Subject: E-Commerce

Project Report
Shopping Comparison:Water
Purifiers

Eshaan Nayar Rajat Vatsyayan

Roll No. 08 Roll No. -14
Executive Summary

The project aims to explore and research the current scenario of e commerce as experienced by the
shopper. We have taken the product- Water Purifiers. It is a basic necessity of every home and
hence present on every shopping website. For the project we visited 4 retail stores that sell water
purifiers-Muni Lal Bhishan Swaroop Store,Laxmi crockery House,Shri Vardhman Traders,Atul
Electricals and 3 E- commerce websites: Amazon,Snapdeal,Flipkart and checked for Water purifiers
from 4 companies:Kent,Pure-it,Aquaguard,Prestige.

Comparison of the shopping experiences of: Retail store vs Retail store, Website Vs Website and
Website vs retail stores on following parameters: Pricing, Functionality, User-experience, Overall
Value reveals the customer preferences and the effectiveness of all alternatives to the customer. We
have also explored all the alternatives available to the potential buyer of this product. We have also
tried to find the shortcomings of both the options: Offline and Online, the users of these options and
why e-commerce is yet not a fully grown shopping option.

The method of payment and purchase in the online situations have also been studied because this is
one of the areas with largest scope of improvement: Ensuring secure payment gateways, Describing
the customer the reason for asking any personal information and ensuring him/her of reliability of
such payments.

The key difference here thus, lies in the delivery time and installation feature. Though water purifiers
being classified as bulk products take time in dispatch and delivery but most sites provide free of
cost installation and door step delivery which saves labor and cost of the customer though increasing
time.

Post purchase options are also very important. The answerability of both online and offline store is
different. The return policy of both may be fully or partially disclosed. This also affects the perception
of the consumer and hence choice of one of the both.

When a shopper buys from marketplaces like Flipkart or Snapdeal, its typically those brands that
benefit when the transaction goes well. Shoppers pay little attention to the marketplace merchant
who originally listed the product and shipped the merchandise.

We conclude that E commerce is still an emerging and constantly changing field that needs
improvement and adaptability according to the Indian Market and some recommendations to
achieve the same.
Alternatives available to potential customer:
Range of Water Purifiers:

Retail stores:
Sno Purifier Company Store Capacity

10 liters 20 liters

NOVELTY ELECTRICAL 1700 2400

SAHA ELECTRIC 1880 2450

1 KENT
SANGEETA SALES 2000 2550
EMPORIUM
KITCHEN SOLUTIONS N.A. N.A.

14 ltrs

NOVELTY ELECTRICAL
1800

SAHA ELECTRIC N.A

2 Aquaguard
SANGEETA SALES 1450
EMPORIUM
KITCHEN SOLUTIONS 1600

14 Liters

NOVELTY ELECTRICAL
1500

SAHA ELECTRIC N.A

3 Pure It
SANGEETA SALES 1450
EMPORIUM
KITCHEN SOLUTIONS 1545

18 liters

NOVELTY ELECTRICAL
2700

SAHA ELECTRIC N.A

4 Prestige
SANGEETA SALES 2850
EMPORIUM
KITCHEN SOLUTIONS 2800
Online Stores:
Sno Purifier Company Store Capacity

10 liters 20 liters

Amazon N.A. 2425

1 KENT Snapdeal 1325 2300

Flipkart 1440 2250

14 ltrs

Amazon 1840

2 Aquaguard Snapdeal N.A.

Flipkart 1840

14 Liters

Amazon 1435

3 Pure It Snapdeal 1410

Flipkart N.A.

18 liters

Amazon 2700
4 Prestige
Snapdeal 2725

Flipkart 2850

Highest price in offline and online stores

Lowest price in offline and online stores

Based on Convenience:

Convenience based on availability and accessibility is almost the same. Every area has a shop or two
dedicated to home and kitchen appliances where they can be bought. Almost every online website
except online fashion stores like Myntra and jabong have wide range of water purifiers. Non-Cash
Payment: E-Commerce enables use of credit cards, debit cards, smart cards, electronic fund transfer
via bank's website and other modes of electronics payment.

24x7 Service availability-E-commerce automates business of enterprises and services provided by

them to customers are available anytime, anywhere. Here 24x7 refers to 24 hours of each seven
days of a week.

The key difference here thus, lies in the delivery time and installation feature. Though water purifiers
being classified as bulk products take time in dispatch and delivery but most sites provide free of
cost installation and door step delivery which saves labor and cost of the customer though increasing
time.
Offline Retail Stores:

Shopping Experience:

Brief description of offline retail stores we went to:

1) NOVELTY ELECTRICAL 2) SAHA ELECTRIC

Beliaghta main road, beliaghata, Kolkata-10 Opp. Ajanta Jwellers, Beliaghata main road
3) SANGEETA SALES EMPORIUM 4) KITCHEN SOLUTIONS

Near bagbazar bata, Shyam bazar, Kolkata-04 RA block, Near SBI atm, Chingrighata
Details of the shopping Experience:

1) Stores were crowded but personal attention was given to every customer.

2)At KITCHEN SOLUTIONS we were also explained that most affordable and best seller pure It
has the cleaning candle which has to be replaced every 2 months and and very difficult to find-
Something no other store or website offered.

3) None of them provided door to door delivery or free installation.

4) Some shopkeepers were very good at convincing us about the highest price product with lowest
price. No such pressure or misguiding was at other stores or website.

5) Purifiers can be opened and tested before buying. Customers could use and try the product. Full
guarantee of replacement in case of faulty product was provided by shopkeepers.

6) Some salesperson were busy showing the customers product of their choice even after customer
demanding otherwise repeatedly.

7) Some stores practiced good visual marketing than other stores and websites which encouraged
more to get a good look at product and motivate to buy it by seeing live display of product.

8) Most stores had few pieces and low variety with high prices.

9) Product Specifications were not highlighted only basic functions.

Discounts:

There were no discounts available at any stores. All were fixed price. No system of coupons was
there.

Review:

There was no system of review or feedback. The only review people could get was by asking any
relative or friend about the product. No such service was given from the store.

Billing:

Very quick and easy billing-Every customer quickly paid and carried the purifier home with signed
warranty cards. Only cash payments were allowed. None of the stores accepted cards.
Online Retail Stores:
Shopping Experience:

V/s

Range of products: Amazon and Flipkart both have large range of products. Flipkart apparently has
some tie with Kent and hence has all products of the company but no product of Pure It.This is
something not present in retail stores. Every retail store though had less range of particular company
but had purifiers of same company. All sites are B2C and B2B-Busineess to customer/business.

Details of Shopping Experience:

Very different from offline retail stores. The whole choice was laid on the customer.
There were only suggestions but no pressure. There was no testing or touching of
products available but 3D view and zoom in compensated because touch/feel is not a
requirement in water purifiers.
Product specifications and features were given in detail and clearly and especially well in
Flipkart where they were divided into categories for customer to choose in which area
they want high specifications.

Product Specifications on Amazon (above) and snap deal (below).

Discounts:

Both sites gave considerable discounts as compared to the offline stores. Snapdeal gave more
discounts than flipchart and had more versatility of products but did not provide free door to door
installation.

Reviews:

Both snap deal and Flipkart had customer reviews in which customers had reviewed the product and
services of the online store by giving stars out of 5.Flipkart gave the percent of positive reviews the
product had received in its desciption.On snapdeal it was in relatively excluded bottom of page

Billing Process:

Flipkart has launched its own payment gateway called Pay Zippy. So that it can reduce its
cost and control its infrastructure from frontend to backend. Besides this, with the
launch of Amazon India marketplace in the country, it has become increasingly
important for Flipkart to offer seamless service.
Other payment gateways in the country include Paytm payments, PayU, CCAvenue,
Billdesk, EBS, among others. All sites offer emi and COD option along with payment with
cards and coupons. All of the sites require email id, address and postal code.
Shipment and delivery: Flipkart orders come through Blued art and can be tracked at any
place and time by the shipment Id provided by the site. Similar thing is done by Snapdeal
by shipping service of Red Express. Billing at Snapdeal:
Third Party Sellers:

When a shopper buys from marketplaces like Flipkart or Snapdeal, its t pi all those ran ds that benefit
when the transaction goes well. Shoppers pay little attention to the marketplace merchant who
originally listed the product and shipped the merchandise.

The exception is when there are problems. In those cases, marketplaces can point fingers at the merchant,
regardless of whether the problem was within the merchants control. In other words, the merchant
receives little credit for smooth transactions and gets blaimed for problem ones. Thats not the best way
for merchants to build their brands.

Amazon policy of Third party sellers:

Amazon is a prestigious and reliable name in online shopping.Recentlly it introduced Third party
selling and customer complaints reached three fold. People complained for mistakes of third party
store to amazon and its brand image reduced. Hence it launched a new Amazon Fulfilled icon to
products of third party sellers
 Comparison for Online and Offline stores by shopping experience:

S.No Platform Novelty Saha Sangeeta Kitchen Amazon Snapdeal Flipkart

Electrical Electric Sales Solution
Emporium

1. Pricing C B- C B B A A-

2. Functionality B B- A- B- A- B A-

3.
User-experience B B- B B- B A- A
4.
Home delivery N/A N/A N/A N/A B- A- B
5.
Delivery Time A- A- B B- B A- A
6.
Payment Option B B B B A- A- A
7.
8. Shipping Cost N/A N/A N/A N/A B A A

9. Refund N/A N/A N/A N/A A- A A

10. Exchange N/A N/A N/A B A A A

Overall Value B- B B- B A- A- A

Post purchase:

After browsing through all products in water purifiers in this was my facebook page:

This kind of post service communication between sites can be perceived both as healthy customized
advertisement and intrusion of privacy. Any way it is one of the things that offline retail stores just
cant do. Flipkart and Snapdealboth post purchase and post delivery ask for optional feedback and
reviews from customer. Amazon Offers door to door return policy. They come and take back the
product unlike Flipkart and amazon.
Conclusion:

Both the shopping experiences were good in their respective places. They were very different in
terms of availability, accessibility, convenience, versatility, price and so on.

E commerce though quick and easy has many shortcomings that we learnt through the experience:

No instant gratification-Delivery minimum one day for any product.

Lack of touch or feel of products during online shopping.
E-Commerce applications are still evolving and changing rapidly.
Internet access is still not that easy in India. Most people use internet through cyber
caf.
Third party selling causes an endless shift of blame from customer to merchant to seller
to retail store and back to customer in which both the reliability of e commerce brand
and e commerce as a whole fails.
Many payment gateways have a very high failure rate which causes frustration in
customer.
Special types of web server or other software might be required by the vendor setting
the e-commerce environment apart from network servers.

Recommendations:
For Online Stores:

The effective design of a brand for local market and tropicalization of the products under
an effective knowledge of the local consumer;
A complete understanding of the local social, politic, economic and regulatory conditions
relevant for a successful market entry;
Thorough knowledge of local demand and the competitive environment that will allow a
given company to compete in a meaningful and successful way;
And, a deep knowledge of local distribution channels, including e-commerce and mobile
commerce.

For Offline Stores:

Doing away with overpersonalised experiences with shopkeepers misguiding or

pressurizing customers against their choices.
Providing door to door installation or return facilities to customers for bulk good
Making 1 or 2 24 hour open stores in the city to improve accessibility.
Improving post purchase support by improving feedback and review systems by past
customers.