ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONAL ACTIVITIES ON THE SALES OF ECOMMERCE INDUSTRY

Abstract

Retail E-commerce has shown an impressive growth in recent years, and is expected to grow in coming future. Today the market share is shared by few top companies, but new entrants are expected to come up with new innovative ideas and increase the competition level. All the story goes with, that how one company can increases its online customer base when the number of internet and smart phone user is increasing day by day. This report aims to study the factors that affects consumer online shopping frequency, further the comparative study is conducted on the performance of the e-retail companies over these factors. Promotion is one of the effective tool of communicating with the target customers, and the innovation in promotional activity can create the company future. Thus this report also aims to find out the promotional activities that customer values the most before making online purchase. Further the comparative study is conducted on how well e-retail companies are performing in these activities as experienced by the consumers. The analysis shows that Ease to place order, Search time, Product availability, Product reviews, After sale services, Ease of payment mode, Delivery time, Return Policy, Promotional activities and Product satisfaction contribute to consumers online purchasing behavior. Among these Search time, Delivery time, Return policy and Ease to place order are the most discriminating factor and Amazon is doing better on Delivery time while Flipkart is doing better in Ease to place order. Return policy and Search time has almost the same competitive performance for both the e-retail. Further promotional activities like Free shipping, Discount, Seasonal sale, Flash sale and Loyalty points are the most discriminating factor and again Amazon is doing better in Free shipping and Discount while Flipkart is doing better in Seasonal sale, Flash sale and Loyalty points.