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The Indian Shopper – Spoilt for Choices

We Indians, as a rule,revere people with good bargaining skills. It is a skill that is honed from an early age watching our parents haggle with every shopkeeper they come across. Who has managed to squeeze out the best discounts in their most recent shopping spree? Be it the designer handbag from the popular Sarojini Market in Delhi or those amazing stilettos from a nondescript shop in a by-lane of Commercial Street, Bangalore. This unsaid competition within the girl gang is fierce. That said, in each group there is one undisputed queen of bargaining skills.She is the go-to shopping buddy especially during a festive season. Men, though not as vociferous of their conquests, certainly seem to sleep better if they believe that they have got a good bargain.

There was a minor upheaval to this dynamic with the advent of discounts by e-commerce in India. E-commerce players were quick to realize that moving the hollering, bargain hunting Indian shopper from the crowded offline market to the new and unknown world of online shopping can only be achieved by deep discounts. Promptness in delivery, product quality and other factors took a backseat while the shopping pioneers of Indian e-commerce experienced what can only be called a collective orgasm in the face of such steep rebates. Times have changed since the early days and those unbelievable price cuts can now only be found during a Diwali, Pongal or as pecific new-age big sale period like Big Billion Days,Great Indian Festival etc.

However, this deluge of discounts and offers have given rise to a parallel industry of price comparison and bargain hunting. Multiple players like mysmartprice.com, pricedekho.com and other price comparison websites have done a brilliant job in carving a niche in that space,even though we have yet to see a clear winner. Incentivizing customers to shop through their website is another novel way of building a customer base for these players. Customers love it when cashback is transferred to their bank accounts or into their digital wallets.  However, this model though highly profitable in its early days has become less so, mainly due to the increasing number of players and no clear differentiation in their offering. Even though extra cashback over and above discounts is a compelling proposition, it is actually a niche within a niche. And hence, owing to the many players in this space, building customer loyalty is proving to be a challenge. Newbie portalslike Xerve.in are attempting to bridge the gap between buying online and offline, offering the best discounts from both worlds and positioning itself as a shopping assistant for one’s personal and business needs.

Since the cashback industry in India is at its nascent stage, most online customers do not know about it. Awareness building is of paramount importance at this stage for these players to build a loyal base and to grow.This customer base will also be the best source for any data regarding online shopping since this demography clearly embodies the core values of any self respecting Indian buyer. But as of now it is the online deal seeking, price comparing customer who is laughing all the way to the bank.

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I had always looked at excessive shopping as a compulsion afflicting a few with extra deep pockets. But recently a new field of study relating to shopping addiction has opened up. Apparently you can develop a tolerance for the high that follows the dopamine release during a purchase. With time and an increase in the number of shopping expeditions, shoppers tend towards higher shopping impulsivity in order to experience same high.  And then there is me, on the other end of the spectrum, who would have seriously considered the prospect of a personal shopper if only they came cheaper sans frills. Serious shopping aficionados come in all varieties but they always manage to tense me up a bit with their nervous energy whenever a topic remotely related to shopping crosses our conversational path.

Early on in life, I had deduced from the weird and shifty eyed looks from everyone, including total strangers, that any piece of clothing  I had the audacity to purchase without a second opinion would definitely be a flop. I figured that the genes required to possess a minimum semblance of taste in anything artistic had completely eluded me. I guess it probably also does not help matters that I am, by most standards, color blind. I realized that there was nothing therapeutic about retail therapy – especially for me. So now I live by the adage “Happiness is in wanting stuff & not owning them”. And in my moments of clarity, I tend to believe that I married right, since my wife is not too crazy about shopping either. But living involves consumption - we need to buy/change mobile phones, appliances etc on a yearly basis, replenish our wardrobe on a quarterly basis,  pay rent and bills on a monthly basis, and restock the kitchen and refrigerator on a weekly basis. And then there is also the occasional pubbing. Each of these involves time, effort, travel and most importantly dough. I clearly belong to a breed for whom the pain of parting with their hard earned cash clearly outweighs the pleasure of new stuff.

Living in this era has its advantages though and online shopping has made it convenient to survive. I pay my rent and bills online, the wife handles the shopping of weekly groceries from sites like bigbasket and freshtohome and purchase of fashion from Limeroad,Amazon, Flipkart.com among others. It gives all the convenience of buying multiple products from the confines of your home with the added benefit of being able to return or replace in case of doubt. But even this has its own challenges since collating, comparing and analyzing data from all the different websites to get the best bang for your buck is a tedious affair. However terrible a shopper I was, getting a good deal definitely released enough dopamine to satisfy the latent shopping junkie in me. And that’s where price comparison and cashback sites like mysmartprice.com, Xerve.in etc. feature giving me the feel of having done enough research across platforms on a certain purchase. Returning a part of my hard earned cash back into my account is the icing.

For the old school shopper, the touch of the product, the verbal duel with the salesman, the deluge of colors and types, categories, shapes and sizes of products is as good as ambrosia. No online discount can give them that high. But for a person like me, online shopping has made life so more agreeable especially during the festive season where you are expected to gift your near and dear ones. You can see yourself slowly transcending from a terrible gifter to a passable one. Undeniably there are certain disadvantages.  Being unable to try fashion products on, waiting period involved in case of a replacement, privacy and security concerns are a few. But the pros far outweigh the cons with better prices, convenience and variety. Online shopping also empowers the customer with the privacy (near to impossible erstwhile) for his/her discreet purchases. Like that velvet handcuff I recently got for a steal :P

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