Button. Click. Buy.

     In 1994 a man was driving across the US in his car and managed to change the way we think about shopping for the rest of our lives. The man was Jeff Bezos and he was the founder of Amazon.com. Amazon had a slow start, not making a profit until the early 2000's and today sells almost 5 items every second.

     India had no such revolution and we would all sit around listening to stories from relatives who returned from the US about how they could buy anything online. We had a few minor sites which stocked very few items, were highly overpriced and had no real success. That all changed in 2008 when two former Amazon employees left, and formed Flipkart, India's largest online retailer. Rather than copying the Amazon model and simply delivering items we had paid for, Flipkart introduced cash-on-delivery which all the newer retailers in India have emulated. But with the entry of Amazon looming large in the minds of Indian retailers what does the future hold for us?

     While most people believe that the large scale entry will cause a decline in actual brick and mortar store sales I believe it will cause just the opposite. Even with such a large catalogue of products available the internet can never replace the experience of going out and buying something. Being a frequent online shopper myself I love the concept of cash on delivery, the idea that I don't have to part with my money until I have the product in my hand but at the same time I always find myself looking for similar products in stores and resorting to online retailing as a last resort. 

     The reason is the joy of discovery. Think of the time you went to a shop to buy a specific product and walked out with far more than you had bargained for. While many say that the shops are tricking us into buying things we have no real use for, at the end of the day we only buy something we would like to use. I don't think most of us would have to look beyond our last visit to a shopping center to think of such an experience. I for one love going out with the idea of picking up one thing and returning with something I could have never imagined and that is why I don't think the fashion of going out an buying products will die out any time soon.

     Online retailing offers us the unique advantage of having everything available in one convenient place but at the same time it sandboxes us into categories.  Without going out of our comfort zone we are going to be limited by what our initial choice shows us. Here's your typical interaction with an online retailer : 

Computer: What would you like to buy?

Me: An electronic appliance.

 Computer: Would you like a Cellphone, Laptop, Tablet or other household product?

 Me: A Cellphone

 Computer: Here's our list of cellphones. Pick one. Thank you for making your purchase.

     This kind of  selling creates no value for the consumer but it's still successful. I can order something at 5 in the evening one day and have it delivered to my doorstep the next. I can find what I want in a shop and buy it online for 20% less (very important for the Indian consumer. When I go out to buy something expensive I always compare the price on spot to see where I get better value for the product I'm buying. More and more often I find that I get the better value online. The better price, next day delivery, ability to pay for the product post-delivery and the ease of clicking through a few pages rather than trawling through a large mall makes it convenient to pick up smaller, one time purchases online.

     The coming of India's online retail boom will change our attitude towards largely underappreciated purchases. Who's going to look through 42 shops when all the books one could hope for are available online. In fact online retailing will breathe life back into deflating markets such as the publishing industry. But its never going to replace the feeling of going out and trying a pair of jeans on before buying them or waiting outside a store for hours for the latest gadget. Online retailing is going to experience massive growth in the future, but I feel that the two forms are too different to compete and will complement one another.

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