Consumer Trust

Project report on: Consumer Trust – Flipkart Subject: Consumer Behaviour Submitted to: Prof. Neha Gupta Submitted by: Ami Vora Roll No: 58 Class: PGDM – Communications FLIPKART  is an Indian  e-commerce  company founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, both alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Initially funded by the Bansals themselves with  Rs. 400,000, Flipkart has since then raised funding from venture capital funds  Accel India  in 2009  and Tiger Global (US$10 million in 2010 and  US$20 million in June 2011).Today, as per Alexa traffic rankings, Flipkart is among the top 20 Indian Web sites and has been credited with being India's largest online bookseller  with over 11 million titles on offer. The cash-on-delivery model adopted by Flipkart has proven to be of great significance since the credit card and net banking penetration is very low in India. Even its 30 days replacement offer is something which acts as its USP. FAC TORS THAT LEAD TO THE SUCCESS OF FLIPKART * Customer Service: Provide good customer support with quick turn around time for client queries.Provide replacement of product in case a customer receives a defective product. * User Interface: Easy to use, easy to browse through the products, add products to wishlist or to a cart, get product reviews and opinions, pre-order products, make payments using different methods. * Cash/Card On Delivery: Demonstrated more confidence in buying products. Flipkart sells 20 products/min and have with more than 60% of the Flipkart's customers use Cash on Delivery and card on delivery methods. This is because of two reasons, one is many people do not know how to make payments online.And secondly people do not have immense trust in e-commerce in India. * Customer Retention: Has around 15 lakh individual customers and more than 70% customers are repeat customers i. e. they shop various times each year. The company targets to have a customer base of 1 cror e by 2015. * Local Presence: Tie ups with local vendors and courier firms (thereby reducing transportation and storage costs. Owns warehouse in major cities. CONSUMER TRUST For ensuring success, securing trust in your company is essential. Trust is as important to a potential customer’s purchasing decision as the products you offer him.And an essential element of building that trust, with both customers and partners, is the assurance that your e-commerce operation meets the demanding security standards required of organizations handling sensitive financial information. Building a consumer Trust for Flipkart can take place in the following facets: * Setting up a Storefront which generates a sense of dependency among the consumer * Build a commerce friendly Web Host * Securing Information Using SSL * Processing Transactions * On time Delivery * Quality of the products * Efficient staff * Return PolicyFollowing are the various measures taken my Flipkart to build and ensure consu mer trust. 1. Merchandise site safety and security A safe and secure Web site is the most crucial element to building online trust. Flipkart convey that customers can trust them with their personal information and their purchases. Promote the basic security of your site and reinforce that message with a buying process that emphasizes safety and ease. Flipkart has a â€Å"Worry Free Shopping† environment. It clearly states shipping, return and privacy policies as well as security and product guarantees.Customers are most sensitive to trust and security issues as they move down the path to purchase. 2. A professional site speaks volumes’ Flipkart has invested wisely in professionalism of their site. This includes : user-friendly design and content updates that are accurate and regular, paying attention to load time, avoiding site down time at all costs, updating content often, avoiding typos and broken links. 3. Showcase the Trustworthiness of Your Brand The trustworthin ess is also defined by highlighting its distinctive qualities and physical presence.They do this by expliciting brand-value statement, reinforce that brand-value statement by creating a tag line that customers, over time, will easily associate, and provide easily accessible customer service phone numbers. 4. Outside Voices Boost Credibility There is often no better way to build trust in your brand than to allow others to endorse it. Flipkart has a section for reviews for the product and services from trusted sources which act invaluable. 5. Comprehensive Product Content Enhances Trust You will find comprehensive product content and details of a particular product once u chose any item.This gives an insight of the minute, technical, and other details of the product before purchase. 6. What You See Is What You Get Flipkart provides image zoom functionality; provide thumbnail images to the shopping cart, etc. to ensure that What You See Is What You Get. 7. Building Quality Service One of the most important aspect is also to create trust among the consumers about the quality of the product. Flipkart provides information such as sizes, product availability (in stock), e-mail confirmation, post purchase services, customer service, etc. . Secure Payment options Flipkart promptly provides various options for the payment of the desired products. This is done by Cash on delivery, Credit card and debit card purchase, Net banking, etc. One striking features is also their EMI option with a very minimal amount of overhead. This attracts the consumers and develops a string sense of trust among the consumers as payment is the most sensitive part of the entire consumer buying process. 9. Returns and Guarantee Flipkart’s USP is the 30 day returns guarantee process.Though conditions apply to these, but to almost all the products they refund the entire amount of the money paid if the consumer returns the purchased product due to any reason. Below is a graph denoting monthl y traffic to Flipkart and it shows an increasing trend for most of the years. Customer trust in a company can play a significant role in determining the customer’s actions regarding that company. Customer trust (a belief) influences customer intentions. Empirical Research has shown that trust increases customer intention to purchase a product from a company as well as customer intention to return to a company.The following image shows the flow on process for Flipkart online shopping. RESULTS OF BUILDING CONSUMER TRUST The most important parameter for measuring the results of the efforts for creating consumer trust is the revenue generated. In about 7 years, Flipkart generated 12  billion (US$220  million) (FY  2011–12). Flipkart even has a market share of 20-25% in the Indian online market. Last year, it even acquired Let’s Buy and thus increased their market share. The graph shown above also speaks for itself that the number of visitors have been increasi ng day by day thus ensuring better sales and profitability.ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN BUILDING CONSUMER TRUST Flipkart. com  is one such online portal that is synonymous with trust worthy online shopping. Flipkart used various innovative ads where they show kids playing the roles of an adult (with real adult dubbed voices) in a day to day situation to reach their audiences. This creates a sense of trust among the consumers as kids convey truthfulness. This particular advertisement where three generations are portrayed to present the customers’ skepticism in online shopping hits just the right chords to market  Flipkart. com  and assure customers of its excellent services.This advertisement focuses on the major concern of the customers i. e. guarantee and how can one make an assessment from an online image. With the witty use of our old custom of arranged marriages where brides got betrothed by simply looking at the photographs of their husbands, this advertisement mixes a p erfect marketing solution, wrapped up in good humour. By presenting three generations together in an ad,  Flipkart. com  once again makes it clear that online shopping is devoid of age barriers and  Flipkart. com  is targeted to everyone irrespective of age or gender. CONCLUSIONFlipkart is one of the leading players in the online shopping sector in India. It targets all the older generation’s trust towards  Flipkart. com  by making the high-tech younger generation doubtful, and boosting the older generation’s ego by making them make an online purchase in the tech-savvy world. The tag line â€Å"shopping ka naya address†, â€Å"the new address for shopping†, does open doors or rather browsers to online shopping. By various and continuous efforts Flipkart has, no doubt, succeeded at a great level to create consumer trust and its impact is visible and measurable through the results. THANK YOU !!