ZERO MOMENTS OF TRUTH (ZMOT) IN INDIA ONLINE RETAIL INDUSTRY

Abstract

We live in a fast paced world where everything happens at a lightning speed. Human beings have achieved phenomenal growth both physically and intellectually over the years that our civilization is on a cusp of something truly awe inspiring. One of such creations of mankind that have changed the world we live in is World Wide Web. Internet has opened the flood gates of possibility for human beings. Everything is available at the click of a mouse. No knowledge in this world is beyond reach; all you need is a simple internet connection. This study pertains to one of the enormous possibilities that this wonderful world of Internet presents us: online shopping. Basically, we would venture deep into the understanding of buying habits of online shoppers in India and would try to come up with a best practise guide that online retailers can use. This best practise guide would comprise of many Zero moments of Truths that are valid to Indian online shoppers. These moments are simply the magical moments between the time when a shopper feels a need to buy a product and the time when he actually buys one. Internet has enabled people with a plethora of information sources which they can use to gather information which in turn will enable them to make a much more informed decision. What we will systematically try to do is to identify the stimuli that lead to a need for purchase which in turn will induce the Zero moment of truth where shopper would seek information through various resources available to him online as well as offline to make an informed decision. We will also research on the incentives provided by e-retail portals which are considered as best by sample population. An online questionnaire would be used for that purpose. After the collection of responses on various factors that will come out through literature review and some of which are described by Lecinski in his path breaking work: Winning the Zero moment of Truth, we will do a descriptive statistics analysis to analyse the best amongst those. We have also asked some open ended questions to gather future opportunities that every best practise guide should have. Finally, after gathering data from all sources and analysing them we will frame the best practises guide which will have industrial as well as academic implications.