Emarketing Trend

Acknowledgement

I have taken efforts in this project. However, it would not have been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals and organizations. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of them.

I am highly indebted to Ace Institute of Management for their guidance and constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding the project & also for their support in completing the project.
I would like to express my gratitude towards my college & instructor Mr. Santosh Thapa for his kind co-operation and encouragement which help me in completion of this project.

I would like to express my special gratitude and thanks to industry persons for giving me such attention and time.

My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleague in developing the project and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities.

Contents
Acknowledgement
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Background of the Study
Objective of the study
Limitations of the Study
Importance of the study
Literature review
Conceptual Framework
Research Design
Sources of Data
Sampling Procedure
Data Collection Techniques
Data Analysis and Report Writing
CHAPTER 2
Data presentation and analysis
Major findings and discussions

Executive summary In the project we selected a certain sample. Our sample was a specified one. Generally people who are familiar with using internet were the sample people. There are still a lot number of people who are not familiar with the use of internet or even with the use of computer, so people who are well acquainted with the use of internet were our sample. They were made to fill the questionnaire and a simple informal interview was taken during the time the questionnaire got filled. Then the results were analyzed and then a conclusion was drawn. Living a standard life includes fulfilling our dreams and wishes and of course maintaining a respectful life. With the dynamic inventions and discovery by various genies personalities that have helped make our life simpler. When we talk about fulfilling our wishes automatically that comes to our mind is shopping. Shopping to get what we desire and shopping to fulfill our need. This project therefore, is about the online way of shopping. Going to a retail shop and purchasing what we need is a very common practice but online shopping is not very common or not very popular in Nepal. But these days most of the banks have introduced e- banking making e-commerce a more popular. People find it easy to make enquiry about their bank accounts and even make payments through e-banking. This project only focuses the scope of e-commerce in Nepal. There are various online stores available in Nepal providing facilities to people. This project is solely based on the scope of e-commerce in Nepal. Before starting the project there was a different view regarding e-commerce. There is a high scope of e-commerce in Nepal. People are looking forward for a better and improved service in e-commerce. People have less time for their own as the world is very competitive today. We need to work very hard for maintaining a level of standard living. The project includes the scope of e-commerce in Nepal; people’s general concept, their faith towards the online site and the reasons for e-commerce not being very common among us.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Background of the Study

Online shopping is the process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the Internet. It is a form of electronic commerce. An online shop, eshop, e-store, internet shop, webshop, web store, online store, or virtual store evokes the physical analogy of buying products or services at a bricks-and-mortar retailer or in a shopping centre. The process is called Business-to-Consumer (B2C) online shopping. When a business buys from another business it is called Business-to-Business (B2B) online shopping. In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee created the first World Wide Web server and browser. It opened for commercial use in 1991. In 1994 other advances took place, such as online banking and the opening of an online pizza shop by Pizza Hut. During that same year, Netscape introduced SSL encryption of data transferred online, which has become essential for secure online shopping. Also in 1994 the German company Inters hop introduced its first online shopping system. In 1995 Amazon launched its online shopping site, and in 1996 eBay appeared.
The main idea of online shopping is not just in having a good looking website that could be listed in a lot of search engines or the art behind the site. It also is not only just about disseminating information, because it is also about building relationships and making money. Mostly, organizations try to adopt techniques of online shopping without understanding these techniques and/or without a sound business model. Rather than supporting the organization's culture and brand name, the website should satisfy consumer's expectations a majority of consumers choose online shopping for a faster and more efficient shopping experience.

Many researchers notify that the uniqueness of the web has dissolved and the need for the design, which will be user centered, is very important. Companies should always remember that there are certain things, such as understanding the customer's wants and needs, living up to promises, never go out of style, because they give reason to come back. And the reason will stay if consumers always get what they expect.
McDonaldization theory can be used in terms of online shopping, because online shopping is becoming more and more popular and a website that wants to gain more shoppers will use four major principles of McDonaldization: efficiency, calculability, predictability and control.
Organizations, which want people to shop more online with them, should consume extensive amounts of time and money to define, design, develop, test, implement, and maintain the website. Also if a company wants their website to be popular among online shoppers it should leave the user with a positive impression about the organization, so consumers can get an impression that the company cares about them. The organization that wants to be accepted in online shopping needs to remember, that it is easier to lose a customer then to gain one. Lots of researchers state that even when a site was "top-rated", it would go nowhere if the organization failed to live up to common etiquette, such as returning e-mails in a timely fashion, notifying customers of problems, being honest, and being good stewards of the customers' data. Organizations that want to keep their customers or gain new ones should try to get rid of all mistakes and be more appealing to be more desirable for online shoppers. And this is why many designers of web shops consider research outcomes concerning consumer expectations. Research conducted by Elliot and Fowell (2000) revealed satisfactory and unsatisfactory customer experiences.

Till today, there are only a few online shops in Nepal like muncha.com, thamel.com, sagar.com.np etc. However, some of the sites are only for customers outside Nepal who can buy things with Credit cards, and some are only limited to online Catalog that just display items to the customer (for buying items on that sites, one has to visit the shop manually) and some are for pre-registered Nepalese Customers. Still there was no efficient way for automating the online shopping process and delivery of shopping items to home with ease. But now people in Nepal can enjoy the ease of online shopping as enjoyed by foreigners and Nepalese living outside Nepal. Items can be purchased not only from Nepal, but also from abroad using Harilo online store and pay through Payway.
The shops and departmental stores that want to create online shops in Nepal can easily integrate the Payway Payment option to their site as an online payment gateway. Customers registered to Payway can easily buy items from the shops and pay from their payway account. I have talked with several shopkeepers and departmental store owners that want to create online shops but due to the lack of online payment system in Nepal, their dream could not be converted to the reality. But, thanks to payway, the shop owners can now take a relief and can take advantages of technological advances brought right to the doors of Nepalese people by Payway

Statement of the problem

Fraud and security concerns:
Given the lack of ability to inspect merchandise before purchase, consumers are at higher risk of fraud on the part of the merchant than in a physical store. Merchants also risk fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or fraudulent repudiation of the online purchase. Phishing is another danger, where consumers are fooled into thinking they are dealing with a reputable retailer, when they have actually been manipulated into feeding private information to a system operated by a malicious party. Denial of service attacks are a minor risk for merchants, as are server and network outages.
Quality seals can be placed on the Shop web page if it has undergone an independent assessment and meets all requirements of the company issuing the seal. The purpose of these seals is to increase the confidence of the online shoppers; the existence of many different seals, or seals unfamiliar to consumers, may foil this effort to a certain extent.

Lack of full cost disclosure
The lack of full disclosure with regards to the total cost of purchase is one of the concerns of online shopping. While it may be easy to compare the base price of an item online, it may not be easy to see the total cost up front as additional fees such as transportation, delivery cost etc are often not be visible until the final step in the checkout process. The problem is especially evident with cross-border purchases, where the cost indicated at the final checkout screen may not include additional fees that must be paid upon delivery such as duties and brokerage.

Privacy
Privacy of personal information is a significant issue for some consumers. Many websites keep track of consumers shopping habits in order to suggest items and other websites to view. Some ask for address and phone number at checkout, though consumers may refuse to provide it. There is no guarantee that the information provided by the customer is kept safe; like their address etc.

Product suitability
Products less suitable for e-commerce include products that have a low value-to-weight ratio, products that have a smell, taste, or touch component, products that need trial fittings(most notably clothing) and products where colour integrity appears important. Many successful online sales are those that deals with digital products, (including information storage, retrieval, and modification), music, movies, office supplies, education, communication, software, photography, and financial transactions.Transferring of money (remittance) is very common today.
Nepali handicrafts are also high in demand. Items which can fit in a standard mailbox such as music CDs, DVDs and books are also particularly suitable for an online shopping. Products such as spare parts, both for consumer items like washing machines and for industrial equipment like centrifugal pumps, also seem good candidates for selling online.

Objective of the study

The main objective of this research is to know about how the online shopping stores work and how does it maintain its goodwill so that people can trust them. Some objectives have been listed down as follows:
Ø To know the various methods of payment of online stores.
Ø To know about the privacy concerns of the customers who provide their personal details for the delivery of products.
Ø To know about the types of product the online stores sale.
Ø To evaluate whether the online stores make disclosure of full cost or not.

Limitations of the Study
This study is not absolutely free from limitations, the limitations may be observed are as follows:
a. Since the study use primary and secondary data in order to prepare report, the data collection might be influenced by financial crisis and personal influence of the data collector.
b. The primary data used in this research covers only one district.
c. The secondary data used in this research covers the information of limited districts.
d. The limitations of the secondary sources of data might have influenced the study.
e. Certain information is based on approximation.
f. Online stores personally may not discuss openly the problems of e-commerce.
g. Since there are very few customers of e-commerce, knowing about people’s response is difficult.

Importance of the study E-commerce is a very unique technology that has been introduced by many retail and wholesale shops. The online shopping stores are providing services within the country and outside the country as well. Online stores not only sell products but also transfer money from one place to another in an easy manner. There are many online stores available in Nepal today that sale various products like machinery, handicraft, digital products etc. online stores generally do not provide warranty or guarantee of the goods sold. There will be no return and hence the product has to be checked at the time of delivery of the product.

The online stores available in Nepal are as follows:
· Kathmandu Mart.com - This site will deliver state-of-the-art Online Solutions by bringing technology and people together to resolve a wide range of shopping necessity.
· NetForNepal.com - A site through which you can send gifts to your family & friends in Nepal. A cool way to maintain ties with your loved ones in Nepal.
· Nepa Rudraksha - Nepal Rudraksha is founded to achieve objectives of promoting Nepali rudraksha and saligrams through out the world.
· Pasal.com - Selling Pashmina in the web
· Pashminarus.com - For the finest collection of the highest quality pashmina shawls from Nepal.
· Thamel.com - For all kinds of occasions, send gifts to Nepal
· Cashmere Online - For hand woven shawl home delivery all over the world direct from Nepal
· Dhukuti - For books, CDs, handicrafted rugs, pashmina etc.
· Nepal Export House - For pashmina and more from Nepal
· Emporioasia.com - Fine pashmina from nepal for free immediate express delivery worldwide.
· Mahabazaar.com - A one-stop online bazaar for authentic south asian products and travel services

· Muncha House - An e-commerce site to send gifts to loved ones in Nepal
· Pashmina Pasal - pashmina shawl couriered to you anywhere in the world also other products.
· Scournepal.com - For online shopping in Nepal.

Literature review

Moe and Fader (2000) suggest that both planned and unplanned visit/purchase will affect future purchase decisions. However, our analysis of over 300 research articles showed that there are no studies examining unplanned purchase. Korfaris (2002) is the first to explore the relationship between unplanned and online consumer behavior. Unplanned behavior (for example, browsing visit without specific intention to buy) in fact is stimuli-driven and occasionally results in unplanned purchase (Janiszewski, 1998; Jarboe and McDaniel, 1987). We believe that the web provides several types of stimuli and we urge researchers to examine the process of online unplanned purchase.
Electronic commerce is rapidly changing the way people do business all over the world.
In the business-to-consumer segment, sales through the web have been increasing dramatically over the last few years. Customers, not only those from well-developed
Countries but also those from developing countries are getting used to the new shopping Channel. Understanding the factors that affect intention, adoption and repurchase are Important for researchers and practitioners alike. Our findings confirm that online consumer behavior is still immature and exhibits an important research potential. The impact of several constructs of TPB, TRA and TAM such as attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control has been widely studied while other important factors have been ignored.

Factors related to consumer characteristics like demographics, personality, value, lifestyle, consumer resources, and knowledge were not explored. In addition, factors related to the medium characteristics (network availability, reliability, stability, speed, externalities, information quality, shopping aids medium richness and convenience), and environmental influences (culture and reference groups) have not been fully investigated in prior studies. In terms of adoption, we found that consumer characteristics and medium characteristics are the key categories that most prior research explored. For example, characteristics such as demographics, lifestyle, motivation, behavioral characteristics, knowledge, attitude, intention, personal innovativeness, experience, trust, perceived risk, satisfaction, involvement and flow are well-tested and extensively studied. In addition, factors related to merchant and intermediary characteristics including website design, network reliability, search, network speed, usefulness, information quality, search attribute, shopping aids, channel, convenience and enjoyable are frequently explored. Christy M. K. Cheung, Lei Zhu, Timothy Kwong, Gloria W.W. Chan, Moez Limayem.
Compared to intention and adoption, continuance is an under-researched area. The impact of factors like trust and satisfaction in the domain of consumer characteristics, ease of use, usefulness and search attribute in the domain of medium characteristics, and delivery in the domain of merchant and intermediary characteristics on continuance are yet to be investigated.

Conceptual Framework

E-stores are the online stores that sells product online. Here all the product information is available on the internet and it helps us purchase products online. It is becoming popular slowly. The online store can be generalized in the conceptual framework given below:

Research methodology
Research Design
The main purpose of this study is the economic evaluation on the online stores available. E-commerce is not trusted by all here in Nepal. Most generally, the number of internet users is still very less as compared to other countries. When very few people have internet access then very few of them are introduced to the online shopping stores. People who are not very familiar with the internet are unaware about the online stores. Since online stores are not very popular in Nepal, people find it difficult to trust it. Therefore, the research design is quantitative and descriptive in nature.

Sources of Data

Both primary and secondary data will be used for the study. To receive in-depth knowledge on the technical aspects and its working principle, we need to visit one or few online stores. It is also required to consult and review existing literatures, reports, information bulletins, booklets etc published by various institutions and personnel working in this field. Moreover, the respective user directly experiences and can tell us about its advantages as well as disadvantages. Hence, to get first hand information on the online stores it is necessary that the users be consulted and interviewed in-depth. Primary data will be collected from respective customers of the online stores and secondary data and information were collected from various published articles and reports.

Nature of Data

Since the study use both data i.e. primary and secondary sources of information, both qualitative and quantitative data will be utilized for the study.

Sampling Procedure

2 online stores muncha.com and thamel.com will be visited. The respective managers of the stores will be interviewed. Then we will search for the household where people are educated, have internet access and have knowledge about the online stores. Then they will be interviewed so that we can have an idea about the customer response and can also have their views regarding the e-commerce

Data Collection Techniques

The structured questionnaire will be used to collect the primary data for the study . A set of structured questionnaire will be developed to conduct interviews with respective households. Information related to socio economic information (population, gender occupation, educational status) etc who use the e-commerce will be analyzed.

Data Analysis and Report Writing
All the data/information will be stored. They will be refined and analyzed and then presented in a new way. Qualitative approaches may be used to analyze the collected information. Different diagrams and graphs will be used as applicable. The findings will be presented in the summer project report.

CHAPTER 2

Data presentation and analysis

During the process of survey the data that has been collected has been analyzed and then the results are explained in this section of the report.
Although the entire sample population are familiar with the use of internet there are still people who have not yet visited an online shopping website. From this we can know that the online shoppers need to advertize more about their services and make it readily available to increase their customers and create interest in people. This can be explained more with the help of the statistical data below.

Data showing the number of people who have visited online shopping website


Table : 1.1
Table 1.1 states that 76.2% people have visited online shopping website where as there are still 23.8% people who have not visited the shopping website. Although 100% of the respondents were familiar with the use of internet only 16 of them has ever visited the website where products are sold online.

The next thing to be considered while finding out the scope of e-commerce was the statistics of people who have used the e-commerce. There were many of them who have used the facility of e-commerce, but maximum of them used “online banking” and not “online shopping.” Since most of the banks in Kathmandu have provided with the facility of using e-banking people are being familiar and used to with e-commerce. E-banking is a major scope for the promotion of e-commerce. People use e-commerce for the online booking of tickets as well. The statistical data that can represent the number of people who are using e-commerce is as displayed below.

Data showing the number of people who have used e-commerce


Table: 1.2

Table 1.2 states that there are 81% people who have used e-commerce, whether it be as a means of online shopping or online banking or online ticketing. And there are 19% people who have not used e-commerce in its entire means.
The data can be represented in the form of pie-chart as well. This diagrammatic representation helps us to understand better, the number of people who use and who do not use e-commerce.



Next we need to consider is if people trust online shopping sites and e-commerce sites or not. There may be various ways to be careful before using any online sites. The organization providing with online facilities must be a trusted source and not just based on advertisement. The various ways to conduct or to benefit from e-commerce is as follows.
· Only use the websites of trustworthy organization.
· Be sure about the web address of the organization and make sure you type it correctly in the address bar.
· Since there can be only one domain registered for one name, there cannot be fake sites with the same name and hence it is easy to differentiate between original and fake site.
· Use e-banking only provided by trustable bank as you need to enter your bank account number in many cases to use the e-banking.

But still there are people who do not still trust e-shopping and e-banking. People think that there are many risks involved in using e-commerce. The pie-chart below represents the trust people have for e-commerce.



Now, there is a difference between surfing through online sites and purchasing through it. Generally, among all the shopping websites, goods are purchased online in the international scenario and then are delivered to people here in Kathmandu by the organization running this kind of service. People select goods online from international areas and then make an advance payment through credit card or bank balance. People can either make payment through their credit card or can transfer money to the account of the online shopping stores’ bank account.

Not only goods are delivered but also people’s sentiments are associated with this transfer of goods. Pricing and payment are made in terms of US dollar.
Use of online shopping is not very common within the city or country but is very famous internationally. There are few people who purchase goods online because of various reasons like, time, illness, aging etc. but most of the people prefer going to the retail shop and then purchasing goods. As online shopping requires high delivery charge and is also expensive as it provides quality goods, people within the reachable area prefer not to use online shopping. Generally gifts are purchased online. And since online shopping is famous in international market Nepali handmade products are also purchased. People send their loved one’s gift through the online shopping stores and the shopping stores send back to the purchaser a copy of a digital photograph as a proof that the goods has been delivered.
The business of this kind of organization peaks in occasions like Dashain, Tihar, Valentine ’s Day, Christmas and also personal birthdays and anniversaries. During these kind of special days people from abroad order goods through the online stores and then sends them to their loves ones. In this way we can see that the online stores helps people connect to their dear ones, by heart even if not by distance. This kind of surprise or gifts gives immense happiness and satisfaction to the sender as well as receiver of the product. Therefore the people who deliver the goods claim that they not only deliver goods but also deliver the sentiments of people. This is a very good part about the online stores and therefore this is the reason why it has become famous as well. On an average some famous online stores, here in Kathmandu claim that on a normal day the online stores deliver goods to up to 25 household and during occasion they claim to go to almost 1000 household. This is a really large number and if this increases in the current ratio then we can see that it will be very useful and beneficial.

A table showing the kind of goods people purchase is as follows:

Data showing the kind of stuffs people prefer to purchase online

Table: 1.3
Table 1.3 makes it clear that remittance or money transfer is the most famous among all the services provided by e-commerce providers. Online ticketing has also made the job of people easy and life more comfortable. People can book tickets and also make payments online for the place they wish to travel. The second most common is sending gifts; that include most of the product that can be sent as gift. Nepali handicraft products are also sent as gift. Some people might even use them to purchase machinery, when the cost of purchase online or offline comes to be almost equal or due to some other reason.

Pie-chart representation of goods purchased online


The importance of e-commerce is different for different people. So people who use it frequently find it very important where as people who do not use it much may find it not important or fairly important. The view point of people regarding the importance of e-commerce is shown below. This is helpful to know that if e-commerce is to be made better, will it be able to gather customer or not.
Remittance is the highest used service and then gifts are the highest sold products as it is sent from abroad to the people here in Nepal. Sending gifts are the best way to express love to others.

Data showing the view point of respondents regarding importance of e-commerce


Table: 1.4

Table 1.4 shows how important are e-commerce in the viewpoint of respondents. For people who are dependent on e-commerce and use them frequently may find them extremely important. For 14.3% people e-commerce is extremely important whereas for 4.8% people e-commerce is not important at all.

The importance of shopping websites is different to different people. Their view point and concept about the importance of e-commerce depends according to their dependency to it and the frequency with which they use it. Some people who are unable to travel from place to place because of many reasons then they find e-commerce very important, as it will be fulfilling their need without traveling from one place to another. But there are people who do not need online stores to shop from and have many ways to conduct their need. This can be represented in a diagrammatic form as below.



Now, the next thing we have to consider is the way of payments possible for the goods purchased online. For the goods to be purchased the payment has to be made in advance. Even if not the entire amount then, at least the amount enough to make sure that the order or the purchase made will not be cancelled. Once the payment is made and all the procedures has been fulfilled one the online shopping store deliver goods to the mentioned address. As a portion of payment is done in advance, neither the store nor the customer has to suffer.
There are basically three ways in which payment can be done. The customer can either deposit the required sum of money to the bank account of the organization, or can pay through the credit or can even make payments through cash on home delivery.
Whatever people may find convenient, they can make the payment in that way. Here if the goods are ordered from outside the country they usually make payment through credit card and if the order has been placed from within the country then either bank balance transfer or payment on delivery is done. Among the respondents 42. 9% make payment through bank deposit. For this the organization providing the online services provide the customer with their bank account number and then the customers make the payment by transferring or depositing the required amount to the bank account of the online store from where they have made the purchase. Similarly 33.3% people prefer to make the payment through cash or cheque. In this case generally the cash is paid to the delivery person who delivers goods to your door. Although advance payment has to be made before delivery and can be done through any means, giving money on delivery is also preferred by many people as it assures them that their order has been placed and there is no way that they can be cheated. This is a safe way from the view point of the customers. Once they receive the goods they make cash or cheque payment to the person who has come to deliver the goods. The online shopping stores generally do not accept cheque and consider its acceptance only on special cases.

Data showing the number of people use different modes of payment


Table: 1.5 Pie-chart representation of the ways respondents choose to make the payment


The following tables show some information about the respondents.
Data showing age of the respondents


Though online shopping Is not very famous within the area or country, the organization has not left behind any means for its promotion. Though the use is being very famous all because of Google advertisement. People get to know about the online stores from other sources like newspaper advertisement, television, hoardings or even from friends. But since this kind of websites capture a good space in Google advertisement it is being famous because of this only. The diagram below gives a statistical view giving an idea about the popularity of online stores.


From the pie chart displayed above we can see that 57% of the total respondents have come to know about the online websites through Google Advertisement. Television commercials are today a best way to advertise about the product and service. Therefore for the promotion of their stores and to increase the number of customers the organization can advertize more.

Major findings and discussions

· The scope of e-commerce is increasing , and improving because of e-banking and e-shopping.
· On being cautious, we can prevent ourselves from being cheated by a fake site.
· E-shopping is common among people living abroad who wish t send gifts to people
· E-banking has become a must-be feature in almost all banks.
· Payments of the product purchased have to be made in US dollar.
· Payments can be made through credit card, bank balance or cash.
· Proof of the delivery of product will be sent to the person who ordered; if the person who ordered is different from the receiver of the product. Proof is sent as a softcopy of the photograph.
· There is high scope of e-commerce
· If retail shops will introduce e-shopping at reasonable price then people will prefer to purchase online.

Online sales-purchase of goods

Fraud, privacy and security concerns

Within the country

Outside the country

Information and review available on the internet

Price and selection

Product suitability

Convenient

e-commerce

Frequency
Percent
Valid yes 16
76.2

no
5
23.8

Total
21
100.0

Frequency
Percent
Valid
Yes
17
81.0

No
4
19.0

Total
21
100.0

Frequency
Percent
Valid machinery 3
14.3

gifts
4
19.0

remittance
5
23.8

grocery
2
9.5

2
9.5

Total
16
76.2
Missing
System
5
23.8
Total
21
100.0

Frequency
Percent
Valid extremely important
3
14.3

fairly important
8
38.1

neither
6
28.6

not important
1
4.8

not important at all
1
4.8

Total
19
90.5
Missing
System
2
9.5
Total
21
100.0

Frequency
Percent
Valid bank deposit
9
42.9

cheque/cash
7
33.3

Total
16
76.2
Missing
System
5
23.8
Total
21
100.0

Frequency
Percent

Valid
18
1
4.8

20
1
4.8

21
2
9.5

23
1
4.8

24
1
4.8

27
1
4.8

30
4
19.0

36
1
4.8

38
1
4.8

40
2
9.5

42
1
4.8

43
1
4.8

45
1
4.8

52
1
4.8

55
2
9.5

Total
21
100.0 occupation Frequency
Percent
Valid teaching 1
4.8

business
7
33.3

other specify
13
61.9

Total
21
100.0