VOL. XL NO. 37 PAGES 32 NEW DELHI 12 - 18 DECEMBER 2015 ` 8.00

DIGITAL SHOPPING WITHOUT BORDERS AN EMERGING GLOBAL TREND AMONG THE DIGITAL YOUTH

Dr. Ranjeet Mehta

T oday, an evolution is occurring that will foreverchange the relationship between retailers and their

customers. This new retail model, known as electroniccommerce (e-commerce), consists of (a) Mobile com-merce supported by mobile devices and tablets (m-commerce) and (b) Emerging social commerce plat-forms that bring together advertising, shopping andselling in a social media environment (s-commerce).

While the e-commerce piece of retail today is signif-icant and a huge growth engine, the total impact of dig-ital on the retail enterprise today extends to themajority of retail sales. Around 60 per cent of retailsales in the US are influenced by digital tools insome way. The influence works both ways.According to a November 2013 survey of US digitalshoppers by consulting firm Accenture, 78 percent of respondents reported "webrooming," orresearching online before heading to a store tomake a purchase. At the same time, some storetrips eventually led to a digital purchase. The sameAccenture study found that 72 per cent of respon-dents said "showroom," or "buy digitally after see-ing a product in a store". Consumers, then, havemerged online and offline into a single shoppingexperience.

But sales alone do not tell the whole story of USretail e-commerce. Consumers may not buy onlineall the time, but they are shopping through digitalchannels constantly. Digital shopping doesn'talways lead to an immediate conversion but it doestranslate to influence throughout the path to pur-

chase. In US, Industry experts expect e-commercesales to increase to 11 percent by 2018. While thismay seem like nominal growth, some major retailershave already experienced e-commerce revenuesaccounting for 14.3 percent of their total revenue as ofthe second quarter of 2014. The top 43 Internet retail-ers in the U.S. reported $24.52 billion in combined e-commerce transactions during the second quarter of

2014, a 19.2 percent increase over the samequarter in 2013.

Indian online shoppers will spend Rs54,700 crores buying products from other

countries, and that is expected to rise bymore than 75 per cent in 2016, a report by

payment firm PayPal said."The Indian ecommercespace is experiencing an exciting time where innova-tion is the key. Our research reveals that the advent oftechnology is slowly diminishing borders for onlineshopping. With the number of online shoppers set togrow exponentially, it will lead to increase in the num-ber of shoppers who shop from global retailers withonline presence, as per managing director of PayPalIndia.

The emerging trends show that young consumershave developed a strong taste for shopping online. Ithas also been seen that the primary source of trafficfor online shopping (and other e-commerce portals)

and social media activity are young con-sumers in the age group of 13 to 25. As aresult of this, the number of online shop-ping platforms has increased and expand-ed dramatically over the last few years.

As per a report out of about a total 10million online shoppers in India, roughly3.8 million shop across borders. The aver-age cross-border spend is also higher

than domestic online shopping spends.Average spend on cross-border trans-actions by the estimated 3.8-million

cross border shoppers was estimated tobe about Rs1.42 lakh per cross-bordershopper in 2015. A Goldman Sachs reportin May 2015, pegged the average transac-tion size of about Rs. 1,800 for the Indian

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Naval Dockyard, Visakhapatnamrequires 1121 Tradesman (Skilled)Last Date : 30 days after publication

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NDV

Union Public Service Commissioninvites applicatons for various postLast Date : 31.12.2015 (pg 20-21)

UPSC

Employees’ State InsuranceCorporation, kanpur requires 150Stenographer, Upper Division Clearkand Multi Tasking Staff. Last Date : 06.01.2016 (pg 27)

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CIVIL SERVICES (MAIN)-2015: INSIGHTSON ESSAY AND CURRENT AFFAIRS

The role played by the essay paper and current affairs indetermining the success of a civil services aspirant is

not fully recognized. A true assessment of the mainspapers brings out very clearly that the route to success liesin commanding over two crucial papers, viz; Ethics andEssay. In addition, the currentaffairs part is also a greatdeterminant of success in themain exam. In my consideredview, a candidate must realizeit at the right stage of his prepa-ration and orient his prepara-tions factoring in the importanceof these three crucial areas i.e.Ethics, Essay , and CurrentAffairs. I would call these threeareas as the dynamic part of thesyllabus as they encompassmost contemporary issues fromall fields of knowledge. In mylast article in this journal (28th November - 4th December,2015), I have already explained about the ethics paper inall its dimensions. In the present article, I will outline thestrategy to cover the essay and the current affairs parts.In these two areas, there is a lack of proper guidance avail-able to the aspiring candidates. My guidelines are relevantfor candidates appearing in CS (main) exam 2015 as wellas for those also who plan to write the exam in 2016.Essay PaperIn its new format, two essays have to be written by the can-didate in three hours time. Though, there is no prescribedword limit for an essay, I recommend that each essayshould be of 1200- 1400 words. The time for one essay

is one and a half hour, which is more than adequate to fin-ish the writing part. However, the real challenge is not writ-ing the essay but managing its structure and design. If theessay is well designed, it will become forceful and fetchhigh marks. Thus, the key to a good essay is its proper

structure and keeping thecontent close to the topic ofthe essay. UPSC has giventhe following guideline for theessay paper." Candidates are expected tokeep closely to the subject ofthe essay , to arrange theirideas in an orderly fashion,and to write concisely. Creditwill be given for effective andexact expression."Now let me explain theserequirements with examples. Keeping closely to the

subject of the essay: "An essay is a piece of writing thatmethodically analyses and evaluates a topic or an issue".Michel de Montaigne, who coined the term essay definesan essay as an "attempt to put ones' thoughts in writing."It is clear from this definition that one has to write close tothe subject of the essay. For example, if the essay is on-'Ethics of Climate Change', then, keeping close to thistopic would mean writing about the ethical rationale forchecking and reversing the climate changes that are tak-ing place. This ethical dimension of climate changeshould be the central theme in this particular essay topic.This theme is: if the world is to do something about climate

Continued on page 31

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e-commerce industry . In thesurvey, 62 per cent of thosesurveyed only shopped domes-tically, 36per cent shoppeddomestically and cross-borderwhile 2 per cent shop onlycross-border. That numberwould be higher, but for con-cerns about shipping and cus-tom duties that would be leviedon the products. Trouble return-ing products that proved defec-tive or not as described alsocontributed to fewer peoplebuying from foreign countries.And 53 per cent of those whobought products in other coun-tries, used the address of afamily or a friend in anothercountry.

In 2013, the number of activesellers participating inAmazon's FBA program rose65 percent; 73 percent of par-ticipants who were surveyedadmitted their unit sales onAmazon increased 20 per centsince joining the program.Alibaba - China's biggest e-commerce company that alsoheld the largest initial publicoffering in history in 2014 - han-dled a total of $248 billion intransactions on its online sitesduring 2014, more than thoseof eBay and Amazon com-bined. Alipay, Alibaba's onlinepayment platform, handledmore than triple the amount ofmobile payments processed byPayPal. (Osawa, 2014)Alibaba's IPO and businessoperations stirred a great dealof interest among investors butdelivered precious few detailsabout how they intend to oper-ate in the United States.

Part of their strategy, expertsbelieve, is to reach an estimat-ed 50 million people of Chinesedescent living outside theircountry and to provide Chineselocals with access to the world'sbest retail brands. These twofactors, they say, are likely toexpand Alibaba's global influ-ence and have a ripple effectacross the world's real estatemarkets. Benefits of Digital Shopping

Shopping online is better formany reasons. You don't haveto go out to find what you want,you can avoid traffic, compareprices easily and get better dis-counts. However, all this comeswith risks of Internet security.We are all familiar with phishingmails and the dangers of trans-acting on an unsecured siteand using public computers orshared wi-fi connections. Precautions to be taken foronline shopping

The online shoppers shouldbe careful about the following:-(a) Beware of devious dis-counts

You see a 40 per cent dis-count sign and conclude youare getting a good deal.However, check the currentmarket price of the productbefore clicking on the buy but-ton. Prices of products, espe-cially electronics, fall within afew months of launch. Manywebsites, however, give dis-counts on the original maxi-

mum retail price. A simple solu-tion is to compare the price ona site like Junglee.com. Or,check out the price at yourneighbourhood store. You mayget a better deal there, espe-cially if you go for an exchangeoffer. Also, find out about thesite's business model. Is it an e-retailer, where the site is theseller, or a trading platformsuch as ebay, where the site isjust a middleman? In the latter,the guarantee comes from theseller and not the website facil-itating the transaction. Similarly,complaints will have to beresolved with the seller, not thesite that lists the product.(b) Check for Coupons

While websites themselvesoffer discounts and deals, youcan end up with an even betterdeal if you follow certaincoupon websites. Few web-sites list deals and offers (someof which may be offered exclu-sively by them) across differentwebsites, product categories,even specific products. Pick adeal from here before makingthe payment to save moremoney.(c) Avoid direct bank trans-fers: Pay through official pay-ment service

Cash on delivery and netbanking are the safest ways totransact online. However, ifthese options are not available,go for a virtual credit card. It isan add-on 'card' issued on yourprimary credit card. All relevantdetails are available onlyonline. It has a validity of a fewmonths and you can set a cred-it limit of your choice. A lot ofshopping websites are follow-ing the marketplace model-theyare essentially a platform forsellers to list the products theyare selling. The website itselfdoesn't stock inventory, it moni-tors the order till it is deliveredto you. A lot of sellers acceptpayments using credit cards,debit cards, e-wallets, cash ondelivery, or direct transfers totheir bank accounts. Each shop-ping website has its own pay-ment service through which youcan pay using cards and wallets.The websites can then track theorder status and help withrefunds, if needed. Strictly avoiddirect bank transfers, unless youknow the seller really well.(d) Shoddy security and pri-vacy policy

Many websites require you toregister before placing an orderor even viewing products. Theweb merchant might ask you toenter personal details such asname and address. This shouldact as a red alert. Such infor-mation can be used to sendspam mails. Don't answerquestions that you think areunnecessary for processing theorder. Moreover, such sitesrequire you to agree to certainterms and conditions. Readthrough these as you might begiving permission to share yourdetails. E-merchants oftenshare your information withaffiliate companies. An easyway to avoid privacy issues is

DIGITAL SHOPPING... Continued from page 1

Printed & Published by Dr. Sadhana Rout, Additional Director General, on behalf of Publications Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India, New Delhi and Printed at Amar Ujala Publication Ltd., C-21 & 22,Sector-59, Noida-201301. Published from Employment News (Ministry of I. & B.) East Block-IV, Level-5, R.K. Puram, New Delhi-110066. Senior Editor - Hasan Zia

to shop from sites that aremembers of a 'seal-of-approval'programme that sets voluntaryguidelines for privacy-relatedpractices such as TRUSTe(www.truste.org) and VeriSign(www.verisign.com).(e) Clear your browsing his-tory daily

Have you ever wonderedhow e-commerce sites showyou previous searches whenyou visit later? Websites usecookies and other technologysuch as pixel tags and cleargifs to capture information totrack shopping habits. Some ofthese cookies are saved onyour system and are used tosend advertisement bannersand mailers, both by the siteand third-party sites with whichthe information was shared.You can opt out of this bychanging your browser settingsto not accept cookies.However, this usually means apoor shopping experience asdisabling cookies may makeparts of the site inaccessible.The middle path is to clear your

browsing history daily.(f) Don't forget to check thereliability of Seller

The ratings are good param-eters to know the reliability ofsellers as they are based onuser feedback and how previ-ous orders were executed. Anyseller with a higher ranking willbe a safer bet than one whichhas been flagged for wrong-order delivery or poor-qualityproducts. For example, theremay be five sellers on a partic-ular web site selling a particu-lar product. Always comparetheir ratings and go for the onewhich has a better past record.(g) All about apps

Smartphone apps are a rageamong shopping websites.Online shopping sites haveapps and somedeals are avail-able onlythrough theseapps. More soother playersare also push-ing apps. Inessence, you

can shop easily using yoursmart phone but alwaysensure that you are running thelatest version of the app. Keeplooking for the update notifica-tions whenever a new versionis available-install these,because there may be criticalsecurity and usability updates.

Though the online shopping hasmade the consumers life veryeasy but there are certain precau-tions to be taken before making adecision to purchase online. Nowsince we are completely in the dig-ital world, the use of e-commercecan not be avoided. This is a sim-ple time saving and cost-effectiveway of shopping. (The author is Director, PHDChamber of Commerce andIndustry, New Delhi. e-mail : ranjeetmehta@gmail.com)