Enhancing Post-Purchase And Product Return Experience Of Customer From Online Apparel Retailers
Arun Narayanan, Biswarup Saha, Chandra Shekhar Satpathy, IIM- Kozhikode
KEYWORDS e-tailing, Show-rooming, Shipment Tracking, Delivery Scheduling
ABSTRACT
The Indian online retail industry has been growing at a sturdy pace showing great promise for investors. Online retailers, especially apparel retailers have to ensure an in-person shopping experience. This has led to many innovations like cash-on-delivery, product trial etc. However, most retailers focus on pre-purchase activities for customer acquisition. Post purchase and product return is an essential part of the overall purchase experience. This paper explores the need and wants of customers with respect to post purchase and product return and the level of service expected from online retailers.
RESEARCH PAPER
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Online retail in its second innings, starting from 2007 onward, has made it big in India. The size of the Indian
1 online retailing in 2012 is estimated to be US $ 10 billion. However, online retailing, as a percentage of total retailing is still small compared to other developed and developing countries. Exhibit 1 shows the comparison.
Exhibit 1 E-tailing as a percentage of retail, 2011
14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0
8
13.2
3.8
US UK China Japan Germany France India
Source: The Economic Times
In India, e-tailing represents only 0.1 % of total retail compared to 3.8 % for China. However, India is poised to grow with the industry size projected to be US $ 200 billion by 2020 representing 8-9 % of total retail in India. Leading this growth is the apparel segment.
There are a number of factors which are responsible for the growth of e-tailing in India. Internet penetration has reached 22.39 million connections in December 2011
2
with estimated users in excess of 121 million. Also number of smart phone users in the country is on the rise which is due to availability of cheap hand sets and low data usage cost. Moreover, the benefits of online shopping are being realized by residents of small towns.
3.4
9 7.3
0.1
Currently, the top 8 metros account for 41 % of internet traffic. However, in 2015, it is expected that 37 % of the
traffic will be derived from cities with a population of less
3 than 0.5 million.
1.1 APPAREL E-TAILING
Apparel segment has seen a significant growth in the country. The major reasons attributed to the growth are lack of time, lifestyle change, convenience, etc. In the last two years, apparel e-tailers have secured US $ 70 million of investment, that is, 40 % of the total investment in retailing. 4
Apparel retailing takes one of the three prevalent forms in the country:
a) Multi-brand e-tailing – These e-tailers, sell multiple brands on the web site. These include Myntra. com, Jabong. com, etc.
b) Branded e-tailers – They are those which own brands and have physical stores and have now gone online. Examples are Zovi. com, ShoppersStop. com, etc.
c) Niche e-tailers – They sell very specific product for select segments. Example, FirstCry. com( baby products), Cbazaar. com( bridal fashion), etc.
The average Indian consumer has been experiencing increasing time-poverty these days. People have been spending more time commuting to and from their offices, on leisure and recreation, on vacations, in grooming and maintaining their well-being, socializing, teaching schoolgoing children etc., leading to limited time availability for shopping and such activities. There is an increasing emphasis on reducing the stress and time taken for routine activities( household chores / shopping etc.) and maximizing the time spent with families and friends. Convenience in terms of ease and time, information, decision-making, transactions and flexibility have been
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