concerns involves the protection of consumers’ information that is
collected (with or without their knowledge) during their interaction with the
online system, and that might influence the use of the system (Kassim &
Abdullah, 2008). In particular, the unauthorised use of consumers’ personal
information and communication issues such as the use of email are the main
obstacles that reduce end-users’ intention to purchase goods or services online
(Salo & Karjaluoto, 2007). Online retailers must increase their perceived
privacy protection, which refers to consumers’ perception that the e-retailer will
protect the confidential information that is disclosed during the online
transaction from unauthorised use or theft (C. Kim et al., 2008). An enhanced
perception of privacy increases consumers’ willingness to share private
information on the Internet and to complete online purchases (Belanger et al.,
2002), which indicates that perceived privacy is a key factor in consumers’
acceptance of online retail services (Roca et al., 2009). Consumer risk
perceptions and concerns about online shopping relate to privacy. If consumers
perceive the seller as unlikely to protect their privacy, they perceive a more
significant risk that their personal information will be improperly used (C. Kim
et al., 2008). Customers will refuse to disclose private information when
websites request it (Roca et al., 2009), and will perceive a considerable injustice
if they are not satisfied with the e-retailer’s actual information practice
(Malhotra et al., 2004). Sabiote et al. (2012) reveal the significant influence of
privacy on the satisfaction of customers from cultures with a high level of
uncertainty avoidance. Given these findings, a hypothesis proposed for the
present study is: 5. Perceived security and customer satisfaction “Security”
refers to the ability of the website to protect customers’ private information that
is shared during online transactions from unauthorised use or disclosure
(Belanger et al., 2002; Roca et al., 2009). Security is a multidimensional
concept. The dimension first relates to data and transaction security, while the
second relates to the authenticity of consumers (Vasic et al. 2018). Perceived
security is the most important and challenging issue for customers who want to
purchase products or services online, especially if the vulnerabilities come from
the website that facilitates the transaction (Belanger et al., 2002; M. Kim et al.,
2011). If customers perceive that the website’s security assurance meets their
expectation levels, they will disclose financial or personal information and will
intend to purchase with comfort, which reveals the essence of security in
acquiring and retaining customers as regular online store services patriots (Park
& Kim, 2003). “Perceived security” refers to the subjective probability in
customers’ eyes that information they share on the Internet during the online
transactions, and that is storage, will not be stolen, or saved or shared with
unauthorised parties (M. Kim et al., 2011). Customers subjectively believe in
the evaluation of the probability that the transaction is secure (Chang & Chen,
2009), as the key consideration in the acceptance of e-commerce is not merely
the objective security of the website, but consumers’ perceived subjective risk
(Roca et al., 2009). If perceived security risk decreases, satisfaction with online
retail services’ performance increases, showing that consumers’ positive
perception of security will positively affect their satisfaction (Massad et al.,
2006; Park & Kim, 2003; Szymanski & Hise, 2000). Given these findings, a
hypothesis proposed for the present study is: Hypothesis 4: Perceived security
positively affects customer satisfaction with online retail websites 6. Product
variety and customer satisfaction “Product variety” refers to the depth or
breadth of a retail store’s product assortment (Chang, 2011). Product variety,
type of product, and well-known brands are different product factors pertaining
to the quality of the products and services for sale, which entail the wide range
of products and services that can be purchased online, and the brands that a
retail store provides (Rudansky-Kloppers, 2014). As consumers may not
actively evaluate the actual number of products, they rely instead on various
cues to evaluate product variety, product displays, and product organisation,
which may influence perceived product variety in brick-and-mortar stores
(Broniarczyk et al., 1998). Thus they view products through filtered web pages,
rather than seeing them displayed together on the same page. That is, consumers
do not perceive visual merchandise in isolation, but consider additional
dimensions related to visual display when developing their perceptions (Park et
al., 2015), such as colour, variety of product displays, and the ease of locating
them (Ladeira et al., 2016), which shows that e-retailer must have a large
product selection (Brusch et al., 2019). Chang (2011) suggested that researchers
examine product variety perceptions specifically in an online shopping setting,
and thereby extend the studies that have concentrated only on brick-and-mortar
shopping behaviour. Research indicates that perceived, rather than actual,
product variety affects consumer behaviour (Kahn & Wansink, 2004). Chang
(2011) studied the effect of product variety on consumers’ preferences and
choices. Despite the disputable direction of this effect, he concluded that the
product category in an online store affects perceived variety, such that an
appropriate categorisation helps consumers to navigate the website easily and
with greater pleasure, which generates better attitudes toward the online retail
store and increases purchase intentions. The literature shows that a larger
product assortment relates to greater satisfaction, as it enhances the chances of a
match between the consumer’s preference and the available alternatives (Chang,
2011; Lancaster, 1990). Brusch et al. (2019) found that the product portfolio
strongly affects the satisfaction of customers of a niche provider. Given these
findings, a hypothesis proposed for the present study is: Hypothesis 5: Product
variety positively affects customer satisfaction with online retail websites 7.
Delivery and customer satisfaction “Fulfilment” refers to activities that ensure
that customers receive what they have ordered, and includes the time of
delivery, order accuracy, and delivery condition (Rita et al., 2019). Consumers
rate delivery price guides, delivery guarantees, and delivery schedules as key
information that they expect prior to online shopping (Darley et al., 2010; Page-
Thomas et al., 2006). Customers also evaluate the attributes of delivery time,
such as (1) the overall minimisation of delivery time, (2) alerts about any
potential delays in shipping, and (3) a shipment tracking number (Raman, 2019;
Sharma & Aggarwal, 2019). The multichannel literature posits that customers
evaluate a utility function, including the acquisition utility (i.e., product quality,
promotions, and purchase costs) and the transaction utility (i.e., benefits of
reduced search cost, convenience, and fast home delivery), when making
purchase decisions (Chintagunta et al., 2012). Customer services that are
important in online retail, such as easy return policies and faster delivery
services, significantly affect consumers’ purchase decisions (Raman, 2019),
which indicates that faster and timely home deliveries increase the sense of
value that customers receive from their online purchase (Hult et al., 2019). In
fact, product delivery affects all the fundamental value proposition objectives
(Lin et al., 2011). Even if customers feel comfortable when they have faith in
the company’s delivery, regardless of the channel of shopping (Hult et al.,
2019), timely delivery of the product is one of the foremost expectations that
online shoppers have of online retailers (Raman, 2019). Shih (2004) found a
strong and significantly positive impact of individual attitudes towards online
shopping on users’ acceptance of taking online delivery. As consumers ascribe
immense importance to the completion of online transactions and the delivery
of products in online shopping (Raman, 2019), e-retailers should provide
customers with superior service quality by ensuring delivery timeliness, order
accuracy, and excellent delivery conditions (Rita et al., 2019). Delivery factors
such as perceived delivery time positively affect customer satisfaction (Brusch
et al., 2019; Chou et al., 2015). Timely and reliable delivery improves
satisfaction so that shoppers repurchase, which shows that timely delivery
increases customer satisfaction (Lin et al., 2011). Consequently, the longer that
customers have to wait between ordering and receiving the product, the greater
the chances that they will feel anxious and discontented (Chou et al., 2015;
Raman, 2019), as delays negatively affect customer satisfaction (Liu et al.,
2008). Tzeng et al. (2020) indicated that the entire delivery procedure of
returned item logistics affects customer’s patience, as well as producing online
shopping displeasure. Given these findings, a hypothesis proposed for the
present study is: Hypothesis 6: Product delivery positively affects customer
satisfaction with online retail websites 8. Customer satisfaction and customer
loyalty Customer satisfaction is a central tenet of interest in the field of
marketing (Chiu & Cho, 2019), and is considered to be the primary marketing
objective (Kotler, 2000). The traditional marketing literature has generally
acknowledged a cumulative satisfactory experience as crucial to helping
satisfaction episodes to become holistic and to affecting loyalty (Garbarino &
Johnson, 1999; Oliver, 1999). This paper is anchored in the domain of studies
(Chang & Chen, 2009; Kassim & Abdullah, 2008; Massad et al., 2006) that
view satisfaction as the outcome of customers’ cumulative impressions of the
performance of a specific website. The cumulative effect of a series of service
encounters is a customer’s overall evaluation of the total purchase and
consumption experience over a specific period, and is known to provide a
robust evaluation of a firm’s performance (Fornell, 1992). In e-commerce,
satisfaction is defined as an affective state that represents the consumer’s
emotional reaction to the entire transaction experience with an online retailer
(Faraoni et al., 2018; Pandey & Chawla, 2018). This shows that, when a
customer feels satisfied, the affective components may become more relevant
than the cognitive aspects (Kassim & Abdullah, 2008). In comparison with
cognitive experience, affective experience significantly influences the
satisfaction of customers and positive word-of-mouth in a successful shopping
context (Barari et al., 2020); thus satisfaction is defined as a consumer’s
affective attitude towards a relationship (Menidjel et al., 2020). In the literature,
satisfaction is the level of gratification a buyer reaches after comparing the
purchase experience and the perceived expectations with the post-purchase
experience (D. J. Kim et al., 2009), which shows that the direct determinant of
satisfaction is expectation (Maditinos & Theodoridis, 2010). D. J. Kim et al.
(2009) defined “expectation” as a consumer’s belief about what he or she
should or will obtain after a specific online transaction. They argued that
expectations are not only important sources of relevant information (along with
confirmation) to arrive at a level of satisfaction, but also that customers are
biased toward adjusting their satisfaction level so that it is consistent with their
prior expectations. Nevertheless, unless expectations are met in the total
shopping, purchase, or service experience, there is less likelihood that
customers will feel satisfied or lean towards building loyalty to an e-retailer
(Anderson & Srinivasan, 2011). Only shoppers who experience a series of
discrete satisfying experiences with the online retailer will progress to the stage
of loyalty (Massad et al., 2006). Menidjel et al. (2020) found that satisfaction
positively influences customers’ behavioural loyalty. However, consumer
loyalty related to repurchase behaviour will manifest in a weak commitment, as
consumers repurchase the same brand because the search for alternatives is not
worth the time and effort it would need (Oliver, 1999). Thus attitudinal loyalty
is the strongest commitment held by the consumer towards the brand
(Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001). Although satisfaction relates to the attitudinal
levels of loyalty, and is the single most important determinant of customer
loyalty in both online and offline settings (Li et al., 2015; Slack & Singh, 2019),
satisfaction plays a key role and greatly affects e-commerce consumer loyalty,
owing to faceless transaction exchanges (Castaneda, 2011; Ribbink et al., 2004).
Satisfied customers are more loyal to a brand or a store than customers who rely
on other reasons, such as time restrictions and information deficits; and the
Internet extends this concept further, because online customers spend a long
time in searching for and collecting quality product or store information; and
this largely influences their purchase decision (Ahmad et al., 2017). Cyr (2008)
shows that online satisfaction strongly relates to the loyalty of Canadian,
German, and Chinese consumers. Given these findings, a hypothesis proposed
for the present study is: Hypothesis 7: Customer satisfaction positively affects
customer loyalty to online retail websites Cumulatively, the present work
proposes the research model shown in Figure 1. 9. Methodology 9.1. Sampling
and data collection A quantitative research study that was descriptive in nature
was conducted to examine the effects of online shopping attributes on customer
satisfaction and loyalty towards tweb stores in South Africa, moderated by e-
commerce experience. The study sampled both male and female respondents in
the age group ranging from 18 to 60 years old who had more than six months’
online shopping experience. With a 37% e-commerce penetration in South
Africa, about 22 million consumers shopped online in 2020, and this number is
expected to grow by 44% to 32 million users by 2024, as the most prominent
reasons for an increase in online shopping include convenience (26%) and the
effects of COVID-19 restrictions (25%) (Schaefer & Bulbulia, 2021). A non-
probability convenience sampling method was used to select 305 online
shoppers in Gauteng Province, South Africa using Yamane’s (1967, p. 886)
formula (n = 22, 000 000 respondents from /1 + 22, 000 000(0.05)2 = 305). This
formula is expressed as: n ¼ N 1þNðeÞ 2 where “N” is the sample size, “n” is
the population size (total number of active subscribers), and “e” is the sample
error (0.05). This sample size formula is recommended to calculate the sample
size (Israel, 1992). The sample size was equivalent to those in studies of online
retail services (350 in Alavi et al., 2016, p. 316 in Al-dweeri et al., 2019, p. 250
in Faraoni et al., 2018, p. 351 in Z. Chen et al., 2012). To achieve total sample
representativeness, the filter questions identified customers who purchased
products and services regularly from online stores and retailers’ websites.
Respondents in Gauteng Province who were willing to participate in the study
by self-administering the questionnaires were targeted. Gauteng Province has
the largest share of the South African population: it is home to around 14.7
million people, or 25.4% of the total population (StatsSa, 2018. p. 1). In
economic terms, the gross domestic product by region (GDP-R) in Gauteng
Province reached R455 billion in 2015 (Creecy, 2016), surpassing other
provinces, which has been the trend over the past 20 years (Mushongera et al.,
2017). In technology terms, Gauteng Province has used the Universal Access
and Service Fund (UASF) to establish free public Wi-Fi networks, creating
opportunities for more people to be online (Gillwald et al., 2018). However,
many South Africans use the Internet for social networking (73%), educational
purposes (44%), work-related reasons (27%), employment searches (27%), and
Internet banking (17%); only a small fraction use it for online shopping (10%)
and government services (8%), with income as the primary driver of online
banking and shopping (Gillwald et al., 2018). The ethical behaviour of the
researcher (i.e., protecting respondents’ right to the confidentiality of the data
disclosed) and the ethical treatment of the participants (i.e., informed consent,
debriefing about the purpose of the study, and protecting privacy) were all
followed to guide the research process. The data collected was processed (i.e.,
cleaned, edited, coded, and tabulated) in the Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS) version 27 for Microsoft Windows to analyse the descriptive
statistics. A total of 287 completed questionnaires resulted in a 94.09% sample
response rate, of which 61.3% were female and 38.3% were male. The
demographic profiles of the respondents are presented in Table 1. 10. Measures
The survey questionnaire, written in English, contained the filtering questions
and a covering letter outlining the purpose of the study. The respondents
completed two sections; Section A collected data on demographic factors such
as age, gender, monthly spending in Rands, the websites preferred for
purchases, the length of their e-commerce experience, and the kinds of products
purchased. The data used to test the significant effect of the independent
variables on the dependent variables was captured in Section B, comprising
empirically validated scale items from the e-commerce literature. Information
quality [IQ] measured six items, and perceived security [PS] measured four
items, all adapted from Park and Kim (2003). Privacy concerns [PS] measured
three items adapted from Z. Chen et al. (2012). Product variety [PV] measured
five items adapted from Liu et al. (2008). Product delivery [PD] measured four
items adapted from Z. Chen et al. (2012) and Liu et al. (2008). Customer
satisfaction [CS] measured four items adapted from Kassim and Abdullah
(2008) and Ribbink et al. (2004). Customer loyalty [CS] measured four items
adapted from Ribbink et al. (2004). All 30 scale items in the questionnaire were
aligned with the purpose of this study, and each respondent was asked to
evaluate the relevance of each item, with their responses being measured using
a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly
agree. 11. Results The descriptive statistics, such as mean, median, and standard
deviation (Pallant, 2010), were tested using SPSS version 27 for Microsoft
Windows. Before analysing and testing the measurement model, the data was
diagnosed for outliers. A multicolleniarity test was conducted. The tolerance
and variance inflation factor (VIF) showed that multicollinearity did not exist in
the variables measured in this study, as the VIF was below 0.5 and the tolerance
value was greater than 0.20 (J. F. Hair et al., 2012). If the value of the VIF is
very small (less than 0.10), it would indicate that the multiple correlation with
other variables is high, suggesting the possibility of multicollinearity. Notably,
the independent variables in the conceptual model did not indicate any threat to
the dependent factors (Pallant, 2010). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA)
revealed the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy
(Kaiser, 1970, 1974) = 0.892, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (Bartlett, 1954),
with approx. chi-square = 5790.980, with degree of freedom = 435, which is
significant at p < .000. Tabachnick and Fidell (2007) believe that the KMO
index should range from 0 to 1, with a value of 0.6 showing a good factor
analysis. The results indicated the seven-factor model components with eigen
values above 1 [privacy concerns = 1.062; 73.43%], [product delivery = 1.286;
69.89%], [customer satisfaction = 1.573; 65.60%], [customer loyalty = 2.200;
60.36%], [perceived security = 2.624; 53.03%], [product variety = 3.397;
44.28%], and [information quality = 9.886; 32.96%]. These seven components
together explained 73.43% of the variance. Table 2 presents the rotated
component matrix using principal component analysis, with the varimax
rotation method and Kaiser normalisation, with rotation converged in six
iterations. In EFA, all the scale items with factor loadings above 0.60 are
considered acceptable (Bagozzi & Yi, 1988), showing the internal consistency
reliability of the seven-factor model. The factor loadings ranged from the lowest
(product delivery [PD1 = 0.630]) to the highest (perceived security [PS2 =
0.882]). In respect of Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951), four items for
customer satisfaction had a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.920. Six items of information
quality had a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.903. Customer loyalty had four items with a
Cronbach’s alpha = 0.894. Perceived security with four items had a Cronbach’s
alpha = 0.891. Product variety had five items with a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.853.
Product delivery with five items had a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.852. Last, privacy
concerns had three items with a Cronbach’s alpha = 0.829. All the factors had
Cronbach’s alpha values greater than 0.7, as recommended by Malhotra (2007).
Thus a composite reliability greater than 0.7 shows a good construct reliability,
and the Cronbach’s alpha may not be of use (J. F. Hair et al., 2012). The
parametric tests (i.e., t-tests, analysis of variance) showed assumptions about the
population from which the sample was drawn. These included the assumptions
related to the shape of the population distribution (i.e., normally distributed)
(Pallant, 2010). For example, Appendix A shows that the data collected from
the 287 respondents on their perceptions of the online shopping attributes and
their impact on the satisfaction and loyalty dimensions ranged from 1 to 5 for all
items measured. The values of the mean ranged from the lowest (customer
loyalty [CL3 = 3.64]) to the highest (product delivery [PD4 = 4.33]). The values
of the standard deviation ranged from the lowest (product variety [PV3 =
0.663]) to the highest (perceived security [PS2 = 1.191]). The descriptive
statistics also provide information about the distribution of the scores for the
continuous variables (skewness and kurtosis). Appendix A shows the measures
of skewness and kurtosis that were used to test the extent to which items were
plotted or scattered on the normal standard distribution (Pallant, 2010). The
skewness value indicates the symmetry of the distribution; if the distribution is
perfectly normal, the skewness and kurtosis values will equal zero. With a
standard error of skewness value equal to 0.144 and a standard error of kurtosis
equal to 0.287, Appendix A shows no positive skewness values (items do not
group on the left at the low values), whereas the negative skewness values
ranging from the lowest (customer loyalty [CL3 = -0.627]) to the highest
(information quality [IQ4 = -1.194]) show a grouping of items at the high end
(righthand side of the graph). Positive kurtosis values ranging from the lowest
(perceived security [PS3 = 0.222]) to the highest (product variety [PV1 =
4.262]) show that the distribution was rather peaked (items grouped in the
centre) with long thin tails. The kurtosis values below zero [>0] show a
distribution that was relatively flat (too many cases in the extremes). The
corrected item-total correlation values show the degree to which each item
correlates with the total score, while low values (less than 0.3) indicate that the
item is measuring a different phenomenon from the scale as a whole (Pallant,
2010). As shown in Appendix A, the corrected item-total correlations ranged
from the lowest product variety [PV2 = 0.588]) to the highest (customer
satisfaction [CS2 = 0.863]). All these values were above 0.5, indicating a good
internal consistency and reliability of the factors (Pallant, 2010). The squared
multiple correlations ranged from the lowest (product delivery [PD1 = 0.375])
to the highest (customer satisfaction [CS2 = 0.749]). The values close to 1 show
a strong correlation between the factors (Malhotra, 2007). The measurement
model is presented in the next section. 12. Measurement model The seven-
factor model in the study was tested in AMOS version 27 for Microsoft
Windows using structural equation modelling, which is a two-step analytical
procedure for first testing the measurement model and then the structural model
(J. C. Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The aim was to obtain a robust explanation
of the relationships proposed in the conceptual model that were developed on
the basis of an extensive literature review. First, the measurement model for all
seven constructs was tested using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the
interrelationships among the factors, which were allowed to inter-correlate
freely (J. C. Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The first step in a reflective
measurement model assessment involves examining the indicator loadings. As
Hair et al. (2019) recommended, loadings above 0.708 indicate that the
construct explains more than 50% of the indicator’s variance, thus providing
acceptable item reliability. Appendix A shows that the factor loadings of the
standardised regression weights of the first CFA ranged from the lowest
(product delivery [PD2 β = 0.644; t-value = 12.084]) to the highest (customer
satisfaction [CS2 β = 0.907; t-value = 17.634]). The second step was to assess
internal consistency reliability. While values between 0.60 and 0.70 are viewed
as acceptable in exploratory research, values between 0.70 and 0.90 range from
satisfactory to good, while values of 0.95 and higher are problematic, as they
indicate the items’ redundancy, thereby reducing construct validity (Hair et al.
2019). The confirmatory factor analysis resulted in four items ([PV1 = 0.656],
[PV2 = 0.644], [PV5 = .686], and [PD1 = 0.653]) being between 0.60 and 0.70.
J. F. Hair et al. (2014) recommended that the model also be diagnosed to
determine the path coefficient values, standardised on a range from -1 to +1,
with the coefficients closest to +1 showing strong positive relationships, while
the coefficients closest to -1 represent strong negative relationships. According
to Jöreskog et al. (1999), a correct model contains standardised residual
covariances of less than 2 in absolute value. Therefore the items [PD1 = 0.65],
[PV2 = 0.64], and [PV1 = 0.63] were each deleted after rotation. Privacy
concerns had a strong correlation with information quality [0.52], which had six
items with factor loadings above 0.7; and so the lowest [IQ6 = 0.76] and [QI5 =
0.73] were each deleted after rotation. Guided by the descriptive statistics, the
lowest mean value [IQ2 = 4.09; std dev. = 0.793] had the highest factor loading
[IQ2 = 0.83] and was deleted first, followed by [IQ1 = 0.72] and [IQ3 = 0.68].
Thereafter the factor loadings of all the items in the variables were above 0.7,
verifying the convergent validity of the data (Hair et al. 2019), showing “a
positive correlation among all the items of each factor” (Pallant, 2010, p. 183).
The scales were further verified by determining the average variance extracted
(AVE) above 0.50, which indicates the discriminant and convergent validity
(Fornell & Larcker, 1981). An AVE of 0.50 shows that the factor accounts for
more than half of the variance of its scale indicators (J. F. Hair et al., 2014).
Support is provided for convergent validity when each item has outer loadings
above 0.70 and when each construct’s average variance extracted (AVE) is 0.50
or higher (J. F. Hair et al., 2014). Table 3 shows the results for discriminant
validity, while Figure 2 and Appendix A present the standardised factor
loadings of the measurement model above 0.7, which shows composite
reliability (J. F. Hair et al., 2014) and is viewed as highly acceptable for internal
consistency reliability (J. F. Hair et al., 2012). The composite reliability (CR)
for each factor exceeded the minimum recommended value of 0.70, which
indicates an acceptable reliability for all the factor correlations (Fornell &
Larcker, 1981). The average variance extracted (AVE) tests “the amount of
variance that is captured by the construct in relation to the amount of variance
due to measurement error” (Fornell & Larcker, 1981. p. 45), with the minimum
acceptable value for AVE of 0.50 showing that all seven constructs in this study
had a reliable measurement structure. Finally, to test the discriminant validity of
all constructs, Fornell and Larcker (1981) insist on examining whether any two
constructs are distinctive or dissimilar. For example, the square root (√) of the
AVE for every factor is compared with the factor correlation coefficients with
other factors (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The results of the square root of AVE
for each variable (bold values) were greater than the correlation of each factor in
the model, which showed discriminant validity (Hair et al. 1992) represented by
the square root (√) of the AVE, shown in bold (>0.7) in Table 3. Given the
discriminant validity of the measurement model, the model was assessed for a
good fit. The ratio of chi-square minimum to degree of freedom (CMIN/DF)
was 349.431/231 = [1.513], which was below the acceptable cut-off criterion of
3.00 (Hair et al. 2006). Hair et al. (2006) state that indices such as GFI, CFI,
IFI, and TLI must be greater than 0.9 and that the root mean square error of
approximation (RMSEA) value must be less than 0.1. Given the sensitivity of
chi-square statistics to the sample size, other indices can be used (Hair et al.
2006). In the absence of GFI and AGFI, the measurement model showed good
fit indices values of CFI = [0.973], TLI = [0.965], IFI = [0.973], RFI = [0.903],
and NFI = [0.925]. The RMSEA was found to be 0.041, below the cut-off level
of 0.6 (Schreiber et al., 2006). These values were found to be high in each case
for loadings in the measurement model (see Figure 2), thus resulting in
convergent validity, as shown in Appendix A and confirmed by the statistical
significance of the variables established through the “t” test statistic (critical
ratio). Figure 2 shows the estimates of the correlations among the exogenous
variables, ranging from the lowest between perceived security and product
variety [PS PV = 0.168] to the highest between customer loyalty and customer
satisfaction [CL CS = 0.738]. The lowest estimate of the squared multiple
correlations was for customer loyalty [CL4 = 0.498]. In other words, the error
variance of CL4 was 49.8% of the variance of CL4 itself. The highest estimate
of the squared multiple correlations was for product delivery [PD3 = 0.853]. In
other words, the error variance of PD3 was 85.3% of the variance of PD3 itself.
13. Structural model Structural equation modelling can be calculated with a
maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate the specified paths in the
hypothesised model (J. C. Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The five exogenous
variables and the two endogenous variables were tested to ascertain the strength
of the proposed model and of the hypotheses. The overall fit indices for the
structural model were as follows: CMIN/ df = 350.958/235 = [1.493]; CFI =
[0.974]; NFI = [0.925]; IFI = [0.974]; TFI = [0.904]; TLI = [0.966]; RMSEA =
[0.040]. All the fit indices showed a good fit between the structural model and
the data, thus providing a sounder basis for testing the hypothesised paths in the
conceptual model (see Figure 1). The general findings are shown in Table 4.
Figure 3 shows that four of the five observed variables of product delivery [β =
0.375; t-value = 5.911, p < 0.001], perceived security [β = 0.279; t-value =
4.396, p < 0.001], information quality [β = 0.159; t-value = 2.424, p < 0.015],
and product variety [β = 0.148; t-value = 2.617, p < 0.009] were found to have a
positive and significant impact on customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction
[β = 0.689; t-value = 10.542, p < 0.001] and Information quality [β = 0.119; t-
value = 2.135, p < 0.033] had a positive and significant influence on customer
loyalty. Four hypotheses [H6, H4, H1, and H4] were accepted as predictors of
online shopping customer satisfaction, while two [H7 and H2] were accepted as
determinants of customer loyalty. Privacy concerns [H3] did not affect customer
satisfaction in this study. The final model’s structural path coefficients and the
squared multiple correlation coefficients in the model are shown in Figure 3.
Customer satisfaction had 0.47 and customer loyalty had 0.56. This indicates
that product delivery, perceived security, information quality, and product
variety explained 48% of the variance in online shopping customer satisfaction,
while satisfaction and 14. E-commerce experience (control variable) In the e-
commerce literature, Prashar et al. (2017) indicate the importance of future
research to measure Internet usage experience and online shopping experience
as moderating variables. Menidjel et al. (2020) tested relationship length as a
moderator of the influence of consumer personality attributes on perceived
relationship investment, relationship quality, and loyalty in the retail industry.
Pappas et al. (2014) confirmed that experience has moderating effects on the
relationships between performance expectancy and satisfaction, and between
satisfaction and repurchase intention. Despite this empirical evidence in the
literature, no research shows a multicategory view of the moderating effect of e-
commerce experience on the impact of online shopping dimensions on customer
satisfaction and loyalty. To close this gap, this study used the PROCESS
regression technique of Hayes (2013) to test the role of e-commerce experience,
following the nomological validity of this study (i.e., the results supporting the
theoretical views of the related literature) (Malhotra, 2007). Considering
satisfaction as a customer’s overall contentment with the online experience
driven by information quality, which were both significant determinants of
online shopping customer loyalty in this study, this study investigated
hypothesis 8, which examines the influence of multigroup e-commerce
experience (i.e., categories of the length of time for which a customer has been
using the website) on the interrelationships in the structural model. E-commerce
experience (the control variable) was tested on multicategorical data (with an
analysis of effect). The aim was to identify a group in the sample that best
describes how e-commerce experience moderates the influence of perceived
online shopping attributes on satisfaction and loyalty: was it for customers who
fall into the categories of a long or a short length of time of e-commerce
experience? Table 5 shows the results of the moderating effects in various
categories of e-commerce experience, with two significant interaction effects.
Table 5 shows that the moderating effect of e-commerce experience, analysed
from the sample of size of 287, was coded using e-commerce 15. Discussion
and implications Considering the growth of the e-commerce sector in South
Africa, researchers have offered very limited convincing evidence about
understanding online shoppers’ behaviour. Given the signs of the exponential
growth of the e-commerce industry in South Africa and globally, the strategic
approach is for online retailers to acquire an understanding of the online
shopping attributes that satisfy online consumers and develop loyalty towards
their websites. With a lack of studies that examine the relationship between the
online shopping attributes that influence the behaviour of online consumers in
emerging market economies such as South Africa, a clear understanding of e-
commerce marketing strategies for converting Internet consumers into loyal
online store shoppers is needed. This study examined customers’ perceptions of
online shopping attributes and the behaviours of satisfaction and loyalty with a
consideration of the moderating effect of e-commerce experience in South
Africa. The main purpose of the present study was examine the impact of
perceived information quality, privacy concerns, perceived security, product
variety, and product delivery on online shopping customer satisfaction and
loyalty, if any. This study has reported the validity of product delivery, product
variety, perceived security, and information quality as significant predictors of
customer satisfaction. The results of this study have further validated the
significant relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty,
between and information quality and customer loyalty. This paper is in the
stream of the literature on the Delone and McLean’s Information System
success theory and on Oliver’s expectation disconfirmation theory in order to
explain the influence of online shopping attributes on online consumers’
behaviour. The golden thread in this paper is its ability collectively to measure
the factors influencing online consumers’ satisfaction and loyalty in the South
African context by validating the moderating role of e-commerce experience.
The results of this research corroborate the proposed conceptual model,
providing empirical evidence that supports six of the seven hypotheses. Four of
the five predictors of customer satisfaction showed relative important variance.
Information quality had a weaker impact on customer satisfaction than the other
online shopping factors. This showed the importance of improving customer
satisfaction by focusing on the other e-commerce elements in the model ahead
of information quality. The results of the scientific analysis in this study showed
that the factors that affect satisfactory online shopping outcomes relate to
product delivery, product variety, perceived security, and information quality as
key antecedents of satisfaction. whose role in the business exchange that aims to
develop customer relationships in the long term will influence customer loyalty
towards an online shopping website. Product delivery, perceived security,
product variety, and information quality were identified as the determinants of
customer satisfaction in the online shipping context in the South African e-
commerce industry. This supports the results of Rudansky-Kloppers (2014),
who found product variety to be a key sub-component in the product factors
identified in the model in South Africa. Similarly, Z. Chen et al. (2012) and Liu
et al. (2008) found that product variety and delivery performance were relevant
factors affecting online shopping satisfaction. This shows that timely delivery
and the opportunity for customers to choose from a wide range of products are
relevant strategic implications for online managers. Online retailers should
provide a flexible order fulfillment, including a variety of product delivery
options (Vakulenko et al., 2019; Xiao et al., 2018), and also prioritise being
competent in delivering the right order on time, which would improve customer
satisfaction and loyalty (Haridasan & Fernando, 2018; Khan et al., 2019).
Customers should be provided with quality information, making them aware of
delays in order to reduce their disappointment when the delivery time is not
met. This study revealed satisfaction and information quality as significant
determinants of customer loyalty. As customers’ needs, perceptions, and
preferences differ, it is advisable to offer a variety of products of different sizes,
features, colours, etc. Advances in e-commerce address these concerns through
clear products displays, product reviews, prices, delivery options, etc. (Ribadu
& Rahman, 2019). This study confirmed the key role of the moderating effect of
e-commerce experience in the online shopping context of the emerging African
market, supporting the e-commerce literature (Menidjel et al., 2020; Prashar et
al., 2017) that confirms the importance of research studies that measure the
Internet usage experience and e-commerce experience as moderating factors.
Pappas et al. (2012) verified the moderating effect of experience on the
relationship of certain antecedents with satisfaction, and on the relationship of
satisfaction with repurchase intention. More effort is needed to mitigate
consumer concerns about online security; and enhancing e-commerce
experiences (e.g., delivery efficiency) could help to generate high levels of
shopper satisfaction, which in turn would increase their loyalty (Chou et al.,
2015). This study reveals the moderating effect of e-commerce experience,
implying that customers would be highly satisfied with their online shopping
experiences if e-retailers could guarantee the quick delivery of items. Although
e-retailers claim to offer superior freshness and quality, it is important to note
that shoppers often face the perceived risk that the quality of the purchased
product might deteriorate before delivery (Mortimer et al., 2016). This is similar
to the finding of Raman (2019) that quick product delivery and easy product
returns will significantly enhance shoppers’ positive experience. The
moderating effect of e-commerce experience is strong for shoppers with five to
ten years of e-commerce experience. 16. Theoretical contributions Supporting
the findings of earlier studies that have examined the impact of delivery on
online shoppers’ buying behaviour (Chou et al., 2015; Lin et al., 2011), the
present work has confirmed that delivery has a strong and significant impact on
online shoppers’ satisfaction. This paper supports the results from previous
studies (Brusch et al., 2019; Rudansky-Kloppers, 2014) that show the impact of
broad product variety on customer satisfaction. In this study, the perceived
security of online shopping is considered the second most important
determinant of customer satisfaction. This result supports the observation that
perceived security risk affects e-commerce customer satisfaction (Massad et al.,
2006). As perceived security significantly contributes to the development of
customer satisfaction (Chang & Chen, 2009), web stores offering security
features will have reliable and satisfied consumers (Vasic et al. 2018).
Information quality was found to be a weak determinant of online service
satisfaction. However, this finding confirms that information quality is also an
antecedent of online user satisfaction (DeLone & McLean, 2003), which implies
that online shoppers perceive information quality to be an important dimension
in the development of online satisfaction. While the impact of privacy concerns
on customer satisfaction is confirmed in earlier research studies (Ahmad et al.,
2017; Al-dweeri et al., 2019), privacy concerns did not have a significant
influence on customer satisfaction in this study. This could be attributed to
online customers’ expectation that e-retailers would abide by the privacy
policies stipulated on their websites. Consumers perceive that online retailers
are obliged not to share or distribute private information that customers have
disclosed on the website. Notably, the results show that South Africans’
concerns about website security are a barrier to online shopping despite the
privacy policy statements given on online shopping websites. The results
conclude that customer satisfaction significantly and directly affects customer
loyalty. This corroborates the empirical evidence in the e-commerce literature
showing that customer satisfaction would positively affect customer loyalty
(Ahmad et al., 2017; Brusch et al., 2019; Hult et al., 2019)—a result also echoed
in the marketing literature (Chandrashekaran et al., 2007; Oliver, 1999). This
generally implies that those e-retailers that offer a more satisfactory e-
commerce shopping experience develop customers who are loyal to their
websites. Since the consumer experience of service from a website is mainly
concerned with item delivery time (Chou et al., 2015), the results show that the
relationships between product delivery and satisfaction and between satisfaction
and loyalty are moderated by e-commerce experience. This implies that
presenting quality information on an online shopping website and ensuring
timely delivery determine the satisfaction of customers whose e-commerce
experience exceeds five to ten years. 17. Managerial implications The findings
of the current research offer insights for e-retailers to consider in relation to
product delivery, perceived security, product variety, and information quality as
the key considerations for online shopping customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Prior research has not measured, but has recommended, the inclusion of product
delivery and product variety in future studies as important factors affecting
customer satisfaction. The study offers managerial implications to e-retailers by
identifying the online shopping attributes that could improve online shopping
satisfaction and customer loyalty. This paper extends the existing knowledge of
the online shopping behaviour of consumers in the e-commerce context, thus
revealing and sharing insights that are relevant to individuals and businesses
with a common interest in the theoretical implications, including the managerial
strategies that would be suitable for growing B2C e-commerce in emerging
economies such as South Africa. The study found product delivery, followed by
perceived security, product variety, and information quality of online shopping
websites, to be positive and significant determinants of online shoppers’
satisfaction, which in turn influences customer loyalty. It is important for
managers of websites to present quality information because of its positive and
significant impact on cultivating customer loyalty to their website. This
confirms the results in the literature (Al-Tit, 2020; Wang et al. 2009) that
confirm that information quality directly and significantly affects consumer
loyalty. Thus the delivery of products and the improved satisfaction of
customers would develop loyalty among customers with e-commerce
experience of between five and ten years, especially those who confidently
purchase from Takealot.com. Consequently, because missing contact
information, inaccurate order deliveries, and incomplete after-sales service are
barriers between sellers and buyers (Yen & Lu, 2008), food e-retailers need
constantly to focus attention on the use-by date for the home delivery of goods
(Faraoni et al., 2018), whereas jewellery retailers should focus on the attributes
that drive consumers’ online shopping, such as product variety, value for
money, packaging, tangible attribute verification, safe transactions, and delivery
(Haridasan & Fernando, 2018). Reflecting on the results of this study, e-
commerce operators who devote more attention to cooperating with the delivery
supplier to provide a higher-quality delivery, such as the correct order, on time,
and improved product variety, would enhance shoppers’ satisfaction with and
loyalty to their websites. The results suggest that e-vendors need to guarantee
the security of online shopping transactions (i.e., with data authentication
certificates, cryptography, encryption, socket layers, trust marks, etc.). Online
store managers who cannot ofer all the necessary information will forfeit the
opportunity to achieve customer satisfaction. Managers without agreements
with delivery services if products are broken during the delivery, or if no party
is responsible for damage, will destroy customer satisfaction. There is a
growing agreement that, in e-retailing as in traditional retailing, satisfaction is
not just a key performance outcome or driver of consumers’ continuous
behaviour: it is also a major predictor of customer loyalty, and leads to an e-
retailer’s endurance and success. Thus website managers need to keep their
promises of timely delivery and secure online transactions, offer a wide variety
of products, and present quality information to meet or exceed online shoppers’
expectations. This is consistent with prior research studies (Anderson &
Srinivasan, 2003; D. J. Kim et al., 2009; M. Kim et al., 2011; Ribbink et al.,
2004), in that the results of this study show that an increase in customer
satisfaction positively affects customer loyalty. The unique contribution of this
study rests on the moderating effect of e-commerce experience on the impact of
product delivery on customer satisfaction and on customer satisfaction and
loyalty. In addition, managers need to know the confidence levels that
customers hold when purchasing from websites in South Africa. This is
important when aiming to develop satisfaction and to sustain enduring loyalty.
The study offers practical implications for e-marketers and online retailers. The
main finding of this study confirms the influence of delivery on customer
satisfaction, which in turn, influences the loyalty of online shoppers to a
website. The paper supports e-retailers by giving them insights into the
dynamics of the influence of various antecedents on customer satisfaction with
website-related services. It is apparent that customer satisfaction can be
increased by fast delivery times, including a range of delivery options that
convince customers about a company’s speed. As expected, an online store
must make precise deliveries at the correct times. Delivery had the highest
impact on customer satisfaction in this study, suggesting that managers should
ensure the delivery of the product in a good condition and within the stipulated
time. Collaborating with partners from several delivery courier services and
enabling customers to select their preferred service might be an excellent idea.
It is crucial routinely to monitor and react to the pricing and promotional
strategies of competitors without reducing the variety of products and/or brands,
and to maintain web-store design and servicedelivery efficiency. Various
delivery options, messages about the delivery’s status, and updates on delivery
times would enhance customer satisfaction. In addition to guaranteeing the
timeliness of delivery, protecting transaction security, offering a wide product
selection range, and presenting quality information on the website would
contribute to successful online shopping in South Africa. A website that
satisfies consumers’ information needs by presenting high quality information,
such as accurate updates on products and services information, helps its
consumers to make a choice. It would also be beneficial to link this information
to consumer safety tips for online purchases. Online shopping managers need to
understand how consumers evaluate their experience of online shopping. This
should be underpinned by a clear direction and implementation of various
online shopping attributes that are specifically tailored to meet the needs and
expectations of the targeted markets. As found in the present study, delivery,
followed by perceived security, product variety, and information quality, have a
significant and positive impact on online shoppers’ satisfaction, while
information quality and satisfaction are determinants of loyal behavioural
outcomes. E-retailers should maintain a consistent focus on timely delivery,
ensure the implementation and the regular tracking and upgrading of security
tools (such as cryptography, encryption, socket layers, and digital signatures) to
protect online transactions, and expand the variety of goods and services of the
highest quality. It is always beneficial to present accurate and relevant
information on e-retail sites. These interventions would increase the satisfaction
of South African online shoppers. Specifically, customers expect the delivery of
the correct products at the correct time. Customers might tolerate slower
financial transactions if such transactions accompanied strong security; but they
expect the accurate and prompt delivery of products. The effective
implementation of these values would improve customer satisfaction, which—
together with the quality information offered on the website—would build
strong customer loyalty to the website. The direct impact of delivery on
satisfaction, and that of satisfaction on loyalty, is strengthened by e-commerce
experience of more than five years. In general, satisfaction is a major
contributor to online customer loyalty in South Africa. 18. Limitations and
future research Given the nature of a cross-sectional study, the current study has
a few inherent limitations that need to be revisited in future studies. The data
was collected from online customers with a particular focus on measuring
perceptions relating to their preferred web stores in South Africa. To enlarge the
scope of the research and to cross-validate the results, it would be ideal to adopt
a multi-cultural research perspective. Future research could target other
geographic areas, measure consumers’ attitudes and emotions involved in online
shopping, and include other important factors that determine the demand for
online shopping. It would be interesting to measure consumers’ engagement and
perceived value in online purchasing and to understand their perceived risks,
purchasing culture, and views about privacy legislation on the safety of private
data, including service support before and after an online purchase. Owing to
the rapid growth of e-commerce globally, competition in online shopping has
intensified; thus future studies could account for the evolving trends of this
medium of transaction, and conduct longitudinal studies to measure the
important role of human–computer interactions to understand how to build
satisfaction, trust, and loyalty in online shopping. Important future scientific
directions could include examining causes and effects and a multi-group
analysis technique in SPSS PROCESS regression to assess the influence of
other moderators in the model, such as gender and spending, and to test their
influence on the dependent variable. Thus the current study has not examined
the model for mediation effects. Since switching to competitors is only a click
away, it would be beneficial to include measures that assess online shoppers’
attitudinal and behavioral loyalty against switching costs. The measurement
scales used in this study could be validated and assessed to verify their
reliability and to improve the generalisability of the results.

1. Introduction The rapid dissemination of information and communication

technologies (ICT) and particularly the massive adoption of the Internet in the
past decades have boosted the use of e-commerce as a distribution channel. The
growing role of e-commerce resulted in unprecedented structural changes in
many industries. These transformations are already generating a major
reorganization in the way some products are manufactured, marketed and
purchased, as exemplified by the travel and tourism or media industries. Today
business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce represents only a small segment of
total retail in most developed countries but it has been showing impressive
growth rates even during the recent economic downturn, auguring a rapid
expansion in the years to come. The expected benefits of e-commerce are
manifold. For consumers, it provides a useful and convenient platform to buy an
enlarged set of products and services from more vendors at presumably better
prices. Consumers can use search engines and price comparison sites, which
significantly reduce search costs, to find and compare many different offers for
the same product. In addition, electronic markets allow consumers to shop at
anytime from anywhere, avoiding the problem of opening hours, distance to
shop or availability of items. E-commerce also benefits firms by providing a
channel to better promote and distribute their products. Electronic markets
allow sellers to efficiently transfer relevant product information to potential
buyers, which reduce their search costs. Moreover, firms can use digital
technologies to increase product differentiation and soften price competition; to
differentiate themselves by superior interfaces with respect to competitors and
create switching costs. Furthermore, electronic-mediated transactions offer new
ways to gauge customer preferences more truthfully and hence to offer
opportunities for targeted advertising, personalised marketing, product
customisation and price discrimination. Hence, numerous reasons suggest that
ecommerce can positively affect social welfare, although the question of who
benefits more remains a matter of empirical analysis (Bakos, 2001). In March
2015, the European Commission recognized that e-commerce plays a critical
role for the economic integration of the European markets and called for
launching a sector inquiry into e-commerce with the aim to better understand
the nature of the barriers that obstruct online trade between EU Member States.
This inquiry poses a number of policy questions, some of which we try to
address in this paper. First, it is important to understand to which extent e-
commerce is considered as a substitute to traditional sales channels. Another
question relates to the impact of e-commerce on prices in traditional shops and
hence whether overall sales from the traditional channel are diverted to online
or whether there is a market expansion effect. As we discuss above, e-
commerce brings benefits for both consumers and producers but it has not yet
been shown who benefits more. Finally, as noted by the Commission, the
European market appears to be segmented due to existing barriers in purchases
of products online across borders. It is therefore important to assess whether the
online channel affects European market integration in that prices in both online
and traditional stores converge across countries. In this paper, we analyse the
above questions with a focus on three different consumer electronics products,
namely portable personal computers, portable media players and digital
cameras, which are sold online and offline in several European countries.1 We
estimate a differentiated products demand model for each 1 The sales of
consumer electronics in the EU offer an interesting case to study the effects of
the introduction of the online distribution channel. Consumer electronics is the
second product category separately, and obtain the implied price elasticities and
diversion ratios. Our estimates suggest that there is considerable substitution
between the online and traditional channel, but at the same time the online
channel also leads to total market expansion. We subsequently use the estimates
and the firms' firstorder conditions under the assumption of Bertrand-Nash
competition to simulate equilibrium prices in the absence of an online
distribution channel. We summarize our results in three main findings. First, we
consider the impact of the online channel on total sales. Although the
introduction of the online channel has not lead to lower prices in general, there
is a considerable positive effect on total sales because of increased convenience.
The online distribution channel swipes away some traditional sales but also
activates consumers who find the online channel more appealing. On average,
16.6% of online sales of portable computers, 36.1% of online sales of digital
cameras and 37.9% of sales of media players would be lost without the online
channel. Hence, e-commerce partly complements traditional sales and partly
replaces them. Second, we look at the relative gains from the online channel to
consumers and producers. We find that the increase in consumer surplus due to
the introduction of online sales is much larger than the increase in firms' profits
(about twice as large for portable media players, four times larger for digital
cameras and up to eight times larger for portable computers). These consumer
benefits are entirely due to the positive valuation of an additional distribution
channel and not due to increased competition, since almost all brands available
online are also present in traditional channel. Finally, we use our model to
investigate whether the introduction of the online sales channel reduced price
dispersion in the selected European countries. We find that the international
price differences are larger in the traditional channel than online (for products
which are sold in both channels). However, there is still substantial market
segmentation in the online channel between the EU countries. Furthermore, the
introduction of the online channel did not influence price levels and price
dispersion in the traditional channel. We conclude that the online channel has so
far not led to an improvement in market integration in the traditional channel.
Our paper contributes to the literature on the effects of the diffusion of e-
commerce and electronic markets in general. There is a large body of literature
analysing the effects of the Internet on pricing and sales of different products
based on reduced form models. However, to the best of our knowledge there are
no empirical papers which use a structural model of differentiated demand and
supply to analyse how the diffusion of e-commerce has influenced market
equilibrium outcomes and welfare. The early literature on the effects of e-
commerce focused almost exclusively on studying prices and price dispersion.
The initial empirical evidence showed that Internet markets did not exhibit
smaller price dispersion than traditional markets (see Pan et. al., 2004 for a
review of the early literature). More recent empirical evidence, however, tends
to point to lower price dispersion online than in the traditional channel. Still,
substantial online price differences persist (Duch-Brown and Martens, 2014).
There is also an ongoing debate on the effects of e-commerce on market
structure and welfare. Some empirical papers deal with competition effects
(Goolsbee, 2001; Hackl et al., 2014); others focus on the analysis of the largest
industry in e-commerce –just behind apparel and footwear- representing around
15% of total online sales in the EU as of 2014 (Duch-Brown and Martens,
2015). The three different product categories used in this study represent 30%
of consumer electronics sales. Obviously, there are large differences between
Member States. complementarity or substitutability of the online channel
(Prince, 2007; Pozzi, 2013). Less abundant is the literature on the welfare
effects of e-commerce (Gentzkow, 2007; Ellison and Ellison, 2014). Also, there
are limited contributions regarding international online price differences (Duch-
Brown and Martens, 2014; Gorodnichenko and Talavera, 2014) and European
integration (Duch-Brown and Martens, 2015). The remainder of the paper is
organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the data used in the estimation and
shows some descriptive statistics. Section 3 introduces the econometric
framework. Section 4 presents the estimation results and discusses the different
questions we pointed out above. Finally, Section 5 concludes. 2. Data We use
data from GfK Retail and Technology which contains price and sales
information on three different types of consumer electronics products in several
EU countries: digital cameras, portable media players and mobile personal
computers. The data comes from a representative number of traditional and
online retailers and was collected during the period between April 2008 and
March 2009. The unit of observation is described by two identifiers: brand and
model, which can be sold online or in traditional channel. The first identifier
corresponds to brands such as Canon or Nikon for digital cameras, Apple or
Creative for portable media players, and Acer or Sony for mobile personal
computers. The second identifier corresponds to models, for instance in the case
of mobile computers Acer offers the Aspire 8920G model or the Travelmate
7720G one. The original data consists of 47,149 observations on models of
mobile portable computers, 24,939 of digital cameras and 17,952 of portable
media players, which are sold online and/or offline in different EU countries.
Since the vast majority of models has very small sales we drop 25% of models
with the smallest sales, which in any case represent only about 0.15% of sales of
portable computers in terms of units, 0.1% of sales of digital cameras and 0.1%
of sales of portable media players. The number of observations is then reduced
to 35,253 for portable computers, 18,689 for digital cameras and 13,394 for
portable media players. Furthermore, we drop observations for unbranded
products and a number of brands with small sales. In the data there is a large
price variation and there are many niche products in each category with very
low prices and quality or with very high prices and quality. We further removed
observations from the top and bottom 5% of the price distribution. The purpose
for this trimming is to focus on the brands and products which are at the core of
consumer demand and competition. As shown in Table A.1, the final data set
consists of 28,173 observations for portable computers, 15,916 observations for
digital cameras and 6,458 observations for portable media players, where an
observation is a model sold either online or offline in a particular European
country. These observations represent about 80% of sales in terms of units in
the original data.2 Some of the models are sold both online and offline, while
others are available in only one of the sale channels. The majority of
manufacturers use both sales channels to distribute their products, but their
strategies differ. Although the vast majority of sales are done in specialist retail
stores, the share of non-store retail increased significantly since the early 2000s.
Of course, the majority of non-store retail is done over the Internet, which
reached over 70% of non-store retail in 2009. The most striking example is
Apple, which dominates in the European market for portable media players with
a share in the online market of above 70%, while its closest competitor has only
7%. However, in the majority of cases the data reveal that there is no primary
channel for retail distribution. Unfortunately, we cannot go beyond the
breakdown into online and offline sale channels. A more detailed division of
retail channels could shed more light on a richer set of retailing strategies. Table
A.2 reports the descriptive statistics of the variables used in this study by
product category. The number of non-price product characteristics used in our
empirical model varies by product, ranging from 6 in the case of digital cameras
to 19 for portable computers. We consider these product characteristics as the
most relevant determinants of consumers' indirect utility (in addition to price).
The other 2 Besides, the original data covers -according to the provider- around
80% of the total EU market for the products considered. Hence, the coverage of
the market is substantial. variables used in the empirical model are, as explained
in the next section, the market shares as a fraction of the whole market and as a
fraction of specified market segments. 3. Model In this section we describe the
model used to analyse the impact of the online distribution channel on demand,
prices and consumer and producer surplus. We first describe the demand model
and then explain the supply side market. 3.1 Demand We consider the demand
for three electronic products: digital cameras, portable media players and
mobile personal computers. Consumers can choose among a large variety of
products that are differentiated in quality. Furthermore, consumers can either
purchase these electronic products in a traditional brick-and-mortar shop
(offline) or they can purchase the products through an online distribution
channel. Finally, consumers can also decide not to buy an electronic product at
all, in which case they can spend their money on other goods. To model the
substitution patterns, we specify a two-level nested logit model which allows for
market segmentation according to two discrete dimensions: quality, which can
be either high or low, and the distribution channel, which is either offline or
online. More precisely, the nested model can be described as follows. In a
country c there are Lc potential consumers. Each consumer i in a country c can
choose among Jc differentiated products, where a "product" refers to the
combination of the electronic product and the distribution channel. Note that not
every electronic product is necessarily sold through both the offline and the
online channel. The choice set is divided into different groups or nests g, which
refers to (at least) two quality categories and one remaining category for the
outside good. Each group (except the outside good category) is further divided
in subgroups h of g. These subgroups refer to the distribution channel within the
quality category. For example, in the case of mobile personal computers, the
groups are categories of random access memory (RAM), and the subgroups
indicate the offline or online sales channel within each quality category. A
consumer i in country c has the following indirect utility for product j: ⏟ (1) The
first part, , is the mean utility for product j in country c. For the outside good,
j=0, we normalize the mean utility to zero, . For the other goods, the mean
utility depends on a vector of observed product characteristics (such as the
speed or memory in case of mobile personal consumers), on the price of product
j in country c, , and on an unobserved quality term . The second part is the
individual specific-deviation of utility around that mean, modeled as a weighted
sum of three random variables: is a common valuation across products in the
same group g, indicates a common valuation for all products in the same
subgroup h of g, while is an individual-specific valuation for product j. The
random variable is i.i.d. extreme value, and and have a distribution such that the
appropriate sums are i.i.d. extreme value (see Cardell, 1997). The nesting
parameters σ₁ and σ₂ (with 0≤σ₂ ≤σ₁ ≤1) measure the degree of preference
correlation for products of the same subgroup and group. At one extreme, if
σ₁ =1, consumers perceive all products of the same subgroup as perfect
substitutes. If in addition σ₂ =1, consumers view all products of the same group
as perfect substitutes. At the other extreme, if σ₁ =σ₂ =0, there is not preference
correlation within subgroups and groups. The model then simplifies to a simple
logit model and consumers consider all products as symmetric substitutes.

E-COMMERCE
E-commerce is a change in paradigm. The basic development of the modern
way of doing business is a "disruptive" breakthrough.
Electronic commerce is an enterprise model that allows a company or entity to
operate on the electronic network or a part of a broader business model. E-
commerce means the purchasing and sale through an electronic network, in
particular through Internet of products and services or the transfer of funds or
documents. These transactions include corporate, business-to-consumer,
consumer-to-commercial or consumer-to-commercial transactions. The
expression etail is used in relation to online shopping purchase procedures.
Electronic data interchange, EDI, File Transfer Protocol and Web Servers are
used to manage the e-commerce utilising a range of technologies such as e-mail,
fax, online catalogues and shopping carts. It can be used by means of a
catalogue as a more sophisticated method of postal purchase. E-commerce is the
industry trend on the global web. In all industry fields, from customer support to
new product creation, the implications of e-commerce are now evident. It has
the ability to meet and communicate with consumers, such as internet ads,
advertisement, ordering and online customer support in digital knowledge
business processes.
Recent times have seen an increase in the number of e-commerce firms. In
addition, leading Indian websites have moved to e-commerce rather than
advertisement sales. Many websites also offer a variety of goods and services
from roses, greeting cards and movie tickets to foodstuffs, mobile devices, etc.
ADVANTAGES OF E-COMMERCE
In terms of the accessibility of goods, e-commerce offers consumers different
benefits at reduced costs, provides more opportunities and often saves time.
People may buy goods without leaving from their home or workplace by using a
mouse tick. Even internet applications such as money transfers, e-ticketing,
hotel reservations, payments etc. have been of great benefit to customers. The
Indian eGifts portals and shopping pages often have goods and a variety of
groups including male and female apparel and accessories, home-use items,
books and magazines, PCs and peripherals, vehicles.
REASONS BEHIND THE GROWTH OF E–COMMERCE
Busy Lifestyle:
The lives of people are so fast that they cannot travel to the swarmed retail
markets every day. People just want to shop in a comfortable environment.
High Disposable Income:
With increased employment opportunities the income has become higher and
thus giving more spending power to individuals. Thus they are energetically
ready to pay for the items on internet.Awareness of Products:
These days’ people are much more of the new products, their specifications,
costs etc through the assistance of media like TV, radio, news paper etc. So they
shop online with confidence.
Rising Computer Educational Level:
Computer education is moving into new skylines because of the efforts of
government and educational institutions in India. People have a greater
understanding of programming tools and applications. Not only urban students,
but also rural people and housewives as well as professionals are also drawn to
e-commerce and e-business technologies. Consequently, there is an
unbelievable demand in new products [Jain and Kapoor, 2012].
Increased Usage of Internet:
There are currently over 100 million internet subscribers. In reality, these
fundamental Web consumers have begun to become Web clients in the last few
years through sophisticated Internet travel operators, thereby increasing the
domination of the ecommerce sector.
KEY DRIVERS IN INDIAN E-COMMERCE ARE
• The big percentage of subscribers populace to wireless Internet, 3G internet
connections are on the rise and 4G has been recently launched across the whole
world.
• Smartphone devices have explosive development and will eventually be the
second biggest smartphone consumer base in the world.
• Because of a rapid decrease in poverty, the living conditions are rising.
• The availability in comparison with what is found in brick and mortar stores
with a significantly broader commodity spectrum (including long tail and direct
imports).
• Competitive price comparing disintermediation-driven brick and mortar store
and lowered inventory and property costs.
• Increased use of online classified pages, with increased purchase and sale of
products by consumers
• A Million-dollar start-up evolution, such as Jabong.com, Saavn, Makemytrip,
Bookmy Show, Zomato Etc.
India's retail demand is expected to hit $470 billion by 2011 and will grow by
2016 to $675 trillion. The e-commerce industry in India, according to Forrester,
will grow as quickly as possible in the Asia-Pacific region at a CAGR of more
than 57 per cent between 2012 and 2016. India has a web presence of around
354 million as of June 2015. If China alone (650 million, 48 percent of the
population) is the second biggest consumer base in the world, the penetration of
e-commerce is poor relative to markets such as the United States (266 million,
84%) or France (54 million, 81%). The opinion in the sector is that development
is at an intersection. The most common payment form in India is cash on
arrival, which accounts for 75% of e-detail operations. As supplies from
licenced and e-commerce distributors in the country increase, demand for
foreign consumer goods (in particular long-day items) is even more rapid.
Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon India and Paytm are India's largest e-commerce
players.