Competitive Advantage of online Shopping Malls Using Topsis and Modified Topsis Methods

Marketing Modelling

Competitive Advantage of Online Shopping Malls Using TOPSIS and modified TOPSIS Methods

Using TOPSIS and modified TOPSIS methods evaluating competitive advantages of Internet shopping malls.

Introduction

India is at the cusp of a digital revolution. Declining broadband subscription prices, aided by the launch of 3G services, have been driving this trend. This has escalated the number of internet users. Furthermore, the launch of 4G services will significantly augment the country’s internet user base. Internet is becoming an integral part of people’s life which helps them in remaining connected with their close ones, purchasing movie tickets, accessing emails and online food ordering. The modernization in the lifestyles of the country’s population has deep rooted on relying on Internet for their shopping needs.

With the increase in Indian population and the supporting environment the trend in the online shopping is set to see greater heights in coming years. The competitors are striving continuously to upgrade in areas such as logistics, payment gateway and the overall infrastructure.

 Furthermore, the Indian mentality of online shopping is getting a green signal and people are gaining knowledge about it. With these tremendous changes, the Venture Capitalists who were side lined for investing are now slowly opening their gates and putting huge investments in the E-Commerce sector.

Executive Summary

Origin and Growth of e-Commerce:

Digital Economy is the new economic era being witnessed with advancement in the technology. Information Technology has transformed the way that people work. With the integration of various IT management tools through Internet , various companies have set up systems with innovative models for taking customer orders, payments, customer services, collection in data for data mining, marketing research and also feedbacks for improvisation. E-commerce or Internet commerce is a collective term given to these activities. By adopting e-commerce practices, companies have been able to escalate their profits, net worth and continuously achieving dynamics in the business. E- Commerce has yet again unleashed another revolution by changing the way business sells and buys the products and services over Internet networks, also helping traditional commerce by providing new ways of transferring and processing data and information required.

E-Commerce aims at facilitating the new generation to disrupt the business opportunities coming along their way. Indeed, e-commerce has evolved from online billboards to a fully functional, personalized shopping unit over the past decade. But there were some bumps in the road, the path from 1994 through the 2004 holiday shopping season were full of crucial milestones of Internet pioneers and technology innovators.

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In the beginning, the Internet was characterized by slow dial-up connections and online billboards. Netscape was launched in 1994 with its point-and-click Web browser was the awakening to a billion dollar of revenue. India has an internet user base of about 250.2 Million as of June 2014 and is expected to grow to 700 million by 2018. But still with the increasing number of internet users the penetration is less compared to US or UK, but with the growth and change in technology being adopted in India the penetration is deep rooting itself at a faster rate. Cash on delivery (COD) payment method is predominantly preferred in developing countries like India. India is market with high cash reserve with 80% of its orders being COD. The e-Commerce market in India has enjoyed phenomenal growth of almost 50% in the last five years. It took a span of around 15 years for E-commerce market to find the appropriate ecosystem has now started to fall in place. The number of users making online transactions is increasing exponentially, and it is expected to grow from 11 million in 2011 to 38 million in 2015.

Ecommerce A View from Top

Services provided under the various modes of e-Commerce

On the basis of participants involved in the transactions, E-Commerce can be broadly classified into 3 categories or segments.  

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Business-to-Consumer (B2C): E- Commerce provides a platform for B2C markets in India to generate the bulk of revenues across the consumer facing modes. Furthermore, though online travel has typically held a major share of the B2C market, online retail is also growing rapidly and is expected to significantly increase its share.

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): India’s C2C market, though currently small, but is trending with the new entrants embracing the market by attracting the VC capitalists with huge investments. Their online portals are also garnering significant traffic. With the necessary spark getting ignited C2C will be the next big thing trending.

Business-to-Business (B2B): B2B users are classified into micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).These small businesses lack the requisite financial resources and, therefore, find it difficult to market their products and services to potential clients through traditional media such as newspapers, banners and television. B2B trade helps the MSMEs to increase their visibility in the marketplace by providing them a platform for nipping in the bud their barriers of time, communication and geography.

Market Size and Growth of E-Commerce In India:

India’s e-commerce market was estimated at $3.8 Billion in 2009 which grew to $12.6 Billion in 2013. Travel purchases contribute to around 70% of India’s e-commerce. India has close to 20 Million online shoppers, and is growing at an estimated rate of 30 per cent CAGR vis-à-vis a global growth rate of 8 to 10%. According to Report by Avendus Capital, entitled “India Goes Digital”, the Indian e-commerce industry is estimated to rise to Rs 53,000 Crores ($11.8 Billion) in the year 2015.On 7th March 2014, e-commerce giant Flipkart proudly announced its evaluation to be worth 1 Billion which was achieved a year before its target (2015).Also BCG has published a reported which estimates that the Indian online retail market would be worth 84 billion USD in2016, 10 folds of what it was in 2010.

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 There has been observed an increase in the use of plastic money among the Indian customers due to the improvements in the payment gateways by making them more secure through multiple levels of authentication and security codes via one time passwords (OPTs), transaction passwords and security questions. This process has gained the user’s confidence for carrying out the online transactions. These improvements are the stepping stones for the development of e-Commerce markets in India.