Social Media and e-Commerce: Comparative Study of Flipkart and Amazon India

The Internet has affected the habits of the Indian consumers, be they news consumption habits or shopping habits. Though the penetration of the internet in India in 2014 was only 19% (http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/india/) the number is marked for a massive jump with the entry of smart phones and low cost data packages. India is the one of the fastest growing markets in the world. The e-commerce market in India is expected to quadruple, and reach $ 60- 70 billion over the next five years, driven more by faster growth in goods than growth in services. (Retail 2020: Retrospect, Reinvent, Rewrite, 2015) Online shopping plays a major role in India’s e-commerce. The major advantage that India enjoys is its young population. The average age of an Indian will be 29 years in 2020. (Basu, 2007) Youngsters are involved in online shopping. Consumers indicate that they are likely to shop online more frequently in forthcoming years, said a CBRE India Consumer Survey 2015. Social media and e-commerce are inseparable these days. Flipkart and Amazon are the two big players as far as online shopping is concerned. This research paper is an attempt to examine the online shopping habits of urban young consumers in India and the use of social media by Flipkart and Amazon