Venkat Ramana, a research analyst was planning to buy a new cell phone. Since technology is what drives him, buying a hi-tech mobile phone was the obvious choice. However even after making several rounds of mobile stores, he could not find a phone to suitshis needs. Then one day while surfing, Venkat came across a website that offered hi-tech gadgets, including mobile phones at a much cheaper rate compared to the market. Without wasting a minute, he placed an order online and received the phone within 48 hours. That was the first encounter Venkat had with online shopping. Today most of his shopping is done online and he suggests the same to his friends and relatives too.

Changing Trends

Once upon a time in India, street shopping was the norm. Every weekend people used to plan casual trips to the local street markets. Places such as Fashion Street (Mumbai), Janpath (New Delhi), Commercial Street (Bangalore), and Flea Market (Goa) were the usual hangout zones for youngsters and elderly alike. Whether you wanted to shop for clothing, accessories or electronic goods, there used to be specialised markets you could head towards.

However, things have changed drastically in India in the last half decade or so. Fast-paced life, hectic schedules and attractively priced deals have pulled people towards online shopping. When the concept was initially introduced in India, the customer base for online shopping activities was the rich class with a lot of purchasing capacity. As the concept evolved further, more and more people came into the fold of online shopping, thus bringing about an enormous change in the online shopping trends.

E-tailers: The Upcoming Trend

As the concept of online shopping gained prominence, more and more retailers went online and opened e-stores to interact with shoppers. Most of the retail brands such as Big Bazaar and Vishal Mart, to name a few, have a good online presence too. However, the market opened up with innovative online shopping initiatives from eBay, Rediff Shopping and www.futurebazaar.com who took e-tailing to the next level. Next in line is the concept of a virtual mall, which is already existent at its preliminary stage in India and is gradually growing exponentially.

The growth in the e-tailing market is driven by the need to save time by urban India. Besides with over 2.5 billion internet users, access to the internet has also played an important role in spreading the reach of the markets. Changing demographics (youthful India), evolving lifestyles and exposure to the developed markets have definitely given a fillip to this industry. The soaring real estate costs in India have also inspired many an online venture.[PAGE BREAK]

Today Indians are among one of the most online shop-ping savvy people. While globally books, electronic items and clothes are mostly bought over the internet, 70 per cent of the Indians who are active on the web world have said that they have bought airline tickets on the internet in the last three months. The most popular and purchased items over the internet are books (41 per cent purchased in the past three months), clothing/accessories/shoes (36 per cent), videos/DVDs/games (24 per cent), airline tickets (24 per cent) and electronic equipment (23 per cent).

How Does It Work?

Now the question comes as to how does the process of online shopping work. First and foremost, if you wish to shop online, you should have an internet-enabled bank account, a debit/credit card and of course a computer with internet access. Buyers can directly visit the website of the service provider or the retailer or look for retailers using search engines such as Google. Using the shopping cart software, buyers can buy multiple products. While shopping from some particular stores online you will have to open up a permanent online account so that they enter the payment and delivery-related information only once.

You will receive a message of the transaction being complete via email. You can make the payment for the purchased goods using your credit card or debit card or in some cases even your internet-enabled bank account. Cash on delivery, payment by cheque, postal money order are some of the other ways of clearing off the due amount. The bought items can be received by downloading them if they are related to purchase of software, songs, music or e-books. Yet another method of receiving the goods is using the locater software and picking up the goods from the nearest authorised store. There are some distributor services which offer you the delivery of the products at your place to avoid wastage of time and money, which happens otherwise.

How Useful Is It?

Shopping online provides some real benefits to the shop-per. First of all, online stores provide 24 hours and seven days a week services so that you can buy your products any time from anywhere. Sitting comfortably in the house and taking enough time to research, you can order whatever you want and the product would reach you within a minimum time. You will have endless options and so you can choose the best item easily. Efforts require to shop online are less in comparison to the physical markets. Your queries can be solved quickly as online support is available 24x7. As you are not going outside for shopping, you save a lot of your time, money and efforts as well.

Products Available Online

Nearly everything - from beauty care products to books, clothing, music, electronic gadgets, footwear, accessories, medicines, flight tickets, movie tickets, paintings, flowers, chocolates, sports gear, and so on – is available online. The evolution of technology and high standard of living has compelled distributors and retailers to offer wide range of  products online. And to attract a large number of people, various online stores offer different schemes.

Anish Kumar, who bought sport shoes through an online shopping portal, says, “I was amazed to see that a website offered Ray-Ban sunglasses (worth `3,000) with the shoes which cost only `1,800. I immediately placed an order. After all, who would mind getting a free gift?”

Same is the case with Hemant Tuli, a professional photographer, who purchased a camera online. Since he had to buy the camera in any case, a free leather bag really took him by surprise.[PAGE BREAK]

Online Shopping Precautions

• Only shop at online stores of reputed companies (companies you already know from retail stores, mail order catalogs or other sources). Know how to contact them offline if there is a problem with your purchase.

• Secure your web browser. Check the security settings of your web browser to increase the security of your transactions.

• Check for security icons before giving your personal information. Before you type in your credit card number or name and address, check for security icons on the web-site. This includes looking for “https” in the web address or URL. The word ‘https’ indicates that the website is equipped with an additional security layer. If it’s not there, the site or page is not secure.

• Create unique passwords. Don’t use the same password for all of your online accounts and applications. If you do this, you risk having all of your accounts compromised if only a single account is breached.

• Don’t enable the “Save Password” option if prompted to do so. If you are using a shared computer, pre-saved passwords will make it easy for others to access your accounts.

• Use only one dedicated credit card for online purchases. Monitor your monthly statements closely for any unusual activity.

• Don’t use a debit card for online purchases. You are more protected using a credit card instead of a debit card. Credit card companies offer some degree of fraud protection and may be able to reverse charges to your account.

• Check the website’s privacy policy. Only shop with online stores offering privacy policies that you agree with. They should provide information about how they will protect your personal information and whether it will be provided to other companies.

• Notify your bank or credit card company immediately if you suspect someone is using your accounts without your permission.