Where to Shop - Offline or Online ?
Just came back from Kolkata few days back and been wondering how did it go! It was the first time that I went there with my family ( eight years old son and wife) since we shifted to our present location in January, 2001. It was just natural that my son got excited to visit Kolkata as it was the first time for him to visit a true metropolitan city that has over 12 million people.
To make my son’s trip truly memorable, I had to plan in advance and needed to upgrade some gadgets out of which a good camera was a must. Keeping this in mind, I started looking the best shopping portals in India in search of a camera that would suit my needs and also be reasonably price because I don’t want to spend a fortune as I am not that interested in photography which I believe is an art in itself.
After reviewing a lot of models, I finally settled on the Canon SX120 IS that is 10 Mega Pixel with 10 x 15 Zoom lens and also has a give away SD card of 2 GB. It is also perfectly priced for me.
But when I tried to checkout from the portal I was astonished to find that the price displayed on the portal was not the price that I was being charged. It was quite higher. I immediately canceled the check-out process and headed for a local retail store/ showroom that sold the model. I bought it from there and headed towards Kolkata armed with one extra memory card of 4 GB that cost me around $18.
The moral is, online shopping is still in its nascent stage here in India and it is still far better to purchase things off-line than online. Most of the time when I browse the net, I often wonder when I find sites based in the US, UK or Canada selling even smallest of products like embroidery stabilizer or embroidery bobbins. It is unthinkable for a normal public in India who is used to go to the small retail store just on the next street and get the things he or she likes.
Of course, there are lots of economic and socio-cultural differences between the retail systems of a developing country like India and that of US. Whereas one can find small retail stores or enterprises run by individuals, where shopping is treated as socializing and catching up on latest gossips by housewives - where millions depend on the small scale retailing industry, no wonder Indians still prefer to visit the small retail stores.
But the situation is changing. The mall culture that is the normal shopping norms in developed countries is catching up rapidly with local and multinational companies opening big shopping malls virtually everywhere. The changing economic conditions that offer little time is also one of the reason why the mall culture has caught the fascination of the Indian middle class. But still, in small cities and semi-urban areas, people visit the small stores that they have grown-up with.
To catch in on the time constraints that has arisen out of new economic phenomenons with call centers, software firms, bio-technology firms, some enthusiastic entrepreneurs have started some shopping malls online. But due to lots of hick-ups the idea of online shopping has not yet become so popular among Indians.
Therefore, it is not possible to give a definitive conclusion on which shopping system is better. It depends on so many variations and indicators that, one can safely say - shopping - either online or off-line is better that suits the consumers the most.
