A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SELECTED ONLINE SHOPPING WEBSITES FROM CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE IN THE CITY OF AHMEDABAD.

Abstract

Due to the sharp growth in the number of people using internet, online shopping in India also has taken a sharp shoot with increasing trend. Educated people specially who are working in the private sector and are time scarce; prefer to shop online for various reasons. A study conducted by BCG suggests that during the year 2013; out of 1220 million Indians, 169 million Indians were active internet users. The study indicates that by the year 2018 this figure of internet users will shoot up and reach up to 583 million. The popularity of the online shopping trend gave an idea of undertaking this research work to know the preference of people to shop from the three popular shopping websites i.e. Amazon.com, Flipkart.com, Snapdeal.com; one Global Company and two Indian Companies. Wherein, the „convenience‟ sample of 100 internet users in the age group of 18 to 40 years from Ahmedabad city was chosen. A structured questionnaire was given to each one of them to know the preference of website in the city of Ahmedabad along-with the personal interviews. Descriptive research design was used to know the preferences. The findings revealed that majority of the male as well as female internet users preferred Amazon.com (55%) following Flipkart.com (32%) on the various attributes, factors or services offered by these websites. Amazon topped among the three, on variables like: best payment options for all the products, wide range of products, quality products, variety of products. Flipkart was considered as having the best customer care services among the three and Snapdeal was considered as offering the good packaging. The suggestions from the respondents were that all the companies should display original products, offer better product return policies and provide full and actual product description.