Sir,

Shopping of citizens of Patna have been changing and online shopping has brought about a drastic transformation in the buying behavioral habits especially that of the middle income group.

The developing online market is characterized by domestic and foreign investors, it’s growing and ever hungry consumers like us apparently have insatiable demand for all good things in life- from groceries to vegetables to fancy gadgets to fanciest cars. Those days are gone when people had to buy different things at different places. Now, the things have changed, thanks to the online shopping sites and malls.

The concept of online shopping has been globally accepted. Online shopping culture is like a revolution that is fast changing the way of life for millions of citizens of India. The trends and after-effects are visible in different cities of India.

The fact that cannot be denied is that conventional grocery outlets and shopping malls gave their own importance and online shopping culture has not replaced them. As compared to sites of different range of clothes, online grocery stores are very few in number. It is because most of the people prefer to buy it from vegetable vendors and also fashion shops so that they can check if the product is fresh or of good quality. Another big reason for not preferring online shopping for grocery is time factor, generally all the sites take an average of 24hours to deliver product but if one needs it urgently online shopping idea fails.

People between age groups 40-55 prefer to buy the product after checking the quality and proper size, according to them online shopping is not that good because they cannot check the quality of product before buying.

The problem of delivering stones to the customers in place of mobiles and other gadgets cannot be ignored at any cost. It is very easy to place orders but when it comes to returning that product within limited times, people face great difficulty because of the long process that needs to be followed for return of any product purchased online. But now shopping sites are giving their best to win the trust of people.

It can be concluded that Patna is a developing city and the fashion of buying online is on the cards but shopping malls have their own importance. The main reason for this is the credit facility available in conventional stores, the personal contact between buyers and sellers, easy accessibility.

Ruchika Kumari, CEMS-II,  Patna Women’s College

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