Technology orientation in emerging economies

Abstract

With the rapid growth of internet and its ubiquitous use in the retail sector in the developed economies, there is a great opportunity for its adoption in emerging economies like India. While technology adaption in retail has been primarily focussed at improving customer experience and comfort, countries like India still provide a great opportunity to leverage it as a tool to reach the customers where other channels of distribution have a limited reach and penetrating the market by setting up brick & mortar stores does not make economic sense. Consumer interest in online shopping saw a phenomenal 128% growth from the consumers in the year 2011 to 2012 in comparison to just 40% in 2010 to 2011, as per the Google India Study in Novemeber 2012. However, the sample of 800 participants was only from Tier-1 and a few Tier -2 cities.The major motivators were listed as fast delivery, good deals, access to branded products whereas major barriers were identified as inability to experience the products, apprehension about quality & personal data protection. Such factors help us in estimating the consumer’s orientation towards adopting the Internet as an effective channel for product purchase, which we term as the’ technographic orientation’ of the customer towards online shopping. Traditional market research has used demographics, psychographics and lifestyle as bases to describe homogeneous clusters for classifying possible target markets. Technographic segmentation along with traditional segmentation variables will help us in identifying and profiling the characteristics and behaviour of consumers in a more relevant and progressive fashion.