Online VS Offline prices

Dhruv

Earlier (a year back) the product prices especially of electronics ( mobiles, lcd,led tv) were lower as compared to offline shops. But these days the product prices online are higher as compared to offline market.

Do you think this trend will continue to be there in the online space..??

Shiva

I bet to differ on your POW, in fact I have been seeing a trend reversal of sort from some online players who have started to offer the electronics at much lower price than the offline stores. This is from the very minimal experience I have with the same. Although it may not be true for all online stores but a few of them are really offering great prices, I have personally found it out.

Dhruv

Check out the price of any mobile phone online, it will be def higher than what you can get at offline store.

One month back galaxy note was available for 30,500/30,800 at offline stores in Delhi, whereas online stores were offering it at 33,000( lowest).

Infact If you will check the prices today also, you will find that the prices offline are much lower than online.

Shiva

@Dhruv, I agree that most of the online stores charge more than offline stores but my point is that some have started offering competitive rates compared with some years when almost all the online stores were selling at much higher price than offline stores. Apart from that they charged a hefty shipping charges of which the current trend is that almost all online stores offer free shipping!

Sameer

The "untracked" economy in India (i.e. no paper trail, taxes, etc) is massive and has pricing flexibility beyond what online stores can offer. Also, offline vendors manage with small/just in time inventories and co-operate on this and other costs. Its not unlikely that they will continue to match/better online prices for certain product categories.

Dhruv

@ Shiva,

Discounts - is the only driving force behind India's E commerce market.

All these companies letsbuy.com,fashionandyou.com,indiaplaza.com started selling the products at a lower price than the offline markets because of which they took off in the E commerce space so fast. Letsbuy is 2-3 year old story. Though indiaplaza is decade old. Here I am only talking about electronics category.

E commerce players could offer lower prices because of low overheads, low inventory cost, low manpower and no brick and mortar structure, but now the scenario have changed completely.

I think it might be because these E commerce companies have realized that they can't survive by making losses and booking them under customer acquisition cost or by burning investors money.

Yes portals like fashionandyou.com, dealsandyou.com, indiaplaza.com offers phones( Blackberry) at a much lower price than the offline market, but majority of these products are imported products which carries 6 months reseller warranty. Genuine Blackberry comes with 18 months warranty.

I once ordered Bold 2 from fashionanadyou.com and I was shocked to see that the phone was packed in a plain brown box. It didn't even had a BB box.

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