Case Study E-Tailing Health Services in India

This case study has been developed to promote understanding the e-tailing of health services. E-health web portal provides a new medium for information dissemination, interaction and collaboration among institutions, health professionals, health providers and the public. This case study provides a founders perspective in setting up and running a medical website that offers online health care services to customers across the world. The case study discusses the challenges and issues faced by the founders and also the promoter's perspective on the lucrativeness of offering e-tailing services. Using this case study an attempt is made to stress the importance of a flexible e-tailing business model specific to the services offered and need of periodic assessments to ensure that the business runs profitable.

Taxation Policy Measures for E- Retailers

The internet has already revolutionized many aspects of modern business and living and promises to bring even more radical future changes. In contrast, tax laws are normally slow to changing realities. It is anticipated that trade in tangible (physical) goods with e- commerce will not introduce problems. However, trade in intangible (electronic or digital) goods can be problematic because they will be difficult if not impossible to track. The chapter discusses the important concepts woven around the idea of taxing e tailing transactions and aims at coming up with a conclusion which will help further to determine the appropriate tax policies for e retailers keeping in mind the global framework. The chapter aims at discussing the concept of Internet Taxation, E- Retailing laws and regulations in Global Context. The chapter also discusses broad outlines relating to taxability of E Retailing transactions from VAT and CST angle under different scenarios and arguments in favor and against of taxing the e tailing transactions. The chapter also discusses important acts passed in different economies for taxing online retailers including Marketplace Fairness Act 2013 and Internet Tax Freedom Act. It is concluded by discussing the possible effects of the online retail tax. It could be argued that e- commerce for most part will not require new tax principles. Existing principles still apply only the old ways of doing things need to be digitized. The internet and e- commerce certainly does introduce some new business models and products that would not have been possible with old technology. And in some case, new laws may be required or old laws amended. Trade in intangibles or goods that are in digital format promises to be the main problem area.

Omnichannel Retailing

Tremendous growth of information technology led to the rise of a new form of retailing, the digital retailing, (includes e-commerce and m-commerce), which offers value, convenience and tons of information. Mostly, customers experience digital and conventional retailing distinctly. For a customer to appreciate ‘The brand', it is necessary for him to experience it, no matter through which channel he interacts with ‘The brand'. Here, Omnichannel strategy, which uses digital media as its backbone, is an integrated sales experience that melds the advantages of physical stores with the information rich-experience of online shopping. An Omnichannel strategy enables the customer to get what he wants anyhow, anytime and anywhere through options like Click and Collect Store, order from a public space, browse in store-order online, browse online-get at store and in-store GPS, information centre etc. From a retailer's perspective, it offers him a single customer view (SCV) that helps in understanding what the customers want. An effective integration of field intelligence and digital media data facilitates excellent control over the stocking of products. Integration of channels enables a retail store to fulfil an online order, thus the volume of products going into decline stage is reduced. Also it becomes easy to either risk pool the inventory and deliver from one point or reduce warehousing and deliver from the store. As a result, capital investment is optimised. To adopt omnichannel, it is necessary to understand the psychology of digital shoppers, customer touch points and actionable channels preferred by the customers. The SCV offered by omnichannel ensures that the brand makes its customers appreciate, enjoy and remain connected to the brand.

Engaging your Global Social Media Audience

The global reach of social media provides opportunities for e-Retailers. Implementing a global social media strategy maximizes the efficiency of the exchange of information between the target audience and the brand. Information acquisition provides e-Retailers with knowledge about their target audience, while information dissemination spreads awareness about the brand to the target audience. As a result, e-Retailers leveraging user content on social media enable the development of strategic global engagement to reduce cultural complexities. The REALLY framework develops a foundation to leverage user-generated content using standardization for multilayered social media campaigns for e-Retailers. Roxy's global social media campaign is used as a case example to analyze global social media strategy and internationalization.

Discernment of Youth towards E-Retailing in Asian and Gulf Marketing Territories

Internet has created an opportunities for businesses especially retailers to stay connected with customers in the era of globalization. The customers can make purchases in a faster and convenient manner with the use of internet. E- Retailing is becoming very prominent and is being accepted by every age group across the world over the last few decades. Customers are embracing the shift from physical store to virtual store for purchase of products. E- Commerce has been grown very fast because of many advantages associated with buying on internet because of lower transaction and search cost as compared to other types of shopping. Through online shopping consumers can buy faster, more alternatives and can order product and services with comparative lowest price. (Cuneyt and Gautam 2004). This research paper will focus on youth of different social, national cultural backgrounds and their perception and attitude towards e-retailing .This also attempts to find out the important factors that make them loyal towards a particular marketer, without personal interaction.

Competing Through Logistics Management

In the past 10 years, e-commerce and e-retailing have developed rapidly in China, the largest emerging country. Due to the increasingly more competition in this industry, a fast and reliably delivery is important to win customer satisfaction. Despite of the fact that many e-retailing companies are running virtual network by outsourcing logistics to third parties, there is also a trend for companies to establish their own logistics channels. In fact, self-owned logistics can be an effective approach of marketing and customer relationship development, and thus provide competitive advantage. This chapter focuses on how Chinese e-retailing companies compete through logistics management. It starts with an introduction of e-retailing and logistics management from practice and literature perspectives. Then, there are cases studies into successful Chinese re-retailing companies with a highlight on their logistics management models and customer satisfaction based on initial survey. Further discussion will address the critical issues of logistics management in e-retailing.

Opinion Leaders Go Online

“Social influence” in innovative e-retailing environments increasingly seems to have an important impact on online buying behavior. This chapter addresses this issue, focusing on the role of online opinion leaders. The opinion leadership construct has been associated with innovative behavior as well as with the early adoption of electronic shopping technologies. Despite these assumptions, little is known about online opinion leaders and their characteristics in e-retailing environments. The aim of the chapter is twofold: to identify the main features of opinion leaders in digital contexts and, by means of an exploratory empirical study, to analyse whether they have an impact on the purchase decisions of high involvement products, by explaining from where opinion leaders derive their skills.

An Epigrammatic View of E-Retailing in India

The Internet has changed the way many consumers shop, not just in the digital domain, but also in the physical world. E-tailing is a subset of e-commerce, which encapsulates all “commerce” conducted via the Internet. It refers to that part of e-commerce which entails the sale of product merchandise and does not include sale of services viz. Railway tickets, airlines tickets, job portals, etc. In 2012, the size of India's e-commerce market was USD 10 billion, while that of the e-tailing market was USD 0.6 billion. The current small size of e-tailing has led to it rarely being assessed on standalone basis. It is either clubbed with e-commerce or with brick & mortar retail, which, while not incorrect, does not allow for e-tailing's evaluation on its own merit. Consumer's perception regarding shopping has been changed with the introduction of internet media. Retail industry has witnessed major revolution in the changing technology oriented business scenario of the twenty-first century in India. Internet has shrunk the entire World. The rules of the game in retailing are fast changing with the introduction of Information Technology. The e-Retailing website is the front door of the online store that interacts between the e-retailer and consumers. The electronic retailing (e-Tailing, e-Retailing, internet retailing etc.) is the model of selling of retail goods using electronic media, in particular, the internet. In this research paper the authors propose to explore the factors contributing to the growth of e–Retailing in India and to investigate conceptually the issues and challenges involved in e- Retailing An attempt in this paper will also be made to study the present scenarios of e-tailing opportunities, its market, the viabilities and trends.

E-Commerce in India

This chapter uniquely reports origin of e-commerce and holistic present scenario of online retail in India. Desk research and extant review of literature from reliable market research reports, books, journals and web has been done to decipher internet penetration, evolution of e-commerce and present scenario. Study observed that India is third largest country in terms of internet users. India will drive e-commerce in Asia pacific region after China and Indonesia. Reasons hampering India from finding place in global retail e-commerce index are also put in foreground. Sequential events leading to growth of different types of e-commerce in India are delineated into two waves to understand the evolutionary process. Out of total non-travel B2C e-commerce, online retail holds significant fifty percent share and its prospects for future growth are extremely positive. Businesses and researchers will find this chapter useful to devise future strategies to win and sustain e-commerce market in India.

Role of Media in Success of E-Tailing

This chapter proposes to bring forth insights as how media contributes in e-tailing. The success of online retailers owe to the role which media plays in changing the consumer mind. India's retail market value was estimated at $520 billion in 2013, and is expected to grow to $950 billion by 2018. With a CAGR currently pegged at 13%, the Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific Region – with its market size doubling every 2-2.5 years. This certainly gives us reason for deep introspection. While the global growth rate of online shoppers is estimated at 8-10%, India currently has more than 10 million online shoppers. With the evolution of the online marketplace, sites like Flipkart, Snapdeal, Jabong and Myntra are thriving which has risen the practice of buying goods online. The media has definitely played vital role in shaping the online retail business.