Essay: Analysing E-commerce industry of UK with the help of ASOS and of India with the help of Flipkart

Country Report
Summer training report submitted towards the fulfilment of Study Abroad Program
TABLE OF CONTENT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The project is done to analyse the e commerce industry of India and United Kingdom. The report contains information about what is e commerce, how does it run. Also, we have used an Indian company called Flipkart and a company from United Kingdom called ASOS.
Both the companies are well known in their domestic markets and are present only on the virtual markets. Flipkart is considered as that e commerce website that made online shopping popular in India. According to Alexa Internet, a company which provides net traffic data, Flipkart is 10th most visited Indian website in India and 140th globally.
If we talk about ASOS, it is one of the United Kingdom’s largest online only fashion and beauty store. As Flipkart, ASOS is also present on the virtual market only. Unlike Flipkart, ASOS is renowned globally and offers over 50,000 brands (details given later).
In this report detailed explanation is given about the e commerce industry, SWOT analysis of these companies, history of these companies, profits and losses, and finally Recommendations are also given.
Through this report I will give a brief about the companies and thus, would try to provide most out of this Project for everyone.
OBJECTIVES
‘ To find the challenges faced by the companies using SWOT
‘ To evaluate the differences between both the markets
‘ To analyse the changing role of internet in one’s life
‘ To identify what these companies can learn from each other
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research is a structured effort to achieve new knowledge. Methodology is the most important part for such studies. The method of study used is to increase the knowledge and learning new things.
Types of Research:
‘ Basic Research
It is the research done for knowledge development and it does not have direct commercial potential.
‘ Applied Research
Applied research is planned to solve practical problem of the modern world, rather than to gain knowledge for its sake. It focuses on analysis and solving problems. This research is usually conducted on large scale basis, and it is expensive.
‘ Quantitative Research
Quantitative research targets to measure the quantity or amount and matches it with past records and tries to project for future period.
‘ Qualitative Research.
Qualitative research is collecting, analyzing and understanding data by observing what people do and say. It refers to the meanings, explanations, features, symbols, similes, and description of things.
The research methodology used in the report comprises of both basic and quantitative research. We have done this research to gain some knowledge which could be helpful for us in the future. The research comprises of secondary data which I got from company’s website, online discussions, online newspaper articles.
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WHY FLIPKART?
Flipkart was created in the year 2007 by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, both former students of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. They were working for Amazon.com previously. Flipkart was formally merged as a company Flipkart Online Services Pvt. Ltd on October 2008. During its early years, Flipkart focused only on books, and soon it expanded, and it started offering other products like electronic goods- Air Conditioners, Air coolers, stationery goods and life style products and e books.
The first product sold by Flipkat was the book, ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’, bought by VVK.Chandra. Flipkart has 4,500+ employees currently working with it.
Flipkart’s offering of products on Cash on Delivery is considered to be one of the main reasons behind its success. As people in india are not fond of using their bank cards. They don’t feel it safe and convenient. Flipkart also allows other payment methods- Credit or Debit card transactions, online banking, Card swipe on your house, online transfers and e gift vouchers.
WHY ASOS?
Nick Robertson and Quentin Griffiths established ASOS on June 2000. ASOS currently is having over 4,000 employees and is United Kingdom’s largest self-regulating online and fashion beauty retailer. It offers over 50,000 brand on its website and its own labeled product lines across women wear, footwear, men wear, jewelry and some more.
According to Alexa, ASOS rank in United Kingdom is 95 and its global rank is 643. ASOS has over 21.3 million different visitors a month and as of 31 August 2013 ASOS had 7.1 million lively customers from 160 countries. As of October 2013, ASOS has 7 million active users worldwide.
ASOS provides individual catwalk model videos of most outfits on the site to its prospective customers. Additionally, it runs a fashion blog with articles involving celebrities and showbiz. ASOS links related items within these posts.
E COMMERCE
E commerce stands for Electronic commerce happens when companies start conducting business activities electronically over computer networks.
E commerce business allows customers to sell, trade and barter over the web. It also allows companies to conduct business 24/7 worldwide.
Using E Commerce, business can grow their market to national and international front with least capital investment. An organization can simply attract more customers, best suppliers and suitable business allies across the globe.
E-commerce improves the brand image of the company.
E-commerce helps business to provide better customer services. Also E Commerce helps to make the business processes simpler and make them quicker and efficient. Moreover E Commerce reduces a lot of paper work.
E Commerce application delivers user more options and quicker delivery of goods and also gives more options to the users to relate and select the low-cost and better option over the internet.
E Commerce has facilitated access to services and products to rural areas which were otherwise not accessible to them.
Company needs servers and software to run their e commerce website. A company can don’t need to invest huge capital in buying stores or renting stores to run its business anymore.
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SWOT of FLIPKART
SWOT stands for Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities and Threats. This analysis is done by almost all the companies in the world to grab the first mover advantage over their competitors.
SWOT analysis is a process in which the management team categorizes the internal and external factors that can affect the company’s future performance. The company’s strengths and weaknesses are the internal factors whereas Opportunities and threats are the factors external to the company (environmental factors). SWOT analysis is done as part of the complete business planning process in which monetary and operational goals are set for the upcoming year and plans are created to accomplish these goals.