School of Commerce

and
Management Studies
CIA 4 (Research )
Topic : E-commerce
Class : B. B. A. – (Section: A)
Subject : E-commerce
Written By : Vighnesh sohoni
PRN : 180102011006
Guided By : prof.sharad patil

Abstract

E-commerce is a boom in the modern business. E-commerce means electronic commerce.

Ecommerce (Electronic commerce) involves buying and selling of goods and services, or the
transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, predominantly the Internet.
E-commerce (Electronic commerce) is a paradigm shift influencing both marketers and the
customers. Rather e-commerce is more than just another way to boost the existing business
practices. It is leading a complete change in traditional way of doing business. This significant
change in business model is witnessing a tremendous growth around the globe and India is not an
exception. A massive internet penetration has added to growth of E-commerce and more
particularly start-ups have been increasingly using this option as a differentiating business model.

Moreover E-Commerce has significant influences on the environment. Although the model is
highly used in current business scenario but the option has not been explored at its fullest.

The current research has been undertaken to describe the scenario of E-Commerce, analyze the
trends of E-Commerce. The study further examines the key variables imperative for the success
of E-commerce business models.

Objective:

The objectives of present study are:

1. To understand the present status and trends of E-Commerce; and
2. To reveal the key variables influencing the increased usage of E-Commerce.
Key Words:

E-Commerce, Internet, Self-service, Technology, Internet banking.

What is E-Commerce?
E-commerce means electronic commerce. It means dealing in goods and services through the
electronic media and internet. E-commerce involves carrying on a business with the help of the
internet and by using the information technology like Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
ECommerce relates to a website of the vendor on the Internet, who trades products or services
directly to the customer from the portal. The portal uses a digital shopping cart or digital
shopping basket system and allows payment through credit card, debit card or EFT (Electronic
fund transfer) payments.

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A more complete definition is: E-commerce is the use of electronic communications and digital
information processing technology in business transactions to create, transform, and redefine
relationships for value creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and
individuals (C. Nisha and G. Sangeeta, 2012).

The main types of electronic commerce are: business-to-business (B2B); business to- consumer
(B2C); business-to-government (B2G); consumer-to-consumer (C2C); and mobile commerce
(mcommerce).

E-Commerce Facilitators:
(1) Internet:
A massive internet penetration has added to growth of E-commerce. Internet and smart phones
are becoming an integral part of every life. Internet is no more a source of information but has
become an important tool for shopping, learning, communicating and even getting service from
plumbers, carpenters, doctors etc. Supply chain is also becoming leaner and smarter as digital
platforms are helping to better connect with the customers which significantly reduces the waste
and supporting to green businesses.

Over the past 15 years the ICT revolution has driven global development in an unprecedented
way. With an immense progress in technology, internet and its services have led to creation of
new markets (D’silva et al., 2010).
The internet user population was small during the 1980s, experiencing a slow but steady growth
until 1994 due to an increasing number of text-based users (eg, those using email and file transfer
functions).Then, with the introduction of the World Wide Web and subsequent multimedia
content expansion, the number of net users exploded. Infact, the internet has grown much more
quickly than any other medium in history (Strauss et al., 2007).
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a United Nations body, recently predicted in
2015 that 3.2 billion people will be online. The population in May 2015 stood at 7.2 billion. In
the year 2000 there were just 400 million internet users worldwide.
Internet in India took more than a decade to move from 10 million to 100 million and 3 years
from 100 to 200 million, it took only a year to move from 300 to 400 million users. Clearly,
Internet is mainstream in India today. This number is expected to further surge to 462 million by
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June this year as more people come online, especially through their mobile devices. The total
Internet user base stood at over 300 million in December 2014, which grew to 375 million by
October last year. Currently, India has the second largest Internet user base in the world recently
overtaking the US (now the third largest user base). China currently leads with more than 600
million Internet users. Mobile Internet user base in 2015 in urban India has grown 65 per cent
over 2014 to reach 197 million, while the rural user base surged 99 per cent to 80 million by
October 2015. This is expected to grow to 219 million (urban) and 87 million (rural),
respectively (IAMAI and IMRB, 2015).
(2) Payment Gateways:
A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes credit
card payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar.
The life blood of online business is the payment routes which comprises credit card, debit card,
online banking payments, electronic funds transfer. The world is transforming from cash to
digital money and thus there is a need of payment gateways for sustainable future ecommerce.

(3) Analytics:
Analytics is the scientific process of transforming data into insight for making better decisions.
Analytics helps businesses to gather, organize, analyze, and report on everything their customers
do. The massive increase in the volume of data has forced the businesses to focus on analytics to
understand the behavior of the customer. E-tailor need to have real time access to information to
measure return on online investments and optimize the channel mix. There are basic analytics
capabilities available with the ecommerce players like basket size analysis, average order value,
conversion ratio but we need deeper analytics solution for actionable insights of the consumer.

(4) Social Media

Businesses are increasingly making use of social media in order to market their goods and
services. Social media refers to websites and computer programs that allow people to
communicate and share information on the internet using a computer or mobile phone.
Social media has played a great role in brand building and informing various offers to the
customers. It also helps in getting the feedback about the product or service. It provides a
platform for brand building, advertisements, developing a community of trusted users, spreading
word of mouth etc.

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(5) Autonomous Vehicles
An autonomous vehicle is a motor vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global
positioning system, coordinates to drive itself without the active intervention of a human
operator.
The age of the autonomous car is coming, and it’s coming fast. Purchasers of autonomous
vehicles will have more time to view emails, search the web, buy new products, and see
advertisements all around them. With autonomous cars, vast digital marketing experience will
present itself. These purchases and search patterns can be tracked to help companies tailor their
marketing campaign to capture this new segment.
The scope of big data just got much bigger, but will become so tailored and predictive in the
years to come that we may never have to manually adjust anything again.

(6) 3D Printing
A 3D printer is a device that's capable of making a three-dimensional object from a digital
design. It uses something called "additive manufacturing" -- a layered process that bears some
similarity to the way an ink-jet printer sequentially layers its colors on a flat piece of paper.
It is expected that 3D printing, might one day blow away manufacturing of the kind we've been
used to since the Industrial Revolution shook up agrarian life in the early 19th century. 3D
printing is creating a market in designs that are meant to be printed by the buyer -- or a third-
party manufacturer unrelated to the designer. The end product isn't sold -- it's the design that's
sold, along with a license for it to be printed. Buried in corners of the Internet are marketplaces
where budding designers are selling their plans for printing at home or in the workplace.
Customers can use their own printers or they can buy the design and have it printed on the
marketplace's printer and then delivered.

E-Commerce Trends -A New Business Revolution in India:

E-commerce is a boom in the modern business. It is a paradigm shift influencing both marketers
and the customers. Rather e-commerce is more than just another way to boost the existing
business practices. It is leading a complete change in traditional way of doing business. This
significant change in business model is witnessing a tremendous growth around the globe and
India is not an exception. Moreover, E-Commerce has every potential to curb the pollution and
thus producing significant influences on the environment.
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Buying goods and services via E-Commerce allows consumers the freedom to choose when and
where to shop and the opportunity to research the product, the seller, and any other available
options. Shopping has been revolutionized through the availability of online information. Just
about anything that can be bought in a merchandise store can be bought via E-commerce, even
perishables like groceries. And consumers have embraced these possibilities around the globe.

The effects of e-commerce are already appearing in all areas of business, from customer service
to new product design. It facilitates new types of information based business processes for
reaching and interacting with customers like online advertising and marketing, online order
taking and online customer service. In now days E-commerce uses the WWW at least some point
in transaction lifecycle. It can also reduce costs in managing orders and interacting with a wide
range of suppliers and trading partners, areas that typically add significant overheads to the cost
of products and services. For developing countries like India, e-commerce offers considerable
opportunity. In India it is still in nascent stage, but even the most-pessimistic projections indicate
a boom. There has been a rise in the number of companies' taking up e-commerce in the recent
past. Major Indian portal sites have also shifted towards e-commerce instead of depending on
advertising revenue. Many sites are now selling a diverse range of products and services from
flowers, greeting cards, and movie tickets to groceries, electronic gadgets, and computers, etc.
(Mitra Abhijit, 2013). E-commerce has reached to an extent that the cow dung patties are also
selling like hot cakes online in India.
India’s e-commerce market is likely to touch $38 billion mark in 2016, a massive jump over the
$23 billion revenues clocked by the industry in 2015, according to an Assocham study.
Increasing internet and mobile penetration, growing acceptability of online payments and
favourable demographics have provided the unique opportunity to companies to connect with
their customers. On the other hand, mobile commerce (m-commerce) is growing rapidly as a
stable and secure supplement to the e-commerce industry. Shopping online through smartphones
is proving to be a game changer. It is believed that m-commerce could contribute up to 70 per
cent of their total revenues.

Underlying Factors in E-Commerce :

ASSOCHAM Study (2015) found the highest growth rate in the apparel segment, almost 69.5 per
cent over 2014, followed by electronic items, up 62 per cent, baby care products, up 53 per cent,

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beauty and personal care products at 52 per cent and home furnishings at 49 per cent. Rapid
growth of digital commerce in India is mainly due to increased use of smartphones. Mobiles and
mobile accessories have taken up the maximum share of the digital commerce market in India,
noted the study. Moreover, almost 45 per cent online shoppers reportedly preferred cash on
delivery over credit cards (16 per cent) and debit cards (21 per cent). Only 10 per cent opted for
internet banking and a scanty 7 per cent preferred cash cards, mobile wallets, and other such
modes of payment. The 18-25 years of age group has been the fastest growing age segment
online with user growth being contributed by both male and female segments. The survey
highlights that 38 per cent of regular shoppers are in 18-25 age group, 52 per cent in 26-35, 8 per
cent in 36-45 and 2 per cent in the age group of 45-60. Nearly 65 per cent online shoppers are
male and 35 per cent female.

Mitra Abhijit (2013) suggests E-Commerce has unleashed yet another revolution, which
is changing the way businesses buy and sell products and services. New methodologies have
evolved. The role of geographic distances in forming business relationships is reduced. E-
Commerce is the future of shopping. With the deployment of 3G and 4G wireless communication
technologies, the internet economy will continue to grow robustly. In the next 3 to 5 years, India
will have 30 to 70 million internet users which will equal, if not surpass, many of the developed
countries. Internet economy will then become more meaningful in India. With the rapid
expansion of internet, Ecommerce is set to play a very important role in the 21st century, the
new opportunities that will be thrown open, will be accessible to both large corporations and
small companies. The role of government is to provide a legal framework for E-Commerce so
that while domestic and international trade are allowed to expand their horizons, basic rights such
as privacy, intellectual property, prevention of fraud, consumer protection etc are all taken care
of.
Chanana Nisha and Goele Sangeeta (2012) propose that the future of E-Commerce is
difficult to predict. There are various segments that would grow in the future like: Travel and
Tourism, electronic appliances, hardware products and apparel. There are also some essential
factors which will significantly contribute to the boom of the E-Commerce industry in India i.e.
replacement guarantee, M-Commerce services, location based services, multiple payment option,
right content, shipment option, legal requirement of generating invoices for online transactions,
quick Service, T & C should be clear & realistic, the product quality should be same as shown on
the portal, dedicated 24/7 customer care centre should be there.

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 Awais Muhammad and Samin Tanzila (2012) indicate that use of internet has made the
world a global village. The use of Internet has reduced the distances and brought the people
together. A nation’s back bone is commerce and it will be strengthened if backed by electronic
tools in which e-commerce plays a vital role. The important feature in ecommerce is privacy
which not only increases competitive advantage but confidence level also. E-commerce brings
sellers and potential buyers at the distance of one click and it saves time as it is cost effective, as
E-commerce is becoming key to success
Internet banking, one among the innovative and significant internet based services has
experienced explosive growth and led to transformation of traditional banking practice. Online
banking or net banking in today’s dynamic age of banking has made things much easier for the
people and saves a lot of time for its customers. The traditional way of standing in the queues and
filling up all the forms are well solved and now it is no hassle for making any transaction with
the banks by virtue of internet banking. The financial institutions which operated traditionally are
now able to lower their operational costs and increase the consumer retention by virtue of
technology.
Internet banking as a latest and potential means for banking now holds a similar importance as
that of ATM’s, phone banking and traditional bank branches. The works by ABA, 2004; Fox,
2005 suggest that an internet banking strategy may be effective, with reports of more profitable,
loyal and committed consumers compared with traditional banking consumers (D’silva et al.,
2010).
Dutta and Dutta, (2009) found tangibles have the highest impact on overall customer
satisfaction. The largest discrepancy between the customer expectations and perceptions is in
terms of empathy which includes Bank locations and ATM machines in convenient places and
telebanking and internet banking facility. The study regards this a major source of concern for
Indian banking industry as a huge service quality gap exists for all the banks in this category.
Kumar and Rajesh (2009) suggest that the facilities of the banks should be made more
convenient for customer comforts. The ATM services should be extended with few more cabins.
The work also concludes that with sincere efforts and positive attitude, the needs of many
customers can be satisfied when banks aim at ‘customer delight’.

Blasio (2008), in his study does not find the support for the argument that the Internet
reduces the role of distance. Internet usage is much more frequent among urban consumers than
among their non-urban counterparts. The use of e-commerce is basically unaffected by the size of
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the city where the household lives. Geographically remote consumers are discouraged from
purchasing goods by the fact that they cannot inspect them beforehand. Leisure activities and
cultural items (i.e., books, CDs, and tickets for museums and theaters) are the only goods and
services for which e-commerce is used more in isolated areas. Finally, e-banking bears no
relationship to city size. In choosing a bank, non-urban customers give more importance to
personal acquaintance than do urban clients, partly because bank account holders in remote areas
are more likely to have taken out a loan from their bank.

Ozok et al (2007) identified ten items contributing to overall consistency in e-commerce

customer relationship management. These items are consistency of transaction steps, consistency
of Web site design, consistency of navigation, consistency of promotions, consistency of in-stock
indications, consistency of product variety, consistency of fraud protection, consistency of
product guarantees, consistency of overall site fairness, and consistency of return policies. This
list of consistency items includes three usability items. It can be concluded that sites with good
usability have a better chance of having successful CRM implementation in their business.
Consistency of promotions, in-stock indications, product variety, fraud protection, guarantees,
fairness, and return policies indicate mainly that customers in fact demand a high level of
security-related information as well as trustworthiness and high ethics on the shopping site to
become regular customers of evendors. Customers demand equal and consistent treatment
concerning products and productrelated services. The findings indicate that the level of security
and guarantees presented to customers has a significant positive effect on customer retention and
customer acquisition.

Singh and Lalwani (2007) in their work on internet banking suggest that internet banking
has facilitated the banking relationships with the customers . It is now widely accepted in the
country because of the fact that it is the cheapest source of providing banking services. As more
and more banks will succeed in online banking, a day will come when it will reach a common
place as ATM’s. It has not only increased the banking transactions but also has reduced the time
and cost factor. It has brought revolution in the banking industry.
Rust and Chung, (2006) suggests to know not just what customers do in any particular
ecommerce contact but also what they do (and how they perceive and feel) across multiple
contacts. The work also suggests to investigate the kinds of online services that promote growth
of the customer relationship, and the most effective ways to combine the online relationship with

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the offline relationship, with the idea that the full relationship with the customer is not complete
without considering both online and offline, as well as how they interact.

Hsieh (2005) examined what a firm should consider in order to encourage customers to
at least try, and eventually adopt, the SST offered by a firm into the customer's regular routine.
The result suggests that before a firm makes the leap into adding SST to their product/service
line, they need to invest the time in seeing if they are ready themselves. Customers want what
they have always wanted. They want reliable, affordable, quality service that is convenient and
easy to acquire. If firm can't provide an SST that is at least as reliable, if not more so, than no-
technology customer service, then firms isn't prepared to properly implement SST.

Devashish Pujari, (2004) explored the issues relating to service recovery in case of SST
failure and effects of favorable/ unfavorable SST encounters on business relationships. The key
findings of the study show that key sources of satisfaction are different for B2B clients than for
end consumers, as evidenced in previous studies by Meuter et al. (2000) and Srijumpa et al.
(2002). The study shows that in the event of SST failures, service recovery is very critical to
clients. In a situation where service personnel are not involved in the service encounter, clients
needs a quick and complete recovery after reporting the failure. Clients may also expect that SST
delivery should have the capability to transmit the failure to their service provider on a real time
basis. The results of this study also echo that satisfying SST incidents will lead to future
behaviors such as word of mouth and repurchase intentions.

Snellman and Vihtkari, (2003) in their study reveal that, in general, failures are very
common in both, interpersonal service encounters and technology-based service encounters. In
interpersonal service encounters, unfriendly or impolite service and time-related aspects are the
most common causes for dissatisfaction. On the other hand, dissatisfaction in technology-based
encounters is often related to failures in technology, service design or in the service process.

Chou and Chou (2000) reveal that with the astonishing growth of electronic commerce,
banks around the world now see a huge potential market for internet banking. In order to provide
efficient services to its customers, a bank needs to design and implement a robust internet
system. Several technological issues must be considered before adapting to a specific internet
environment, including network technologies, platform and standards, scalability, security and
intelligent software agents. In order to meet the needs of global business communities, the
banking industry needs to carefully select suitable networking technologies to serve the internet

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market. As banks select electronic commerce as one of their mission-critical business processes,
managing risk and liability become important. Internet security is always a major concern in a
digital economy; it involves the application of both technical and nontechnical practices. The
non-technical ways of pursuing security on the internet include formulating a corporate security
policy and educating and training users about that policy. On the other hand, major technical
measures consist of access controls, authentication, encryption, firewalls, audit, antivirus tools,
and self-assessment tools. The bank needs to select suitable security tools and policy to protect
itself and its customers. Specific security policy can be posted on the website for user’s
reference.

Conclusions:

A developing country may well attempt to be modernized if it introduces e-commerce effectively

and efficiently. It will improve its output and lead to its competitive advantage. Information
Technology (IT) has uplifted ecommerce worldwide. Now it’s at ease to enter to a new market
and marketers’ can easily evaluate their product and company’s performance.

A growing number of firms in various industries, such as banking, education, commerce, and
tourism, etc. have improved their services by both incorporating technologies into their service
delivery process. Integration of technology in services is becoming very common; however, very
little academic research has been conducted to examine its influence. The issues related to
Ecommerce are also on the rise which is posing serious threat to its tall future and hence
demands right strategies on part of marketers.

The research works on E-commerce propose good number of variables to be taken care of
if marketers need to be successful in this newly business model. The factors which will
significantly contribute to the success of the E-Commerce industry and focused upon should be
consistency of transaction steps, consistency of Web site design, replacement guarantee,
MCommerce services, consistency of promotions, consistency of in-stock indications,
consistency of product variety, location based services, multiple payment option, right content,
shipment option, legal requirement of generating invoices for online transactions, quick Service,
T & C should be clear & realistic, the product quality should be same as shown on the portal. The
important feature in ecommerce is privacy which not only increases competitive advantage but

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confidence level of the customers. The researches also suggest 18-35 as the good customer age to
be promising and to be targeted irrespective of gender for better results.

Social media may be a boon for brands and marketers looking to reach target buyers
without wasting big bucks on traditional media, but luxury brands have recently found it
challenging as unauthorised sellers are luring buyers, most of who fall in to the temptation of
getting discounts of up to 50-70% have cropped up using platforms like Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter and WatsApp. Firms must closely monitor such accounts and spend money on legal
checks controls.

In a marketplace model, the ecommerce firm provides just the technology platform while
sellers on the site own the inventory. Most E-commerce companies have call centres to connect
with customers, the pressing need is the initiative to set up call centres to deal exclusively with
merchants as increasing the number of sellers in a marketplace becomes the next battlefront in
the E-Commerce. The need is 24/7 call centres should be dedicated.

The e-commerce industry participants must also understand and address the cultural
issues that are unique to the target country and relate to off-site transactional process, the large
scale diffusion and success of such endeavors will be greatly impeded. E-Commerce firms must
also find most effective ways to combine the online relationship with the offline relationship,
with the idea that the full relationship with the customer is not complete without considering both
online and offline, as well as how they interact.

The governments should offer a level field to its E-commerce firms to allow the country’s
significant development. The thrust on E-Commerce should be to offer a legal framework so that
while domestic and international trade are allowed to expand their horizons, basic rights such as
consumer protection, privacy, intellectual property, prevention of fraud, etc are highly protected.
The banks also need to select suitable security tools and policy to protect itself and its customers.

E-Commerce is a boon for any country- if given right impetus and good environmental
framework to prosper can significantly lead to country’s progress and development.

Implications for Researchers:

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Our study, being conceptual in nature, raises a number of opportunities for future research, both
in terms of theory development and concept validation. More empirical research will in fact be
necessary to refine and further elaborate findings in the area of ecommerce.
The study is an eye opener for the researchers who have ample interest in E-commerce.
This review paper will offer them the leads towards the better understanding of the key variables
of the recent E-commerce platform that is revolutionizing the business.

References:
Awais Muhammad and Samin Tanzila (2012), “Advanced SWOT Analysis of E-
Commerce”, IJCSI International Journal of Computer science Issues, Vol 9,Issue 2,No 2,pp. 569-
574

Blasio,G.,D. (2008), “Urban–Rural Differences in Internet Usage, e-Commerce, and e-

Banking: Evidence from Italy”, Growth and Change, 39.2 , pp. 341–367

Chanana Nisha and Goele Sangeeta, “Future of e-commerce in India”, International

Journal of Computing & Business Research, ISSN (Online): 2229-6166

Chou,D.,C. and Chou,A.,Y. (2000), “The E-Commerce Revolution, A Guide to the

Internet Revolution in Banking” information systems management,pp.51-57

D’silva,B., D’Silva,S., and Bhuptani,R.,S.,K.(2010), “Behavioral Aspect of Teenagers

Towards Internet Banking: An empirical study”, Indian journal of marketing, 40.10, pp.44-53

Devashis pujari (2004) "Self service with a smile?: Self service technology (SST)
encounters among Canadian business to business", International Journal of Service Industry
Management, Vol. 15 Iss: 2, pp.200 - 219

Dutta and Dutta (2009) “A Study on Customer Perception towards HDFC Limited”
International Journal of Management Sciences and Business Research Volume 2, Issue 4- ISSN
(2226-8235)

Hsieh,C. (2005), “Implementing Self-Service Technology To Gain Competitive

Advantages” Communications of the IIMA,5.1,pp.77-83

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 India to surpass US with 402 million Internet by 2016: IAMAI,(2015,Nov. 20) The Indian
Express. Retrieved from http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-
technology/indiato-have-402-mn-internet-users-by-dec-2015-will-surpass-us-iamai-report/

India’s e-commerce revenue may touch $38 bn in 2016: Assocham, (2016, January 2), –
The Indian Express. Retrieved from http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-
newstechnology/indias-e-commerce-revenue-may-touch-38-bn-in-2016-assocham/

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