Determinants of Attitude Formation in the Context of Online Retail Shopping in India

Palpable advantages for marketers to sell online include the ability to reach a large number of consumers worldwide; to reach out to the younger lot of population; and to fight the constraints of sale through traditional means of physical presence in stores. These unhindered reach ultimately increases productivity and efficiency of the marketers.


Advantages for customers to buy online include easy and wide access of products, services, information; overall convenience; and direct effects of functional and utilitarian benefits. However, some customers prefer to shop and browse on the internet due to the fun, enjoyment and excitement involved, that is satisfying their emotional and hedonic pleasures, either as individuals or as social groups. So, a consumer’s motivation to shop online may be either due to an utilitarian motive as a ‘problem solver’ or a hedonic motive in terms of ‘fun, fantasy and enjoyment'.

The modern Indian consumer is technologically aware, often educated and comfortable. His attempts to shop online are due to an advancing technology as well as consumer characteristics in terms of demographic, psychograhic, as well as situational influences. The attitudes toward online shopping is thus affected by the web experience of usefulness and enjoyment; consumer demographic and personality traits; situational factors and previous online shopping experiences.

Has Social computing become a mature channel?

The traditional marketing fellas prognosticate that despite the surge of digital marketing, traditional marketing would not loose its sheen. Well, I have listened to some great discourses by leaders in this field who bet on digital marketing being the future of marketing. But the question is how successful would that be in India?

A country so vast, a country so diverse in every aspect - digital marketing becomes a challenge; for the simple reason - pushing vernacular related ads. With 22 languages in India, the question becomes which language to adopt. Not always population segmentation gives the right picture. Its a complex web of factors such as population, literacy, technology adoption capability, PC penetration rate, the cost of broadband in the state and many others. However, Social computing has become a mature channel in the west. The infrastructure and the fast technology adoption process of the masses helped in the spread of digital marketing. Forrester came out with its annual report on "Top Social Computing Predictions For 2010". It is a paid report, however, i have picked up some learnings from the blog of Brian Solis.

According to the report, the role of the new marketer will:

- Focus on outbound messaging in addition to consult with sales, customer service, and human resources on how the brand must be communicated in every consumer interaction, every tweet, and every touchpoint.

My view: Its easier said than done. We need to realize the enormous monitoring cost because managing impression in the vast world wide web is not a mean task. Would benefit outweigh the cost is the question we need to answer.

- Fashion programs that are seamless with the actual product and service experience beyond the imagination of creative messages.

My view: This is nothing new. The traditional marketeers used to do this long back.

- Respond to and be part of the ever-changing dialog with consumers, not plan bursts of communication on a yearlong calendar

My view: Very true. Question is "How to achieve this?" Responding meaningfully to the ever-changing dialog with consumers means vastly increasing the screening and monitoring cost. This is a typical chicken-egg problem. Without the other benefits would not follow.

- Look beyond the quantity of friends, page visits, eyeballs, readers, and viewers to measure changes in consumer attitude and intent

My view : I have always been a proponent of Semantic search and Netnography. These two growing stars of science/ethnographic studies understand the human sentiments behind the humongous data strewn around in the web. The biggest challenge of Social Media Marketing and Monetization of Social Networking would be to rightly gauge the feelings of the "conversation of the consumers" in the World Wide Web. So I do believe that we have to look beyond the simple numbers and concepts such as eyeballs, quantity of friends. Quality would surpass quantity in 2010.

- Listen to and engage customers one to one

- Build relationships and not campaigns

- Create experiences not impressions

My view: Theoretically easy to express, practically difficult to implement. We need to remember that in Social Media Marketing, execution is the key. Lofty ideas and vapid educational discourses hold no water if they are not executed properly. Isn't it an oxymoron
"Listen to and engage customers one to one" when we know there are millions of consumers online. My question is how can you possibly do that? Are we aware of the CAGR growth of online population of the world?

On Social Media ROI, Brian rightly said that "Measuring sentiment analysis, would-be referrals, and increases in share of voice are entry-level techniques that do not necessarily capture the potential of socialized media channels."

To end this please enjoy a good video on the topic - Has digital marketing usurped traditional marketing?

Barriers of Vernacular adoption

The barriers towards widespread adoption of ICT can be divided into two major groups. Firstly, infrastructural barriers in using computing technologies and secondly, barriers in using online content. The former sets of barriers are enumerated, below:

Limited PC penetration in the country:

Though falling prices of PC have fueled the growth of PC usage in the country, but this growth is limited to the affluent sections of the society. At the current price level, PC remains a far fetched phenomena for the ‘not so affluent’ sections in the country.

Availability and awareness of local language applications:

In most cases localisation is considered synonymous with translation. There is limited awareness as well as availability of localized applications beyond translations. The need is to acknowledge that localisation also encompasses significant, non-textual components of products or services in addition to strict translation.

Non-standardization:

There is absence of proper standardization in Indian language computing with respect to the following:

• Script level standardization
• Font level standardization
• Standardized transliteration

This absence of standardization leads to "a usage propriety technology" which further deters standardization. Also, this limits the scalability and flexibility of the solutions and creates dependence on a single vendor.

Lack of formal language based IT training:

In India all computer based training is imparted in English language. Not only this, in most schools and colleges where the medium of teaching is vernacular, computers are taught in English. There is no formal training in vernacular language for usage of Computers.

Difficulties in product design:

Since inception computers have been using a Western-centric product architecture with keyboards in English. Countries with localized offerings on keyboards have successfully created keyboards in their vernacular language. But for a multilingual country like India the situation of language standardization is difficult. All relevant input methods must be supported if local users are to have access to the equipment.

Belief that PC and the Internet are for English literates:

A common perception amongst the non English speaking population is that PC and Internet is only for those who know English. This is more rampant especially among the house wives and older men. They feel that there is a limited scope of what they can do online as they associate Internet and PC with the English language.

Low awareness level for availability of content in local language:

As per I-Cube 2007 data, almost 35% of the Internet users are not aware of the availability of content in the Indian languages online. This number increases to 53% for Internet users in Non-Metros. In order to increase the usage for Indian language content and in turn drive more traffic online, the masses need to be made aware of the content and applications available in their language.

Lack of supporting hardware:

Even though content and applications are available in vernacular language, the absence of adequate infrastructure creates a hurdle for its usage. For example, for inputs related to text in vernacular language the user has to type the phonetically similar English alphabets so as to get the right word in vernacular language. So it is more of a trial and error rather than systematic input of text through supporting hardware.

Lack of websites offering interface along with content in Indian language:

The most popular technology used by various websites providing content in Indian language is transliteration. It requires user to type Indian text in English language, which is then converted in the desired Indian language. The current segment of the Internet users using Indian content online is the English speaking population. However, to attract and retain the non-English speaking population, the platform needs to be provided in the Indian language. This is currently being provided by very few players.

Limited revenues from advertising:

According to a leading portal, there are few Indian language specific websites. As a result, advertising on Indian language sites is yet to take off. The web versions of newspapers have an edge over others since they already have relationship with advertisers. But stand-alone sites may take some time to get any traction.

Lack of contextual delivery:

At present transliteration and machine translation are the most popular technologies used by major websites in providing content in the desired language. However, such translation lose the context around the message that is being communicated resulting into a non-cohesive delivery.

These are by far the most plaguing problems restricting vernacular adoption in India. If you know of some more, please make me cognizant of the same.

Sources of my report:

IAMAI Report on Vernacular adoption - Click here
IAMAI Report on Vernacular content - Click here

Bridging the gap...

This is an article I wrote for the symposium -"Internet Retail Vision 2010" organized by Wirefoot Consulting to be held on 28th Jan in Delhi.

Consumers’ decision-making process has considerably changed with the introduction of the Internet as an alternative channel for shopping. The new wave of consumerism coupled with increasing urbanization and burgeoning middle class with paradigm shifts in their demographic and psychographic dynamics have driven consumers frequently to use retail websites to search for product information and/or make a purchase of products. A report by Euro-monitor ratified the ever increasing importance of electronic retailing as an additional channel for shopping. The electronic retail growth of Indian market as estimated by Euro-monitor report stands close to 48% CAGR and in value term it is going to touch INR 27 billion(Rs 2700 crores) in 2010. The report also predicted that the contribution of internet retailing to non-store retailing is likely to be 46% this year. However, all these predictions have inherent assumptions which I feel do not reflect the reality. Amidst all the hype and hoopla about ecommerce, the reality is stark and hits straight onto your face – internet retailing has not yet taken off in India in a big way. Case in point: Out of 50 million online Indians, only 7 million have ever purchased stuff online. Here, I am not even considering the bigger issues that plague the ecommerce landscape in India. If one takes those into account the picture turns grimmer.

In the last few years, the belief that building Internet retail sites will automatically trigger customer patronage has been questioned and considered more a myth. This new medium of commerce has its own drawbacks such as reduced opportunities for sensory shopping, social shopping, face-to-face interactions with sales personnel, and the postponement of the consumption or enjoyment of tangible goods. The inherent limitations of the Internet have been compounded by poorly designed online storefronts, limited product selection, impersonal product descriptions, tedious checkout procedures, security lapses and privacy invasions. In this article, I would provide few tips to the online retailers which would help them bridge the ever increasing chasm between offline and online shopping experience.

1. Dynamics of online storefront - Few factors such as responsiveness of the websites, load time, navigability, interactivity, aesthetics and relevancy of search results play imperative roles in the complete “Online Shopping Experience”. Excitement and joy associated with shopping online because of attractive layouts and designs lay emphasis on the hedonic pleasures of a consumer which an etailer should definitely cash on.

2. Product views – To provide for an engaged shopping experience, all the products featured on the etailing site should have multiple product views, 360 degree views, views with clear dimensions and a provision to zoom in or out. In doing so, the etailer is reducing a user’s fears, uncertainties, doubts and dealbreakers (FUDDs). In the United States, companies such as Pixazza and LiquidPixels provide this kind of facility to a host of online retailers.

3. Product description - Most product descriptions are impersonal in nature. Hardly, they say anything about why someone should buy a product. Moreover, the descriptions don’t even try to create an ever-lasting bond by telling customers why they are going to love this product and how the product differs from the competitors’ substitutes.

Typical product description - Iceman Crewneck Sweater

The Iceman crewneck sweater is 100% Cashmoore® and great for casual or dressed-up occasions. It includes shark tooth detail at neck, color blocking on raglan sleeves and spandex binding at cuffs.

Personalized product description (HornyToad.com) - Iceman Crew Sweater

For the guy who cares but doesn’t want to work too hard to look good, the low-key Iceman crew has just enough spice in the sleeve stripes to inspire confidence without distraction. Guaranteed chill defying, the Iceman is comfortable, made from our gift-to-mankind, soft Cashmoore®. Easy-does-it details: shark’s tooth detail at crew neck, color blocking on raglan sleeves and spandex binding at cuffs.

4. Replicating offline shopping experience – An etailer should provide social shopping widgets for popular social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace in order to supplant for offline social shopping experience. Technologies such as “Horizontal Sliders”, “Clickstream Tracking”, and “Proactive Chat Widgets” should be incorporated to replicate the personalized flavor of offline shopping experience. BoldChat.com - the company which pioneered the “Clickstream Tracking” technology - would be an apt mention in this regard.

5. Augmented reality – We all are aware that lack of tangibility is one of the main reasons for non popularity of online shopping. Inability to try a product (Touch-Feel-Try Experience) before buying acts as a barrier for some internet users. To that end, presence of an Interactive website facilitates two-way communication and evokes favorable effects on the overall consumer purchase decisions. Using technology such as “Augmented Reality”, a streamlined two-way communication could easily be established. A pertinent mention here would be a marketing agency called Zugara – It offers a webcam facilitated technology which enables the user to try her clothes online.


6. Security - It is the need of the hour for all e-tailers to adopt security measures and inculcate a sense of trust among online shoppers that data provided during online transactions would not be misused. Even a trivial thing such as the presence of a “lock sign” on the webpage evokes a sense of security.

7. Post transaction elements - Adequate attention needs to be paid towards customer service and distribution & logistics and these should be integrated seamlessly not only with the company’s existing website, but also with the company’s entire operations, online and offline. Importance should be paid on “Post-transaction” elements such as delivery schedules, warranty services, return and exchange policies, post-sales services and related technical support.

The etailers following these points religiously would certainly witness an increase in the customer conversion rate and a decrease in the customer acquisition cost. On a macro level, an adherence to the above-mentioned points would invariably facilitate the reduction of “skepticism of online retailing” to a large extent and bridge the increasing chasm between offline and online shopping experience.

Localization in India

Localisation can be defined as “the process of developing, tailoring and/or enhancing the capability of hardware and software to input, process and output information in the language, norms and metaphors used by a community” (Source: Digital Review of Asia Pacific 2007-08).

It is evident that China, Japan and Korea are the most matured markets in terms of localisation. These countries have been very active in their efforts towards standardized localisation. The result of this is that most of the software is already localized in these languages and now these countries are moving towards localizing cutting edge technology applications such as OCR and Text to Speech.

Technologies available to enable writing in Indian languages:

There are three technologies that enable typing in Indian languages. These are as follows.

Remington: It is suitable for those who have learnt typing on Indian language typewriter.

Inscript: The inscript keyboard that enables typing in Indic language from the standard keyboard is being provided by Windows, Linux and Macintosh operating systems. It also includes Virtual keyboards being provided by Indic content websites.

Phonetic: It works on the transliteration from the Indic text written in English into Indic text written in the same Indic language. This technology is preferred by the Bloggers and the segment of professional writers that publish stories or poems online.

Brahmi: A recent innovation has been the offering of Brahmi-based keyboard. In this type of keyboard, vowels and consonants are arranged based on the organization of Hindi characters.

Hardware: Type of Indian Language Keyboards

Bilingual Keyboard are available in different languages, in addition to English. The bilingual keyboards find their usage in government departments for exchanging bills from rural sections, maintaining a copy of official communication in Hindi and or local languages and interoffice work at lower level. PSUs also use bilingual keyboards as they require Indian language for written communication, report generation, etc. Households find usage of these keyboards limited to children’s project work and interactions (written) with government departments. Another localized offering on the keyboard market is a Gesture-Based Keyboard (GKB). It uses a pen-based technology that allows the Indian script to be recorded and stored directly on the computer.

Rediff has shown considerable interest in this sector, thereby acquiring companies such as Tachyon and Eterno; both these companies provide transliteration products for web as well as mobile.