Consumer behaviour in online market: Indian context

The new consumer market is mostly based on information management and digital revolution. Today’s consumer market is made up of older and newer elements and is basically a hybrid. Today the need of the consumer market is to think fresh that how to identify and satisfy their potential customers of online consumer market.  Marketers must have to employ a strategy of segmentation, screening the market as being made of small segments based on their buying behaviour. We need to understand online consumer behaviour with reference to the following questions:-
1. Why is consumer browsing?
2. What type of channel does the consumer prefer?
3. What type of products to consumers what drives consumers online and what are their habits?
4. What are the factors affecting online purchase?
Consumer behaviour for online shopping cannot be same as used in traditional marketing, as the concept brings with it unique features of offerings to the customer. The inclination towards online shopping is based on the fact that it provides customer to shop anything from any place that makes it convenient to purchase products like furniture, books, electronic appliances, households and many more. We do not have to face any additional hassles like traffic, crowds, varieties at one shop etc. There is no specific time period to shop; we can buy any time instead to wait for store to be open. There are many advantages of online shopping which can be encased on touch of fingertips. Online retailers require huge number of online customers for their survival and to create wealth. It is pretty obvious that if customers do not feel user friendly and easy access to the online retail site, they undoubtedly will go elsewhere. Thus, the need to study online consumer behaviour as distinct from traditional consumer behaviour. Some of the researchers of marketing have gone so far as to say that traditional marketing is dead or dying. This work attempts to answer the questions raised and to attempt to understand the needs of online consumers. The questionnaire administered to 829 respondents shows the following consumer behaviour for the respondents. Online shoppers have different reasons for buying from online retailers. These reasons were investigated and the findings of data were analysed for better understanding of online shoppers and they were segmented on this basis for preference for what they were looking for when buying online.