Date: 31st Jan. 2000
Surfing the shops
Shimul Shah
Click, click, click!
And a brand new compact disc player arrives at your doorstep a few days
later. Armchair shopping, literally. Without any doubt, this is the future
and the trend is catching on fast. A search on 123india.com reveals close to
50 sites offering 'online shopping' facilities. Going by the number of new
websites springing up everyday, entrepreneurs seem to have a lot of faith in
Indians' desire to shop on the Net. You think it's just a passing phase? A
survey conducted by the National Association of Software & Service Companies
(Nasscom) argues otherwise. According to Nasscom, the total volume of
e-commerce transactions that involved consumers in India in 1998-99 was Rs
12 crore, a far cry from the Rs 119 crore spent on business-to-business
transactions. But, the value of e-commerce transactions is expected to rise
to about Rs 50 crore in the business-to-consumer section in 1999-2000. The
total value of e-commerce transactions (business-to-business as well as
business-to-consumer) is, however, expected to increase exponentially to Rs
1,000 crore by 2002 merely because of the way things are moving on the
regulatory framework and PC penetration. It seems a natural evolution. After
all, you save time by avoiding a trip to the store. With Internet usage
increasing over the next few years, the speed with which you can transact on
the Net will increase almost ten-fold. In India, where department stores are
more the exception than the norm, the Net opens the doors to a unique way of
shopping. A consumer can view a whole heap of products at one go as well as
compare different products that may not necessarily be available at the same
store. Discounts are more accessible since online stores save on overheads
unlike a bricks-and-mortar store. And, of course, you are spared the
cacophony of salespeople trying to convince you about products and features.
This is exactly what crossed Shirish Dave's mind when he decided to try
e-shopping. What bothered him, however, was the lack of privacy. After
placing an order on indiashop.com, another colleague decided to check it
out. To his shock, Dave's credit card number appeared on the screen when the
friend decided to place an order. "Try online shopping on a limited
basis. If possible, try sites that are recommended by friends or a company
you can trust", says Sandeep Kadwe, e-strategist,
Plexus Technologies.
A lot of inconsistencies need to be ironed out before we can say that online
shopping is safe. These sites encounter problems on two fronts. Technical
problems that arise due to lack of cyber laws and banking procedures and
logistics problems that stem from the lack of infrastructure and problems
related to merchandise. The fact that the Net is still an uncontrolled
territory makes it unsafe ground for consumers to tread on. There are no
laws that Web-shops have to abide by and there's no guarantee that a
Web-shop will stand by what it promises. Even though most sites assure
delivery time, what stops them from blaming the postal service or courier
firms for any delays? Which brings us to the next problem: who owns up
responsibility if things go wrong? After all, most cyber-shops offer items
from a variety of suppliers. So, in case you get damaged goods or a wrong
item arrives at your doorstep, what do you do? You wouldn't expect the
online store to tell you that you have to deal with the supplier directly.
And you could be opening up a can of worms if you decide that you want to
cancel an order placed earlier. Do most sites provide that kind of
after-sales service? The answer is still 'maybe'.
"The absence of reliable payment
gateways makes online shopping relatively unattractive," says Sanjay
Deshpande, CEO, House of Code. Even though some sites allow you to shop on
your credit card, the absence of online transactions will still require you
to sign a slip before the item is delivered to you. This, of course, makes
it safer, but it also makes the process that much longer. Indian banks have
not tied up with each other to facilitate online transactions or facilitate
online shopping. ICICI Bank is the one that plans to offer its customers the
benefit of online shopping with payments being made directly from your
account at the bank. What about logistics? Few online stores have the
infrastructure needed to carry out operations on a full-scale basis. This
means that the site should be able to deliver the goods to you in time as
well as guarantee that it will not be damaged. Which is why Amit Zaveri,
vice-president (business development), Indbazaar. com has not jumped on the
online shopping bandwagon yet. "There are too many variables involved to
jump into online shopping. Indbazaar.com does plan to offer online shopping
in the future, but at the moment we are busy preparing the infrastructure
that would be needed for a venture like that," he explains.Many sites that
Businessworld checked out did not offer much variety and choices. For
example, Fabmart.com boasts of having a wide variety of music picks (around
10,000), but a search revealed that there weren't too many options available
in the jazz, dance music and movie soundtrack categories. Another site,
elclassifieds.com where you can buy toys, art and other such items, also
proved disappointing. There were no choices available in the soft toys and
action-figure categories. Several sites had technical problems. For example,
when an item was placed on the aisclub.com site (a site that specialises in
deliveries around Delhi) shopping cart, it was not there at the checkout and
we had to start all over again. Given all these uncertainties in the online
shopping planet, it is a good idea to follow the expert's advice and wait a
while before you plunge headlong into it. Says Deshpande: "It should take
six to eight months for cyber laws to be put in place and one can expect
positive changes in online shopping." After that, log into long hours of
shopping.