44 Amity Journal of Commerce and Financial Review

Performance of E-business in India: A Comparative Study

Rashmi Sundriyal Gairola

Assistant Professor, G D Goenka University

Hitesha Yadav
Assistant Professor, G D Goenka University

A communicative transaction between the different parties acting as buyers and sellers using
Internet and Communication Technologies (ICT) is what is called as e-business today. The trade
conducted electronically has shown dramatic growth since the spread of the Internet media which
has in turn shrunken the entire world. Now E-business is just another way to strengthen or intensify
their existing business practices. It can also be said as a ‘disruptive innovation’ that has profoundly
changed the way of conducting the brick and mortar business. It has shown tremendous business
growth in our country where we have almost thousands of e-commerce sites for shopping and
availing other services online. This new way of conducting business has changed the consumer’s
perception regarding retail industry. Cyberspace has given the traders an instrument for broadening
the target markets, improvising the customer relationships, widening the product lines, customized
items as well as improving the cost efficiency. The present study has been undertaken to describe
the status of e-commerce in India and analysing the best e-commerce sites based on certain factors
related to customer relationship with the e-business. The e-commerce portals undertaken for the
study are Amazon, Flipkart, Ebay and Snapdeal.

Keywords: E-business, Performance analysis, ICT, Consumer perception, Start-ups

Introduction
The great Indian shopping experience has found a new paradigm shift. Gone are the days when
one would go to a shop to see, touch and get a feel of the product, before buying. The confidence of
the Indian consumer has gone up by leaps and bounds. They have not only put aside the whole “brick
and mortar” shopping complexes, but also accepted the “virtual” shopping sites with open arms. The
success of the online business in India can also be seen by the number of start-up businesses that have
come to India. Every other business that starts today, is an online business. The main reason being the
“almost-zero investment” requirement initially. The freedom from time and distance can be another
important reason. The products are available 24/7 and one can buy or sell from anywhere in the world.
All you need is an internet. The other reasons could be listed as follows:

The internet has created a business environment in which people have access to plethora of
information to make a choice. This not only gives consumers a broader range, but also keeps a check
on sellers to provide better quality products and services.
The technology used in online business is becoming better day by day and is quite affordable.

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This kind business can be done even when employed somewhere else. Those who are risk averse
kind of people, can test and try if the business will take off, while still on the job before taking the
plunge.
With cheaper investment, the benefits of low prices can be transferred to the consumers, ensuring
an increase and steady stream of customers.
In today’s day and age, businesses should be designed in such a way, that they are flexible enough
to respond to any fluctuations in the market. Online businesses that way are very effective as they are
responsive in real time. Business process integration and an advanced IT infrastructure leads to such
an on-demand operating environment. Talking in terms of India, the e-business has literally swept the
economy to the point that, if today a business is not available online, there is a chance, it could be
wiped off from the face of the Indian corporate sector. This fundamental change in the way businesses
are done is so far proving beneficial to both, the buyers as well as the sellers. The feel good factor of
the Indian consumer with rising disposable income and a wide variety of choices available over the
internet has made online business very attractive and popular. Post 1991, the Indian economy emerged
on the world economic map, that brought new opportunities. Post 2000, e-commerce has brought a
revolution in the trade and commerce industry. As part of the information technology revolution, it’s
a boon to the online business. The rising awareness among the businesses in India has provided many
the opportunities which are offered by e-commerce. One such example can be taken of Mobile
Commerce.

Now, the world is like a global village and online business is inseparable from it. Online business
is impossible without e commerce which is the by-product of the commercialization of the internet.
E-commerce has given new channels of inter-organizational communication and business processes.
Also with the rising population of internet users in India and other factors, like convenience, timing,
effort and pricing, it is quite possible that people only shop online. With the rapid increase in e-
commerce and online business activities, there is a huge pressure on the information technology also
to keep innovating and improvising. Therefore, as a by-product, there will be constant advancements
in technology. This is in fact evident from the fact that in India, people are already using 3G data
speed and are now in the process of moving on to 4G. However this could be vice-a-versa as well.
Since technology is improving, it will put pressure on the businesses to adopt the latest technology to
reach the potential customers. Ultimately all this will result in benefiting the consumer and would lead
to improving his overall experience.

This main objective of this research is to find out the performance of e-businesses in India, with
respect to the major players in the market. For this purpose, we have picked four important players of
online business market in India, viz Amazon, E bay, Flipkart and Snapdeal. Before we move on to
analysing their performance in Indian scenario, let’s take a look at them.

Amazon.com
[13] Amazon.com, is an American electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle,
Washington. It is the largest Internet-based retailer in the United States. Amazon. com started as an
online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, video downloads/
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streaming, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewellery. The company also produces consumer
electronics—notably, Amazon Kindle e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Fire Phone — and is
a major provider of cloud computing services. The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what
Bezos called his “regret minimization framework”, which described his efforts to fend off any regrets
for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time. In 1994, Bezos left his
employment as vice-president of D. E. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle. He
began to work on a business plan for what would eventually become Amazon.com. [5]

Amazon forayed into the Indian markets in the year 2012 with the launch of a shopping website,
Junglee.com, before entering fully into the nation’s commerce market. The company gauged the
Indian e-commerce industry’s possible booming conditions, with consumer’s income and demand
climbing up. As Asheesh Rana, a principal research analyst at global consultancy Gartner, mentioned
at that time, “This market could be a game changer for Amazon – These e-commerce retailers survive
on volume. India with its large number of people could be a huge opportunity.” [3] Later on June 5,
2013, Amazon Seller Services Private Limited, an Amazon.com company, announced the launch of
Amazon’s marketplace in India, www.amazon.in, and two new seller programs – ‘Selling on Amazon’
and ‘Fulfilment by Amazon’. This provided customers a convenient and trustworthy online shopping
experience and Indian retailers of all sizes. It is a robust and scalable platform to sell their products
online with no listing fees and a pay-as-you-go fulfilment services. Although Amazon made a limited
entry into India in 2013 by launching a marketplace for only two categories (books and media sales),
it has grown at a rapid speed over the past years. Amazon now offers a wide range of products and
acts as a third party seller for existing sellers India. [6] The company has adopted many practices that
have enables the Indian online retailers to capture market share quickly such as cash-on-delivery
payments, liberal return policies, free or subsidized shipping and in-house logistics. This has proven
to be a great advantage for Amazon over its competitors. Even before entering the Indian markets,
Amazon was a known name to the population. Due to this Amazon enjoys a certain brand image and
goodwill. This also means that the company has been successful in capturing the mind share in the
Indian market relatively easily. Another important factor is that Amazon has deep pockets that cannot
be matched by its local competitors. Even in terms of variety of products, Amazon has surpassed its
local competition. It has been active on other fronts too. For example, Amazon is the leader among
online retailers in India to introduce same-day and next-day deliveries.

eBay.com
eBay is an American multinational corporation and e-commerce company, providing consumer to
consumer & business to consumer sales services via Internet. It is headquartered in San Jose,
California, United States. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995, and became a notable success
story of the dot-com bubble. [4] Today, it is a multi-billion dollar business with operations localized
in over thirty countries. It is an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses
buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide. When eBay was founded in 1995, it
was as radical and cutting-edge as many of the other “dot com” start-ups launched in that era. Today,
however, eBay is one of the world’s most venerable online companies—not to mention one
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of the most endlessly emulated and discussed. eBay, is a little different from other online stores in the
following way. It provides a place to buy and sell products but it is a meeting place, and not a store.
This means that eBay doesn’t actually sell any goods itself. All of the goods on eBay are sold and
delivered by third party sellers that are neither employed by, nor have any other relationship with,
eBay itself. Instead, eBay’s business is to give entrepreneurs and sellers a place to reach buyers, and
to give buyers access to the world’s largest collection of things for sale. Because of the immense
variety of things that can be found for sale on eBay, many members have discovered that eBay is one
of the best places in the world to window or comparison shop. [5] The millions of item listings created
by sellers often include photos, detailed descriptions, and owner experiences. Because you can see
lots of the same item side-by-side in various conditions and know what each one sold or is selling for,
eBay gives insight into the real market value or “street value” of most types of goods around the world.
In the year 2005, eBay announced the launch of eBay India. Buyers and sellers in India had access to
a global trading community of 135 million users in 32 markets worldwide. In addition, Indian buyers
and sellers could enjoy a more stable and robust platform, tools such a Turbo Lister and Selling
Manager Pro that made selling more efficient and world-class trust and safety measures. [10] With
that, eBay brought great potential for Indian entrepreneurs to trade globally especially in categories
such as apparel, leather, collectibles, handicrafts and jewelry. It also allowed Indian users to trade
locally, regionally and globally along with the rest of eBay’s worldwide community of users. At that
time, no other web site offered Indian traders a proven local service with an international reach. Indian
users could use their single eBay India ID to trade internationally. Indian sellers could sell their
product by listing them on any of the 32 eBay market sites. Similarly, Indian buyers could also choose
to buy products from any of the eBay local sites. eBay India (www.ebay.in), India’s leading online
marketplace, is India’s biggest online trading community where anyone can sell or buy almost
anything.

Flipkart.com
Flipkart is an e-commerce company founded in 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal. It is
registered in Singapore and it operates in India, where it is headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka.
Flipkart has launched its own product range under the name ‘DigiFlip’ with products including tablets,
USBs, and laptop bags. [11] In May 2014, Flipkart received $210 million from DST Global, in July
2014 it raised $1 billion led by existing investors Tiger Global and South Africa’s media group
Naspers and in May 2015 it raised $550 million from some of its existing investors. Flipkart’s last
fundraising round in May 2015 had pegged its valuation at $15 billion. Flipkart began selling books
to begin with. It soon expanded and began offering a wide variety of goods. Innovating right from the
start, Flipkart has been home to few of the striking features of Indian e-commerce. Flipkart was the
first to implement the popular ‘Cash on Delivery’ facility, which every online shopping website in
India offers as an option today. In the first few years of its existence, Flipkart raised funds through
venture capital funding. As the company grew in stature, more funding arrived. Flipkart repaid the
investors’ faith with terrific performances year after year. In the financial year 2008-09, Flipkart had
made sales to the tune of 40 million Indian rupees. This soon increased to 200 million Indian rupees
the following year and has already hit the one billion mark by 2015. [16] Back at the time when
Flipkart was launched, any e-commerce company faced two major difficulties. One was

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the problem of online payment gateways. Not many people preferred online payment and the gateways
were not easy to set up. Flipkart tackled this problem by introducing cash on delivery and payment by
card on delivery in addition to others. The second problem was the entire supply chain system. [1]
Delivering goods on time is one of the most important factor that determines the success of an
ecommerce company. Flipkart addressed this issue by launching their own supply chain management
system to deliver orders in a timely fashion. Flipkart’s story proves that if you have a great idea, and
you are a doer and not a thinker, success is not far off. [18]

Recently, Flipkart has tied-up up with the Dabbawalas of Mumbai for last mile delivery to
customers. This association is an effort to explore newer delivery channels and opportunities by
partnering with this unique community of experts. It also promoted marketplace operations head Ankit
Nagori to the newly created role of chief business officer as Flipkart seeks to accelerate its shift to a
marketplace model and increase the number of third-party sellers on its platform. Nagori’s earlier role
was senior vice-president, marketplace. He will now oversee the marketplace business as well as the
company’s retail and brand alliance function, which has ceased to exist on a separate basis.

Snapdeal.com
Snapdeal was started in February 2010 as a daily deals platform but expanded in September 2011
to become an online marketplace. It is one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in India
today with the largest online market place. In just two years, the company went from scrapping their
group coupon business and starting an online marketplace to become a billion dollar company. Its
year on year growth is almost 600percent. The average age of the workforce at Snapdeal is 25. [6]
Their values
– Innovation, Change, Openness, Honesty and Ownership drive them to press for greater success. The
company’s growth had been phenomenal but it is their continued effort to bring the best to the market
and their zeal to succeed as the best B2C (Business to customer) marketplace is what sets them apart.
Great ideas might be important for a business, but it is the confident implementation of those ideas
and the right effort which are more important. It is action and not mere thought that gives results.
Snapdeal.com serves as an advertising platform for merchants and a discount platform for customers.
For the merchants who partner with Snapdeal, it is a cost effective channel for acquiring new
customers. It also works as a risk-free alternate marketing channel. From the merchant’s standpoint,
they are passing on the customer acquisition cost in the form of a discount offer. Snapdeal aims at
showing at least 40-90percent off in the deals from what actually one has to pay. [12] Depending upon
how good the offer is, it deducts their commission starting from Rs. 99 going up to Rs. 299

Snapdeal’s visions to create India’s most impactful digital commerce site that creates life-changing
experiences for buyers and sellers. With millions of users and large number of sellers, Snapdeal is the
shopping destination for internet users across the country. With its acquisition of Freecharge in 2015,
a leading mobile transaction platform, Snapdeal has become one of the largest e-commerce company
in the country. [15] With over 150 clients, MartMobi enables seamless connectivity with the
customers’ existing back-end systems in addition to a real-time analytics engine to improve
conversions and user engagement. Recently Snapdeal came up with a pay-on-delivery option for
payment. Now it will allow
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its users across 200 cities to pay through their credit and debit cards when they opt for pay-on-delivery
option.
As can be seen form the companies stated above, online business in India is definitely in the
striving phase. Other than this, a robust back-end is a vital pre-requisite for an online business to
survive, since once the customer completes her transaction, it’s this back-end that connects the dots.
Innovation is just one aspect of the business universe. Today, the premise of any business, traditional
or modern, rests on its ability to harness data. Since the industry is still in infancy, there is no history
one can to refer to. Gathering and analysing data, hence, becomes crucial for planning the business’s
future course of action. This practice, in a way, adds to the ‘surprise and delight’ factor for customers,
because they’re then treated to offers that are most suited and relevant to their preferences. In this
industry, the scope for growth is immense, as is the risk of failure. Consulting firm Technopak
Advisors estimates India’s digital economy at $600 million currently, with the potential to balloon to
$70 billion by 2020. K. Vaitheeswaran, e-commerce veteran, and Founder and CEO, Indiaplaza.com,
one of India’s earliest, compares the vertical to a hard-fought marathon. “It’s not like a 100-metre
dash. Globally, we operate on the lowest margins, but we’re still seeing real growth.” There’s still no
formula for 100 per cent success. Uncovering India’s online avatar is a fascinating process. Only those
companies that can successfully engage customers through novel ideas, quality products and seamless
services will flourish. May be it is sheer genius, or simple common sense the e-retail hero has been
able to accomplish all this during its formative years. [8]

Talking about the competition amongst the companies, Flipkart has been giving tough competition
to Amazon. Flipkart is targeting to achieve $1 billion sales in the year 2015. Internet operation is still
low in India, but it is expected to grow rapidly. Technopak forecasts the e-commerce market, which
includes travel and financial services, will grow to $200 billion by 2020

Literature Review
E-business, also termed as electronic business is the process of conducting the business processes
online by making use of internet and other computer networks. It include many features such as buying
and selling of products/ services, processing of the payments, sharing of information, customer
services etc. All these activities are integrated with the internal system of the organization such as
logistics, operations and finance. E-Commerce can also be defined as the use of internet for
exchanging the information of value between firms and their trading partners, employees and
customers with the absence of geographical and time restrictions [1].

In India more people are getting inclined towards this trend of buying products online because of
which this industry of e-commerce is on an edge of experiencing a very high growth in coming decade
[7]. With globalization and revolutionizing technology along with wide use of internet, web
technologies and other IT advancements, e-commerce has become of vital importance in facilitating
trade in India [8]. E-business being a part of information technology revolution has a major role to
play in world trade as well as in Indian economy. In fact e-business is one of the biggest thing that has
happened in changing the entire economy where businesses are done online having advantages to both
the customers as well as the buyers, thus creating a win-win situation for both.

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An integral part of conducting a business is customer satisfaction which can also be termed as
CRM. Customer relationship management (CRM) widely used as e-CRM where in all the interactions
of current as well as future customers are being entertained through means of technology. All the
sales, marketing, customer service and support in terms of technology are being taken care by CRM
[21]. CRM is not just about all above but also after sales services. It is more of a customer oriented
feature added to e-business which has the capability to getting response in terms of customer input,
the expectations of the customer, communication through online help, which has made the relationship
between the customer as well as the seller strong in terms of developing trust and loyalty between
both the parties.

The success of e-business is highly dependent on four factors i.e. the technological advancements,
business strategies which are long term, the entrepreneurial skills and also behaviors of people inside
as well as outside the organization [20]. All the above factors are of equal importance for an e-business
to flourish.
E-Business has grown at a very fast pace, which has given a new dimension to all the business in
various areas starting from selling and buying accessories to booking tickets online to ordering meals
to planning your holiday tours to buying a home or exchanging the old products and a lot more. With
such an evolution of internet and web based technologies, the distinctions between traditional markets
also termed as brick & mortar and the global electronic marketplace are gradually being narrowed
down. Even since then the government is also playing a major role by providing a legal framework
for e-commerce so that both domestic as well as international trade can expand its horizons
[9]. E-business coupled with appropriate strategy and policy approach has enabled small and
medium scale enterprises to compete with large and capital-rich businesses.
E-business has added certain benefits in terms of production process (payment processing,
inventory and stock related process, electronic links etc.), the customer focused process (promotions
and marketing, selling of products, payments, after sales services etc.) and internal management
process (employee training, videoconferencing, recruiting etc.)
[19] As it is a kind of virtual business so this reduces the cost and leads to an improvement in
economic efficiency [8].
Apart from these it has made life of buyers easy with flexible shopping hours, wide variety of
products, better prices, access to global market, and a lot more. It has added flexibility to the process
of conducting business with its real time approach of adopting changes as and when required.

During the conduct of an e-business there are certain challenges which are being faced. The major
disadvantage is reduced privacy, the information might not be safe regarding the age, occupation,
income as well as banking details. The customer might not be sure about the quality of the product,
or may not be able to find a suitable payment options.
One of the major drawback is that in India penetration is very poor, users are not able to get
complete access to internet further to which there are so many locations which does not even have an
access to internet [8].
Therefore, from the above literature, the following research gaps can be identified:

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Which online shopping site is most popular on the basis of following parameters:
• Product range
• After-sale services
• Return policy, and so on

Research Methodology

Objective of the study

The objective of this research can be summarized as follows:
To evaluate the performance of online businesses in India, with reference to Amazon, eBay,
Flipkart and Snapdeal.
To find out which is the most popular online business in India out of the list of companies stated
above, by conducting a comparative analysis
Year of Research
June 2015 to September 2015
Data source
• Primary
o Questionnaire o
Interviews
• Secondary
o Websites o
Journals o
Books

Scope of study
An online questionnaire, prepared with the help of surveymonkey.com, was circulated people in
different parts of the country. The cities covered are as follows:
1. Delhi, NCR
2. Mumbai
3. Bangalore
4. Pune
5. Jaipur
6. Dehradun
7. Nasik
8. Hyderabad
9. Patna

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Sample Type and Size

Random sampling was used to collect the data, where everyone was given equal chance to respond.
The only condition was that he/she had shopped online. A total of 200 people were surveyed from the
9 cities mentioned above.

Hypothesis
Null Hypothesis
H0 = “All online shopping websites are equally popular in India”
Alternative Hypothesis
H1 = “All online shopping websites differ in popularity in India”

Findings & Analysis

A questionnaire was prepared in order to find out the most popular and convenient online shopping
website out of Amazon, eBay, Flipkart and Snapdeal. The survey was conducted online through
surveymonkey.com. A total of 200 people responded to the survey. The findings and their analysis
are as follows:
Name
The first question asked the respondent to mention their names.
City
The respondents were from the following cities
1. Delhi, NCR
2. Mumbai
3. Bangalore
4. Pune
5. Jaipur
6. Dehradun
7. Nasik
8. Hyderabad
9. Patna
The questionnaire was filled online with the help of SurveyMonkey.com, thereby giving us a wide
range of getting the respondents from different parts of the country. Most of the responses were got
online and leading to a heterogeneous group of respondents. Some of the respondents were
interviewed to get a better idea of the current scenario and satisfaction of the consumers.

Gender
Refer to chart (1), the survey was attempted by more number of males (56percent) than females
(44percent). Although this can’t be derived from the above data that men shop more than women or
that men shop online more than women. This was just by chance that more males attempted the survey.
However, the only impact visible in the study would be
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on the “type of products” bought online. Men might buy more electronics whereas women might be
more inclined towards fashion and clothing shopping. Though, no such results have been drawn from
the survey.
Age
Refer to chart (2), the maximum number of respondents were from the age group between 18-25
(43percent) and 26-35 (43percent), followed by 36-45(9percent). Interestingly the next age group is
“56 and above” (3percent) even before 46-55 (2percent). The inference that can be drawn from this is
that mostly the young generation is into online shopping. However, the 55 and above age group has
also started showing its interest and confidence in the e commerce industry. This could be due to the
attractive deals offered by online shopping sites. These deals are quite mouth-watering as they are
good in quality and cheap in price. The deals in a way provide a win-win situation for buyers as well
as sellers. Generally there is a waiting period, before the product reaches the buyer, which might range
from 7-10 days. The website offers the deal within this period, free of any extra charge. But if anyone
needs a same day or next day delivery, the online site may charge an additional amount to deliver
before the due date. This provides the business an opportunity to make extra profits, and for buyers,
unless it is urgent, they can get the product free of charge within the stipulated time. All these benefits
are quite popular in all age groups and hence everybody seems to show interest in shopping online. It
seems to be cheap and best.

Occupation
The occupations of respondents were as follows:
1. Student
2. Salaried
3. Business
4. Retired
5. House wife
6. Free Lancers
7. Professionals
Income per annum (in Rupees)
An interesting observation can be drawn from chart (3). Almost 75% of the respondents, who shop
online, fall under the income group of less than Rs. 1 million. In fact about 50percent of the
respondents actually fall under less than Rs. 0.5 million. This could be directly related to the age group
parameter. We had seen that online shopping is more popular with the younger generation, who are
less than 35 years old. It is even more so in case of less than 25 year old. At this age the earnings of
the individual is not too high or in some cases would be zero. Also we had lots of students who filled
up the questionnaire, whose source of income is the pocket money they get from their family. So this
also explains the high number of respondents falling under the low income group. On the other hand,
with high disposable income, people become choosier and would like to “feel” the product before
buying, hence might not believe in online shopping. This could also be because of high price of the
product.

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How often do you shop online?

Chart (4) shows that most number of respondents have started shopping almost monthly (63
percent) through online websites. This in fact shows a positive trend for the e-commerce industry. In
fact according to the survey, there are people who buy stuff weekly (20 percent) also. However, the
percentage is much lower than monthly. But at the same time it is higher than annually (17 percent),
which in a way is an achievement to the entire online shopping world.

What kind of products do you shop online?

For the question above, there were 4 categories given for the respondents to pick. They could select
more than one category. As is evident from the results in Chart (5), the most popular category of online
shopping is “Clothing and Fashion”, followed by “Electronics”, then “Books & Media” and the least
of them was “Home & Kitchen”. The reasons could be as follows:

1. Studies have proven that people in general have become very fashion conscious. With better
incomes and improved standard of living, gone are the days when people would get things
repaired. The times have changed and now it’s only “use and throw”. Clothing and fashion is a
category which attracts people from almost all age groups and comparatively is not very
expensive.
2. Books and media have always been very popular online. In fact amazon first started with selling
books online. With advent of technology, there are new instruments introduced in the media and
entertainment category such as play stations, other gaming devices, mobile phones, tablets etc.
All these equipment are fairly popular with the younger people. Our questionnaire was dominated
by younger people and hence the category of Electronics was picked by most.

3. Again we can blame the low response on “Home and Kitchen” category due to the type of
respondents who took the survey. We had very few house wives or people who would be interested
in these items that filled the survey.
Rank the following sites in the order of your preference
Refer to chart (6). This was a straight question that was asked and clearly we can see that Amazon
and Flipkart are neck to neck whereas eBay and Snapdeal are neck to neck. Therefore the race of
popularity is basically between Amazon and Flipkart. Since the result is inconclusive here, we have
conducted a test on the results received form Question number 10 below.

Select the best shopping site based on the following shopping experiences
The result shows in Chart (7) can be supported by the analysis received thought testing of
hypothesis. The above question is basically a reflection of the customers on the overall experience of
the online shopping. The explanation is given in the next section where hypothesis is tested.

Testing of Hypothesis
Testing has been done by taking the simple averages of the respondents opinions based on different
factors considered in the questionnaire.
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Table 1
FACTORS Amazon Ebay Flipkart Snapdeal
Overall quality of the products 48 11 50 20
After Sale Services 42 12 51 17
User Interface 41 8 61 19
Variety of Products 58 17 46 30
Product Availability 60 16 43 22
Product Description 51 16 57 20
Price Fairness 53 14 48 25
On-time delivery 51 16 56 22
Payment Options 56 21 60 40
Safety and Security 57 15 56 32
Return Policy 45 11 60 23
Average 54percent 15percent 56percent 26percent

By taking the averages of all the factors considered in the survey undertaken, Flipkart was found
to be the most popular e-business portal with 56percent followed by Amazon which scored 54percent.
According to the survey done, the services provided by Snapdeal was not very much liked by the
current customers scoring 26percent, whereas Flipkart was found to be the least liked by the customers
with only 15percent. Therefore, our null hypothesis has been rejected, accepting the alternate
hypothesis, which says, “All online shopping websites differ in popularity in India”. In this case
Flipkart emerged as the most popular amongst the other three players.

Conclusion
As we have already seen above, the conclusion of the study is that Flipkart is most popular e-
business portal followed by Amazon, then Snapdeal and least of all eBay.
Ecommerce is acting as a major marketing channel, providing confidence in online services. It has
been observed that for ecommerce to flourish, Customer Relationship Management is one of the major
area. CRM is all about retaining the existing customers and bringing new one to expand the business
which is dependent on the services provided to them. There is a lot of effort that needs to be put into
the online customer relationship management i.e. E-CRM in India. The services may it be before sales
or after sales needs to be improvised and e-business portals should be maintained such that people can
develop faith in e-business. Many countries in Asia including India are taking advantage of e-
commerce through opening of economies, which is very crucial for promoting competition and
diffusion of internet technologies. Hence we can say that ecommerce has a wide scope of expansion
in future in the business field and In view of the findings of this study it is concluded that e business
to create any significant impact on service delivery, which will consequently lead to improved
customer satisfaction.

Volume 1, Issue 1, March-September 2017

56 Amity Journal of Commerce and Financial Review

Limitations
The questionnaire that was being used for conducting the survey had certain limitations. The
respondents had to relatively choose amongst the four online portals of ecommerce i.e. Amazon,
Flipkart, Ebay and Snapdeal irrespective of whether they have shopped from all of them or not. As
was observed in the study as well, most of the respondents did not shop from eBay at all. This could
be the main reason of its unpopularity in the findings. The way the questionnaire was designed did
not give the flexibility to the respondent to not pick an option, in case he/she has not used it. This
could be considered for future studies.

References
1. Eisenberg K., Gupta G. (2015), “Analysis of the expansion of E-Commerce into India and growth Opportunities for
Flipkart”, 14 J. Int’l Bus. & L.151.
2. http://gadgets.ndtv.com/internet/news/amazon-enters-india-with-jungleecom-224559.
3. http://trak.in/india-startup-funding-investment-2015/.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=EBay.
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snapdeal.
6. “Small Businesses and E-Commerce in India”, (2012), [Online] Available: http://smallbusinessindia.intuit. in/starting-
business/small-businesses-e-commerce-india/, Starting a Business.
7. Malhotra B. Sri Aurobindo College (2014), E-Business: Issues & Challenges in Indian Perspective, Global Journal of
Business Management and Information Technology. ISSN 2278-3679 Volume 4, Number 1, pp. 11-16.

8. Khatri, V., Waske, M., Jain, S.C., & Baghel, R. (2013), “Introduction E- Commerce In Indain Business”, International
Indexed & Refereed Research Journal, ISSN 0975-3486,(Print)E-ISSN-2320-5482, April- May (Combind), VOL-IV *
ISSUE 43-44.
9. http://ebay.about.com/od/gettingstarted/a/gs_whatisebay.htm.
10. http://successstory.com/companies/flipkart.
11. http://successstory.com/companies/snapdeal.
12. http://www.amazon.in/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000728823.
13. http://www.flipkart.com/s/press.
14. http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/snapdeal-acquires-hyderabad-based-martmobi_1391445. html.

15. http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/the-flipkart-story/article3290735.ece.
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com.
17. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flipkart.
18. Kaur, P., Joshi, M., Singhania University, Rajasthan, India (2012), “E-Commerce in India: A Review”, IJCST
Vol. 3, Issue 1, Jan. - March 2012 ISSN: 0976-8491 (Online) | ISSN: 2229-4333 (Print) 802 International Journal of
Computer Science and Technology.
19. Pathak, D., Modi, K.N., University, Newai (Raj.) Dr. Mohit Sharma, Dr. K. N. Modi University, Newai (Raj.) Dr.
Sudhinder Singh Chowhan, NIMS University, Jaipur (Raj.) (2012), “E- Business: Strategic Management Practice for
New Entrepreneurship”.
20. Johnston, R., & Kong, X., (2011), “The customer experience: a road-map for improvement”, Managing Service
Quality, pp. 5-24.

Volume 1, Issue 1, March-September 2017

Rashmi Sundriyal Gairola and Hitesha Yadav 57
Annexure

Chart I (Gender)

Male

Female

0% 10% 20%
30% 40%
50% 60%
70% 80%
90% 100%

Chart II (Age)

18-25

26-35

36-45

46-55

56 and above

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Volume 1, Issue 1, March-September 2017
58 Amity Journal of Commerce and Financial Review

Chart III (Income per annum (in Rupees))

18-25 Lakh

26-35 Lakh

36-45 Lakh

46-55 Lakh

56 and above

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Chart IV (How often do you shop online?)

Daily

Weekly

Monthly

Annualy

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Chart V (What kind of products do you shop online?)

Electronics

Books & Media

Clothing &
Fashion

Home & Kitchen

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Volume 1, Issue 1, March-September 2017
Rashmi Sundriyal Gairola and Hitesha Yadav 59

Chart VI (Rank the following sites in the order of your preference)

Amazon

ebay

flipcart

snapdeal

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Chart VII (Select the best shopping site based on the following shopping
experiences)
200

160

120

00

20

0
Overall After User Variety Product Product Price On time Payment Safery Return
Quality sales inter of avail Descrip- fair- Delivery Options Security Policy
o... servies face products. ability tion ness

Amazon ebay Flipcart Snapdeal

Volume 1, Issue 1, March-September 2017