Jisha Surya
Thiruvananthapuram: Online shopper is no longer a crazy shopaholic who buys anything and everything comes in front of him. Intelligent buyers are more in number than compulsive shoppers visiting online shopping sites these days. They are cashing in on the promotional offers of online sites.
With competition intensifying in the online shopping site segment, most of the players are now put forth seductive offers to sell. The only target will be to add hits and make sites popular. “The strategy is to adopt a no profit no loss stand initially to attract more customers. Often, they incur losses but view them as a publicity strategy,” said a software professional who was earlier part of an e-commerce website team.
Check out a user, who is a businessman in Thiruvananthapuram, who has created numerous user IDs. “Some online shopping sites use all the ways to woo new users to its site. The new user will have offers raining on him. So, more IDs means more offers. Thus we will get products even at 70 percent discount,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Sathyajith K, an online shopping buff, said he could win a deodorant worth Rs. 200 for just Rs 20 from infibeam.com last week. “I used to buy toiletries in much less price,” she said. “Some sites have offer starting from 12 midnight and continuing in wee hours. I and my brother, sometime wake up, early to check the offers of some sites like shopclues.com,” he said.
The term ‘new’ is always good in online shopping. Just as the new users get red carpet welcome, new websites are shoppers’ paradise. “New websites usually display a number of offers. In order to woo users to their site, they will exhibit attractive offers. The rate of discount will go down as the website gets older. So it is good to switch to new site. Only thing is that you must check whether the sites are genuine,” he said.
The customers also make use of daily, weekly deals where good offers are given during a particular time.
Krishna Kripal, a techie, who buys majority of products online, said it was important to know dos and don’ts of online shopping. “There is a forum of online shopper www.desidime.com, where one can get website reviews, product reviews, suggestions etc,” Kripal said. One of the interesting trends among online customers is that most share discount voucher codes through this forum. “If I have a flipkart voucher and another one have voucher for a gadget, we could exchange it according to the need,” he said.
Forum such as desidime.com have list of attractive offers, hot deals, cheapest products etc. The discussions in the forum also help online users to clear doubts, solve issues, check genuineness etc.
Kripal said he is into bulk purchase of consumer durables such as cosmetics, soaps, detergent etc. “Of the products, 75 percent will be useful and 25 percent can be used later,” he said. For Kripal, online shopping is more profitable. “I recently bought a mixie worth Rs 2600 by paing just Rs1500. You won’t get discount at this rate from shops,” he said.
Some online shopping sites also sell products on instalments. Most users interested in gadgets find this option attractive. Now profitability is placed above all other factors such as convenience, flexibility of time, and cash on delivery, which earlier attracted users to online sites. With the introduction of features like cash back offers, replacements etc, skepticism has vanished to thin air.
Prof. C Ganesh, head, department of Commerce, Kerala University, said online shopping sites take the maximum advantage of minimizing establishment cost to sell products cheaper. “They didn’t have the headache to maintain shops and employ many to run the business”, he said. According to Ganesh, a serious study on how the popularity of e-commerce sites would hamper the local merchants is yet to be carried out
Thiruvananthapuram: Online shopper is no longer a crazy shopaholic who buys anything and everything comes in front of him. Intelligent buyers are more in number than compulsive shoppers visiting online shopping sites these days. They are cashing in on the promotional offers of online sites.
With competition intensifying in the online shopping site segment, most of the players are now put forth seductive offers to sell. The only target will be to add hits and make sites popular. “The strategy is to adopt a no profit no loss stand initially to attract more customers. Often, they incur losses but view them as a publicity strategy,” said a software professional who was earlier part of an e-commerce website team.
Check out a user, who is a businessman in Thiruvananthapuram, who has created numerous user IDs. “Some online shopping sites use all the ways to woo new users to its site. The new user will have offers raining on him. So, more IDs means more offers. Thus we will get products even at 70 percent discount,” he said on condition of anonymity.
Sathyajith K, an online shopping buff, said he could win a deodorant worth Rs. 200 for just Rs 20 from infibeam.com last week. “I used to buy toiletries in much less price,” she said. “Some sites have offer starting from 12 midnight and continuing in wee hours. I and my brother, sometime wake up, early to check the offers of some sites like shopclues.com,” he said.
The term ‘new’ is always good in online shopping. Just as the new users get red carpet welcome, new websites are shoppers’ paradise. “New websites usually display a number of offers. In order to woo users to their site, they will exhibit attractive offers. The rate of discount will go down as the website gets older. So it is good to switch to new site. Only thing is that you must check whether the sites are genuine,” he said.
The customers also make use of daily, weekly deals where good offers are given during a particular time.
Krishna Kripal, a techie, who buys majority of products online, said it was important to know dos and don’ts of online shopping. “There is a forum of online shopper www.desidime.com, where one can get website reviews, product reviews, suggestions etc,” Kripal said. One of the interesting trends among online customers is that most share discount voucher codes through this forum. “If I have a flipkart voucher and another one have voucher for a gadget, we could exchange it according to the need,” he said.
Forum such as desidime.com have list of attractive offers, hot deals, cheapest products etc. The discussions in the forum also help online users to clear doubts, solve issues, check genuineness etc.
Kripal said he is into bulk purchase of consumer durables such as cosmetics, soaps, detergent etc. “Of the products, 75 percent will be useful and 25 percent can be used later,” he said. For Kripal, online shopping is more profitable. “I recently bought a mixie worth Rs 2600 by paing just Rs1500. You won’t get discount at this rate from shops,” he said.
Some online shopping sites also sell products on instalments. Most users interested in gadgets find this option attractive. Now profitability is placed above all other factors such as convenience, flexibility of time, and cash on delivery, which earlier attracted users to online sites. With the introduction of features like cash back offers, replacements etc, skepticism has vanished to thin air.
Prof. C Ganesh, head, department of Commerce, Kerala University, said online shopping sites take the maximum advantage of minimizing establishment cost to sell products cheaper. “They didn’t have the headache to maintain shops and employ many to run the business”, he said. According to Ganesh, a serious study on how the popularity of e-commerce sites would hamper the local merchants is yet to be carried out
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