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International Journal of Management (IJM)
Volume 9, Issue 2, March–April 2018, pp. 103–111, Article ID: IJM_09_02_012
Available online at
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ISSN Print: 0976-6502 and ISSN Online: 0976-6510
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A STUDY ON POTENTIALITY OF VIRTUAL
SHOPPING CONCEPT FOR SELECTED FMCG
PRODUCTS IN BANGALORE
Saravana Kumar. S
Ramaiah Institute of Management studies, Bangalore
ABSTRACT
The recent development of technological wave, in particular to virtual technology,
has brought a new era in shopping activities. After, the successful business of e -
commerce the shopping is changing which results in the emergence of virtual
shopping using smartphones. Current research is chosen to investigate how
consumers adopt technology in diverse virtual environments. QR (Quick Response),
disseminate information about the products and services of the next step to bar code
and use them before they buy online. This research aims to discuss the future
directions for how virtual shopping using smartphones will change shopping
behaviour in Bangalore. Based on the scope of utilizing virtual technology in
shopping practices the concept is tested using a data from selected sample of
Bangalore population. Research shows that customer shopping is simple and
convenient. It also shows the concept is very useful for office goers and frequent
buyers which have great demand in Bangalore. Though buyers are interested still
sceptical with the issues faced when purchased online like, security, product quality,
originality, warranty etc. The future online shopping is bright especially of travel,
books, electronic gadgets, shoes, and gifts. On the basis of these findings, the younger
generation's virtual shopping idea and the profile of potential buyers are examined. It
id been concluded that middle-aged customers are more attracted for greater
shopping experience by scanning QR code which eliminates long-time standing for
groceries and saves money and time by simply scanning.
Keywords: Virtual Shopping, What is virtual shopping, Virtual shopping in India, Virtual
Shopping Strategies, Virtual Shopping 2018, Virtual shopping in Bangalore, Consumer
Behaviour towards Virtual Shopping.
Cite this Article: Saravana Kumar. S, A Study on Potentiality of Virtual Shopping
Concept for Selected FMCG Products in Bangalore, International Journal of
Management, 9 (2), 2018, pp. 103–111.
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/issues.asp?JType=IJM&VType=9&IType=2
A Study on Potentiality of Virtual Shopping Concept for Selected FMCG Products in
Bangalore
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/index.asp 104 editor@iaeme.com
1. INTRODUCTION
Virtual shopping is Internet-based advancements that impact the flow of consumer decision
making. This tool ensures how to approach various strategic issues to change the inventories
of companies, enter new markets to draw new customers, and promote advertisements in
competing environments. Before shopping closely with virtual shopping, it is necessary to
consider traditional shopping, the company produces a product and do market testing before
they enter into sales in a particular market. Now it is possible to use point-of-sale-scanner data
for money and manufactured products to monitor the total sales and market share of products.
The product is sold in the consumer group in a natural and competitive environment.
Unfortunately, the process is sluggish and expensive. Innovative Hunger in South Korea,
Tesco is now a controversial virtual shopping shop where shoppers can browse and sort basic
items using their phones. They call it ‘augmented reality’.
The creative technique built up a virtual store, where customers hold a list or a product
enters up to mobile webcams in the aisles which produce a life-size 3D projection of items
and read their specifications prior to making a buy. More than 500 of the most mainstream
items are displayed on the wall. Each has a barcode/ QR code shopper’s scan, using their
smartphone customers can place the order and products are delivered at home. More than
600,000 customers downloaded the application in only four months. Tesco isn't the only
company which explores how to convey developing innovations to snatch the online dollar.
Ocado, the greatest free online food merchant in the United Kingdom, has presented a
comparable trial display at the One New Change shopping center in London's money related
area and Chinese retailer Yihaodian, has created 'shopping walls’ in 70 subway stations
around Shanghai. The innovation has been enhancing after some time, and because of mobile
phones, marketers are beginning to see virtual stores are executed - in promoting and
shopping made conveniently. One of its augmented reality offerings is software it calls
'Virtual Mirror'. This is an innovation that allows customers to experiment with different
clothes or groceries from the comfort of one’s home, with the help of a webcam, says Hash
Media founder Harshit Lalpura.
It has been consistently established that in today’s world the internet and applications
plays a significant role in the people lives. There is an increase in consumers who take
product decisions on their own, obtaining information from different sources. In India, the
recent increase in usage of applications and smart phones has given opportunities for
organizations to tap into the previously inaccessible population of customers. Moreover,
organizations have been constantly paying attention to the client opinions and their
preferences, which can be readily available on smart phones. The various activities taking
place on social interaction with different individuals on different websites can influence the
consumer buying decisions. Consumers take many product decisions daily and they would
like to gather the sources of information and advice from the reference groups. However, for
FMCG goods consumers take their own decision and buy based on their previous purchase
experience. Hence, for daily routine products consumes use limited decision making process
and thus the purchasing of product made quicker and easier. Therefore, the analysis of
consumers buying daily or FMCG products and enhancing the purchase faster and deliver at
door step will give an essential view for the companies. This will help in improving the
relationship and loyalty with consumers by using virtual shopping as a tool that do not even
require a lot of penny. This analysis covers the population of Bangalore, where an ever
changing multifarious factors that influence the behavior of consumers, effecting very quickly
their buying decisions in the age group of 15-40 years with regard to purchasing product
through virtual shopping. The different attitude has been analyzing which includes buying
habits, buying interval, purchasing process, selection of the FMCG products. It is important to
Saravana Kumar. S
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know how the virtual shopping can create a change in consumer buying behavior and
products preferences of consumers with regard to FMCG.
Marketers realize that in the present competitive condition, they have to create ideas that
leap forward the customary approach to convey and attracting the customers. To avoid the
benefits of recent innovations in user interface technologies, companies need to understand
the technology as part of their shopping process. Innovation and innovative advertisers in
mobile usage attracted more information on customers and by providing easy access to
shopping, advertisers focusing on customer’s interaction. Addition to this, the virtual-
shopping concept is developed and tested in many countries. This study will enable managers
to create strategic choices such as new products, promotions, packaging, merchandise, etc.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
According to Adele peters, there are some advantages to an optimistic view for online
shopping: If a company does not build infrastructure in a store, it uses heat inside the cool,
light, and more efficient warehouse, more efficient in saving personal reserves for fuel storage
and distribution vehicles than individual customers driving to store.
According to Sreedhar Raamaswamy, these are the five ways retail has changed and
how business can adapt the shopping technique based on the traditional shopping and modern
shopping such as shoppers know as much as salespeople, retailers can deliver personal,
relevant suggestions at scale, mobile devices drive foot traffic to stores etc.,
According to L’chen, virtual stores will provide imperative contributions to the range of
business-to-consumer (b-to-c) e-commerce and lead the improvement of more meaningful and
effective procedures for virtual stores.
Raymond r burke says in his study that technology has given a great innovation and
convenience for shopping through the online shopping and virtual store. Customers are
generally satisfied with the convenience, quality, selection and values offered by the seller
these days.
The above review results that the proposed system can efficiently determine the virtual
store concept as a success factors and the consumer acceptance. Virtual shopping provides
great efficiency in the retail value chain, and their existence has tremendously paved the way
for the diffusion of electronic commerce.
Research Gap: Despite the fact that India is in succession with other developed countries,
it is still not utilizing the technological resources efficiently. Some of the reasons, which
attracted companies to the world of smart phones and applications, were low cost of data,
freedom to the companies to offer large number of smart phone users, easy access to user
centric spaces and providing huge amount of user content and communicating with users
through open channels to gain insight into the psychology of the consumers. Although, the
companies have managed to optimize the processes to gain maximum advantage from smart
phone users, considerable research has covered various aspects of the phenomenon. However,
adequate research findings are not available with regard to the challenges faced in the
practical world. This present research is believed to fill the gap by studying consumer’s
orientation, expectations, requirements and interests towards utilizing virtual shopping
concept to attract more customers. This study is made from the perspective of marketers using
various factors like motivational, risk and purchasing factors on virtual shopping for FMCG.
For empirical study, selected FMCG products are chosen and aim to examine “potentiality of
virtual shopping concept for selected FMCG products in Bangalore”.
A Study on Potentiality of Virtual Shopping Concept for Selected FMCG Products in
Bangalore
http://www.iaeme.com/IJM/index.asp 106 editor@iaeme.com
3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Figure 1
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is defined as a systematic way of solving the research problem
(Kothari, 2004), involving describing the relevant methods and techniques employed during
the process of study. The present chapter elaborates upon the research design adopted by the
researcher, during the addressal of problem at hand. The pre-defining of notions related to
process of research is crucial, so as to guide the study along appropriate lines and arrive at
significant conclusions. The research design was adopted so as to satisfy the proposed
conceptual framework and perform appropriate testing of proposed hypothesis. As a general
rule, a positive research approach generally follows a detective approach, but the inductive
research system is usually linked to a phenomenon theory. Thinkers have also emphasized on
the selection of the particular philosophy positivism that it is an independent approach and is
objective. Positivism assists in offering independent opportunity to the analyst to collect
proper data as per the need of the research topic. Hence deductive approach would be selected
with the positivism philosophy. One of the initial requirements of a research is to decide the
research philosophy on which the research methodology shall be based. On conceptual
grounds there are a diverse range of research philosophies namely positivism, interpretivism,
pragmatism, objectivism, constructionism and realism. Therefore in order to address the
objective of the proposed content of research the scholar has decided to select interpretivism
as the research philosophy of this study. Based on this particular philosophy the scholar has
decided to analyze the research data and interpret accordingly.
The sample selection in quantitative research has to facilitate the drawing of inferences
about the selected group, as opposed to gain an in depth knowledge of the issue in qualitative
research. The respondents were asked to rate the following factors:
Saravana Kumar. S
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Use of online shopping
Visiting of virtual store
Commodities they prefer on online shopping
Idea about online shopping
Problems on online shopping
Level of agreement to various factors
Shopping of FMCG goods through virtual stores
Working of virtual store concept in Bangalore city
To facilitate the collection of data from a large universe of population, the technique for
sampling was well-defined, to gain information specific to the aim of the study. The research
investigation was aimed at 15 40, based in Bangalore, who regularly access the smart
phones and application platforms, and consequently purchase FMCG products like milk, soap,
groceries, vegetables, etc., The non-random convenience sampling technique was employed
for the purpose of primary data collection, as it allowed the specific members, of the target
population to be included in the research. The convenience sampling allowed for easy and
affordable collection of data, suiting the geographical proximity, accessibility, and availability
of the subjects. Bangalore is considered as one of the best city for shopping and more
diversified age group of people. The city’s climate makes it one of the ideal places for
shopping. The city is chosen for the reason that there are lots of people who are working and
will be busy with their jobs and hence forth they can do shopping by sitting at their working
places. People in this city are also technologically updated and can find it easy in shopping.
The sample size denotes the number of samples used for conducting the study. The total
sample size consists of 150 people.
Structured questionnaires were distributed to people in North Bangalore City. The
questionnaires are filled in front of researcher himself. The researcher took permission from
the people and requested to fill the form by explaining the purpose of the survey. Secondary
data consist of data retrieved from College Library database, such as articles, journals,
literatures in addition to books barrowed from University library or retrieve from Google
Books and Google Scholar. These materials would facilitate this research study. In addition
they would be critically interpreted with caution in order to avoid creating a false impression
with the originator’s observation or view. The researcher checked and organized the collected
data daily for the completeness and accuracy. The data subjected to suitable statistical
analysis using descriptive Statistics like frequency proportion mean and standard deviation
and inferential analysis too. The coding and categorization was done before entry. Data
preparation includes the editing; coding, transcription and verification of data in order to
remove errors that may have occurred during the data collection process The data collected
through interview (structured questions) entered in excel form. The data from the
questionnaire was transferred for examination using two computer programs, viz. Microsoft
Excel and SPSS. The prime objective of the study was to understand the variation in the
importance of the factors given by different age and occupation. Among which almost of the
respondents are students. One-way ANOVA has been applied for the data analysis &
conclusions. The approach was chosen to understand both main independent impacts as well
as interaction effects of variables - age and occupation.
5. HYPOTHESIS TESTING
H
0
: There is no potentiality to implement virtual store in Bangalore.
H
1
: There exists high potentiality to implement virtual store in Bangalore.