The document is an internship report summarizing activities done at Stashdeal.com, an Indian deal portal, from May-July 2014. The internship focused on sales and marketing, including searching for merchants to offer deals, explaining the website to vendors, adding deals to the site, and discussing promotional strategies. A literature review covered topics like the effects of sales promotions on brand equity and consumer preferences. Research on e-commerce in India analyzed consumer demographics and online shopping behavior. The internship provided valuable experience in marketing that will help in pursuing a career in the field.

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INTERNSHIP REPORT
(Analysis Report on Sales Promotion Schemes and Research on E- Commerce in India)
MAY,2014 - JULY,2014
AT
STASHDEAL.COM, HYDERABAD
Student name - Shaikh Himayet Hossain
Programme - BBA
Department - Marketing & Sales
Batch - ICHE - Spring - 12-15

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.No. Topic Page
Acknowledgement 4
Summary 5
1 Introduction 6
2 Description of Internship 7
3 Internship Activities 8-9
4 Literature Review on Sales Promotion Schemes and Consumer
Preferences
4.1 Promotion and Consumption
4.2 Sales promotion Schemes and Consumer Preference
4.3 Brand Equity Measurement
4.4 Sales Promotion Types and Preferences
4.5 Valence of a promotion
4.6 When Promotion is Informative
4.7 Perceived discount
4.8 Store Image
4.9 Name Brand Vs Store Brand
4.10 Change in Purchase Intention due to sales promotions
4.11 Promotional Threshold
4.12 Consumer Price Formation : Reference Prices
4.13 Price Elasticity
4.14 Sales Promotion: Immediate Price reduction
4.15 Consumer Goals
4.16 Price Promotion & Pre Purchase Goals
4.17 Promotion: Discount Vs Free Gift
4.18 Consumer Response to Deal Exclusivity
4.19 The Effects of Gender on consumer response to Deal Exclusivity
4.20 Sales Promotion and Brand Equity
4.21 The Effects of Sales promotions on Brand Knowledge
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5 Research Methodology on E-Commerce and Its Consumer Behaviour
5.1 Market size and growth
5.2 Closures
5.3 Infrastructure
5.4 Funding
5.5 Consumer Behaviour
5.6 Consumer Behaviour over Internet
5.7 Drawbacks
5.8 Limitations
5.9 Online buying behavior
5.10 Factors Predicting Online Shopping
5.11 Factors influence online consumer behaviour
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6 Data Analysis on E - Commerce Consumers in India
6.1 Age Wise Analysis
6.2 How long have been doing online shopping
6.3 Buy Online Products Segmentation
6.4 Education Wise Analysis
6.5 Frequently Buy Online Analysis
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7 Conclusions 33
8 Recommendations 33

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Acknowledgement
First I would like to thank Mr. Rahman Ahmed, the Co - Founder of Stashdeal.com, for giving me the
opportunity to do an internship within the organization. For me it was a unique experience to be in
Hyderabad and to work in Sales & Marketing field. It also helped to get back my interest in Marketing
research and to have new plans for my future career.
I also would like to thank all the people that worked in the office of Stashdeal.com in Hyderabad. With
their patience and openness they created an enjoyable working environment.
Furthermore I want to thank all the students, with whom I did the fieldwork. We experienced great
things together and they have shown me a beautiful part of their city.

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Summary
Within my Study MBA , I am interested in Marketing. It was a great opportunity for me to do two
months of internship at Stashdeal.com. The internship was concentrated on going to the field, look out
for vendors giving exciting deals and offers and sign them up on our website. At the beginning of the
internship I had set several learning goals regarding the improvement of my knowledge and skills on
Marketing and research methodology.
During my stay several activities have contributed to achieve a number of goals. I went out to the
market everyday for at least 5 hours. The Object of this project was to bring up vendors giving exciting
deals and offers and make them registered on the website.
Next , I was given one work to complete it within a day , which I did. I was told to make one excel sheet
where I had to give all the details regarding our competitors. I gave all details regarding their Marketing
Strategy, Promotional activities etc.
In conclusion, the internship was a useful experience. I have find out what my strengths and weaknesses
are; I gained new knowledge and skills and met many new people. I achieved many of my learning goals,
however for some the conditions did not permit to achieve them as I wanted. I got insight into the work
of Stashdeal.com.
At last this internship has given me new insights and motivation to pursue a career in marketing. To
prepare myself for my future career I can improve several things. I can work on my communication skills
so that I am able to present and express myself more confidently.

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1. Introduction
This is a Short description of my two months internships carried out as a compulsory component of my
MBA program. The internship was carried in and out of the organization. Since I am interested in
Marketing, this is internship was focused on going in the market and convince the vendors for signing
them up on the website.
At the beginning of the internship, I formulated several learning goals which I wanted to achieve :
 to understand the functioning and working conditions of a the Organizations,
 to see what is like to work in a professional environment
 to see if this kind of work is a possibility for my future career
 to use my gained skills and knowledge
 to see what skills and knowledge I still need to work in a professional environment;
 to learn about the organizing of a research project (planning, preparation, permissions etc.)
 to learn about research methodologies (field methods/methods to analyze data)
 to get fieldwork experience/collect data in an environment unknown for me;
 to get experience in working in another city/with persons from another culture;
 to enhance my communication skills;
 to build a network.
This internship report contains my activities that have contributed to achieve a number of my stated
goals. In the following chapter a description of the organization Stashdeal.com and the activities are
given. After this a reflection on my functioning, the unexpected circumstances and the learning goals
achieved during the internship are described. Finally I give a conclusion on the internship experience
according to my learning goals.

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2. Description of the internship
Stashdeal.com is a deal portal which promotes different kind of exciting deals and offers regarding
various business categories. It's a start-up business and was launched in 31st May,2014. Stashdeal.com
facilitates the collaboration of the Customers , vendors and the organization people. It has a vision to be
one of the top Deal of the Day website in India.
An Overview of the projects of Stashdeal.com :
 the development of Marketing Strategies for Sustainable growth in market
 Studies on Marketing activities
 Identification of threats from our Competitors
 Establishment of building a wide network in the market
 Development of Promotional activities
For Marketing organization the availability of resources is one of the main factors that determines the
scope and duration of its existence in the market . To be able to carry out business for several months,
but also for several years, sufficient external financial support is needed. When funding is realized
specific technicians have to be found. The technicians are responsible for the different parts regarding
the maintenance of the website ,the collection of data, the analysis etc. People are required to work at
the backend process for maintaining the data collection process, management call tracker and to plan
the schedule of the next day.

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3. Internship activities
My internship was completely focused on Sales & Marketing activities. I did many Marketing research as
well. It was planned to go out in the market find out the vendors and convince them to get themselves
registered on the website .
Here are the activities which I performed during my internship :
 Searching for the Merchants - I went in the market and look for suitable vendors ready to give
us the deal and offers so that we can promote them on our website
 Making Calls - I made various cold calls to fix up an appointment with vendors and meet them
on the respective date & time.
 Explaining about the website on the phone - I also explained many of the vendors about the
website as to how and what it is up to, what kind of business it is etc.
 Showing the Demo - When practically met with the vendors , I showed them the demo of our
website and explaining them the whole functions of the website.
 Adding the Deals on the Website - I also did some technician work as well, I added up the deals
on the website and edited some of them after reviewing.
 Took pictures - When we add deals we have to give some pictures of the outlet as well so as to
attract the customers, so I took some pictures that will make the customers excited about
buying the deal. It was a great experience for me regarding photography.
 Distributing Promo codes - I also distributed Promo codes in IT sector area in order to get the
traffic from the people.
 Discussions on promotional activities - Everyday when we were done with our work, me and
my colleagues used to sit and discuss about how we can make this website known to the public
and get as much traffic as we can.

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Every Department was working hard for the vision. The technicians department were working on the
technical part of the website i.e. the appearance of the website , SEOs, installing keywords etc.
Marketing Department i.e. the department where I was also a part of it were working really hard
regarding the Marketing strategies and promotional activities. In Short, each and every employee was
dedicated in his work.
Only one drawback Which I found in the organization was regarding the promotion side. There was very
little investment regarding the promotion side. The amount of investment was very low towards the
promotion side. As long as we don't make the website known in the Market, there is no use bringing up
only vendors because if their deal will not sale they will soon terminate their existence from our website
and in order to make the deal sold we need customers and in order to bring customers we need to
invest a lot on promotional activities and advertise heavily in the real market.
Some promotional activities which the organizations are as follows :
 Distributing Promo Codes
 Advertise on Facebook
 Advertise on Google Adverts

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4. Literature Review on Sales Promotion Schemes and Consumer
Preferences
 Promotion and Consumption
 Sales promotion Schemes and Consumer Preference
 Brand Equity Measurement
 Sales Promotion Types and Preferences
 Valence of a promotion
 When Promotion is Informative
 Perceived discount
 Store Image
 Name Brand Vs Store Brand
 Change in Purchase intention due to Sales promotions
 Promotion threshold
 Consumer Price Formation : Reference Prices
 Price Elasticity
 Sales Promotion: Immediate Price reduction
 Consumer Goals
 Price Promotion & Pre Purchase Goals
 Promotion: Discount Vs Free Gift
 Consumer
 Response to Deal Exclusivity
 The Effects of Gender on consumer response to Deal Exclusivity
 Sales Promotion and Brand Equity
 The Effects of Sales promotions on Brand Knowledge

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4.1 Promotion & Consumption:
Does consumption respond to promotion? Many studies have focused on the effects of
promotion on brand switching, purchase quantity, and stockpiling and have documented that
promotion makes consumers switch brands and purchase earlier or more. The consumers‘
consumption decision has long been ignored, and it remains unclear how promotion affects
consumption (Blattberg et al. 1995). Conventional choice models cannot be used to address this
issue because many of these models assume constant consumption rates over time (usually
defined as the total purchases over the entire sample periods divided by the number of time
periods). While this assumption can be appropriate for some product categories such as
detergent and diapers, it might not hold for many other product categories, such as packaged
tuna, candy, orange juice, or yogurt. For these categories, promotion can actually stimulate
consumption in addition to causing brand switching and stockpiling. Thus, for product
categories with a varying consumption rate, it is critical to recognize the responsiveness of
consumption to promotion in order to measure the effectiveness of promotion on sales more
precisely
4.2 Sales Promotion and Consumer Response/ Preference:
Consumer promotions are now more pervasive than ever. Witness 215 billion manufacturer
coupons distributed in 1986, up 500% in the last decade (Manufacturers Coupon Control Center
1988), and manufacturer expenditures on trade incentives to feature or display brands totaling
more than $20 billion in the same year, up 800% in the last decade (Alsop 1986; Kessler 1986).
So far, not much work has been done to identify the purchasing strategies that consumers
adopt in response to particular promotions, or to study how pervasive these strategies are in a
population of interest. Blattberg, Peacock and Sen (1976) define a purchase strategy as a
general buying pattern which "incorporates several dimensions of buying behaviour such as
brand loyalty, private brand proneness and deal proneness." A greater understanding of the
different types of consumer responses to promotions can help managers to develop effective
promotional programs as well as provide new insights for consumer behaviour theorists who
seek to understand the influence of different types of environmental cues on consumer
behaviour.
Throughout the world, consumer sales promotions are an integral part of the marketing mix for
many consumer products. Marketing managers use price-oriented promotions such as coupons,
rebates, and price discounts to increase sales and market share, entice trial, and encourage
brand switching. Non-price promotions such as sweep stakes, frequent user clubs, and
premiums add excitement and value to brands and may encourage brand loyalty.

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4.3 Brand Equity Measurement:
It is important to measure marketing asset of a firm which they define as customer focused
measures of the value of the firm (and its offerings) that may enhance the firm‘s long-term
value. To measure this, they focus on two approaches: brand equity and customer equity.
Measuring brand equity deals with the measurement of intangible marketing concepts, such as
product image reputation and brand loyalty. Raja opal (2008) supports the view of measuring
the marketing asset of a firm and highlights that the major advantage of a brand measurement
system is that it links brand management and business performance of the firm and is a
strategic management tool for continuous improvement rather than a static snapshot in time of
the brand‘s performance. An effective brand measurement system therefore helps businesses
to understand how the brand is performing with the framework of customer values and against
competing brands.
4.4 Sales Promotion Types and Preferences:
At this point, it is useful to define what mean by the terms "expected price" and "price
promotion." Following Thaler (1985), it is viewed that the price consumers‘ use as a reference
in making purchase decisions as the price they expect to pay prior to a purchase occasion.
Further, the expected price may also be called the "internal reference price" (Klein and
Oglethorpe 1987) as opposed to an external reference price such as the manufacturers'
suggested list price. Finally, a brand is on price promotion when it is offered with a temporary
price cut that is featured in newspaper advertising and/ or brought to consumers' attention
with a store display sign.
Specifically, during a price promotion, they are apt to perceive a price "gain" and react
positively; correspondingly, when the deal is retracted, they are apt to perceive a price "loss"
and are unlikely to purchase the brand.
The behaviour of households that have low probabilities of buying a brand upon the retraction
of a deal can be explained readily in a price expectation framework. It has been suggested that
the price they expect to pay for the brand may be close to the deal price and they may forego
purchasing the focal brand when it is not promoted because its retail price far exceeds what
they expect to pay for it.
Price promotional deals may come to be "perfectly anticipated" and have much less impact on
consumer response than they do when they come as a surprise to consumers. Apart of it they
suggested that Evaluation of the tradeoff between the short-term sales gain from a price
promotion and the adverse effect on future sales because of consumers forming price and
promotion expectations requires knowledge of how price promotions affect the formation of
consumers' expectations under different market conditions.

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Promotions have increased in popularity during the past few decades. The positive short-term
impact of price promotions on brand sales is well documented. A price promotion typically
reduces the price for a given quantity or increases the quantity available at the same price,
thereby enhancing value and creating an economic incentive to purchase. However, if
consumers associate promotions with inferior brand quality, then, to the extent that quality is
important, a price promotion might not achieve the extent of sales increase the economic
incentive otherwise might have produced.
Price promotions often are used to encourage trial among nonusers of products and services.
Thus, it is important to understand the effects of promotions on evaluations made by
consumers who do not have prior experience with the promoted brand.
4.5 The Valence of a Promotion:
The price-quality literature has found that a relatively lower price generally is interpreted as an
indicator of inferior quality and that this effect is magnified when only price information is
available to make a judgment. Predictions of a negative effect also are implied by attribution
theory. Attribution theory suggests that consumers assign causes for managerial actions When
consumers are exposed to a promotion, they attribute a reason for it. These attributions may
be to the brand or to some external force.
4.6 When Promotion is Informative
Literature suggests that when price promotions serve an informational function, they are likely
to have a negative effect on pre trial brand evaluation. The issue of whether price promotions
affect brand evaluations therefore might be restated to ask when they serve an informational
function. The promotion's information value is context- specific. One context in which a
promotion may be perceived as containing information relevant to brand quality is when the
act of promoting is a deviation from past behaviour. This indicates there has been a change,
and are evaluation of the brand may be in order.
To illustrate, if a brand that has been promoted frequently in the past is promoted currently,
the current promotion conveys little that is new about the brand to consumers, and they are
not likely to give the current behaviour much thought. Conversely, if a brand that has never
been promoted in the past is promoted, this is informative and more likely to lead to a re -
evaluation of the brand.
4.7 Perceived Discount:
In pricing literature, encoding refers to the subjective interpretation and assignment of
meaning to objective prices and price discounts. As the discount advertised (AD, defined in this
study as the percentage off regular price) by retailers‘ increases, consumers' perceptions of the
discounts or savings are also likely to increase. This is clearly the underlying premise for most

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promotional offerings, and it has been supported by several studies (Berkowitz and Walton
1980; Della Bitta, Monroe, and McGinnis 1981; Mobley et al. 1988). Is the PD less than the AD?
This question was addressed by several studies in relation to the issue raised by Federal Trade
Commission cases dealing with the fairness of reference price advertising by retailers.
Critics of advertised reference price argue that retailers commonly inflate these prices and
distort consumer perceptions of the savings offered (Liefeld and Heslop 1985; Urbany, Bearden,
and Weilbaker 1988).
4.8 Store Image:
As indicated above, one of the key reasons for the discounting of discounts is the lack of
credibility of advertised savings, particularly when the advertised savings level increases.
Specifically, it suggest that consumers' internal price standards, perceived value of the deal, and
source credibility perceptions are likely to be higher when they encounter an advertisement
from a store that does not consistently make reference price claims and is highly distinctive in
its price promotion behaviour. This implies that, if a store promotes its products very
frequently, consumers are likely to make references such as, "this store always offers deals, so
its regular price is really not a regular price." A claim of 50 percent off the regular price by a
frequently promoting store is therefore likely to be discounted more because its regular price is
perceived to be lower than claimed or implied by the store. Since store image and frequency of
promotion are usually negatively correlated.
4.9 Name Brand versus Store Brand:
Like store image, brand name is also an important contextual variable that affects consumers'
responses to price and price discounts. A well-established brand name conveys high image and
high quality perceptions. Many studies on the price-quality relationship have found that brand
name is an important moderating variable that helps control or stabilize the quality perceptions
of a branded product even when its price is reduced.
In other words, instead of using discounted or sale price as a cue to infer the quality of a brand
name product, the brand name is used to infer or maintain quality perceptions. Consumers
should therefore be more likely to accept the regular price claims of a name brand. As a result,
the claimed discount on a name brand will be more believable than that for a store brand.
4.10 Change in Purchase Intention:
One of the key issues for retailers and consumer researchers is to find how pro- motions affect
consumers' purchase intentions. As indicated earlier, a brand name lends credibility to a
product so that a promotional discount on a name brand does not affect its quality perception
as much as a discount on a store brand. Therefore, when a store brand is promoted.

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It's perceived price goes down but so does its perceived quality. A similar promotion for a name
brand reduces its perceived price, but the decline in its perceived quality is likely to be less than
that for the store brand. The net result is that a promotion is likely to induce a greater change
in the perceived value and hence a greater CI for a name brand than for a store brand. Similarly,
less discounting of discounts is likely to occur for the high-image stores than for the low-image
stores, which leads to higher perceived savings for the high-image stores.
4.11 Promotion Thresholds:
A promotion threshold is the minimum value of price discount required to change consumers'
intentions to buy. The concept of a threshold can be related to the psychological process of
discrimination in which a consumer would not react to stimuli unless the perceived changes
were above a just noticeable difference. The concept of a threshold is widely recognized and
acknowledged by both researchers and practitioners. It is interesting to note that, in a slightly
different context. They found that, while price and brand effects were strong and significant,
the effect of store name on perceived quality of product was generally small and not
statistically significant. They also presented an approach to find promotion threshold and
saturation points.
As expected, the threshold for the store brand was found to be significantly higher than that for
the name brand. If consumers come to expect deals as the rule rather than the exception,
discount prices lose their ability to boost sales. To use price discounting effectively, managers
must understand the link between pricing activity and consumer expectations. Product pricing,
however, is not the only activity influencing the expectations of consumers. In recent years,
retail promotion by which non price merchandising activity such as special displays and store
features has had an increasingly important effect on consumer choice behaviour.
The model is based on the premise that consumers form expectations about the future
marketing activity of a brand from their past exposure to such activity.
4.12 Consumer price formation: reference prices
The price‘s knowledge and memory has been one of most frequent research issues on the
consumer behaviour for more than 40 years. Strong efforts have been made to define the
concept of reference price, from those who consider it from an external perspective as the
price that is announced, to those who regard it as an average of the prices the consumer has
previously paid, from an internal perspective. As a result, it seems important to know the
definition of reference price that is referred to when it comes to debating questions related to
it. In his work, Lowengart proposes an intense review of the definitions of the reference price
concept that have appeared throughout time in the main research works focused on such a
concept.

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The conclusion that can be drawn from the compilation of the different options of
conceptualization of the reference price is that such proliferation seems to be a demonstration
of the complexity and multidimensional nature of the consumer‘s price assessment.
The external reference price can be considered any notification of the price the consumer
receives through some external information channel and which he uses to make comparisons.
There is a clear identification of the external reference price with the contextual component
that affects the internal reference price; therefore such concepts are closely related. The
external reference price could be the price of the brand leader, or the price of the brand that is
usually acquired or the selling price recommended by the manufacturer on the product‘s pack.
4.13 Price elasticity:
Traditionally the price has been considered an informative element, from which the consumer
can create an expectation on the quality of the product to acquire. Similarly, manufacturers and
retailers act on the prices policy to achieve increases in their sales of products. With these
reductions in prices, consumers are expected to buy a greater amount of the product or brand.
Cross price elasticity is adequate to know the extent to which a variance in a brand price alters
the demand of the rival brands. Some phenomena or issues of interest in relation to this have
been analyzed in the previous literature.
4.14 Sales promotion: immediate price reductions
Price and promotion strategies are closely related. It is very difficult to distinguish price
variances which are caused by decisions derived from the prices policy from those produced as
a result of the promotion policy. Nevertheless, we must clarify that the effects provoked by
promotions vary according to multiple factors: the type of incentive, the amount of discount
provided or the type of product to which the promotion is applied, among others.
It is necessary to be continuously in touch with the market because on certain occasions the
use of promotions could cause unwanted effects. This happens when the consumer perceives
that he is paying for unnecessary product highlighting and positioning activities, which will
make his behaviour, deviate from the desired one, and thus, he will stop buying the promoted
brand.
On some occasions the consumer may also stop buying a brand or avoid its purchase when it is
promoted so as not to have to justify his behaviour before the group. Or the consumer simply
decides not to buy the promoted product because he feels that he is being manipulated and he
will act punishing the retailers.

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4.15 Consumer goals:
Many consumer purchasing decisions are goal oriented. Such goals are important as they direct
other stages of the consumers‘ decision process. Broadly, there are different levels of consumer
goal specificity. People with abstract goals tend to search across product categories and
consider a wider range of information as relevant. For example, if the goal is to get away from
work and have fun (an abstract goal), consumers may consider multiple activities including
going to a movie, visiting friends, or taking a vacation. Many options are relevant and attentions
are spread across multiple product categories. On the other hand, if the goal is to buy a
microwave oven (a concrete goal), only microwave oven information is relevant and tends to
get people‘s attention.
In the market place, consumer goals vary along a continuum ranging from no goal, abstract goal
to concrete goal. Goals guide consumers‘ information gathering and decision processes. Goals
are associated with different levels of consumer involvement which guide the allocation of
attention as well as other cognitive resources for information processing.
When consumers have an abstract goal or no goal at all, the involvement with any particular
purchase is low and they may spread out their attention and no single piece of information may
be regarded as particularly relevant.
Although the importance of consumer goals has been recognized in previous research, it has
not been explicitly incorporated in research on consumers‘ perceptions of price promotions
Yet, when shopping, consumers may encounter various price promotion messages for products
or services for which they do or do not have specific purchase goals.
4.16 Price promotions and pre-purchase goals:
Goals play a fundamental role in influencing how information in a promotion message will be
processed (Shavitt et al., 1994). When individuals have multiple information processing
strategies available, they select among them on the basis of goals, motives, and the
environmental context (Taylor, 1998). Thus, by definition information regarding a specific
product attracts more attention when consumers have a pre- purchase goal for that product
category compared to when consumers do not have a pre-purchase goal.
Price promotions usually provide consumers with monetary savings on specific products. If
consumers are in a store intentionally searching for these specific products, then it is expected
that they would find promotions on such products more attractive compared to those
consumers who are in the store but do not have a prior purchase goal for a promoted product.
Therefore, the purchase likelihood is higher. In addition to this main effect, consumers may
react to different promotion characteristics in different ways given the existence or absence of
a pre-purchase goal.

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Price promotion characteristics can be grouped into four categories:
 Price presentation
 Deal characteristics
 Situation factors
 Study effect
4.17 Promotion format: Discount vs. Free Gift:
In addition to promotion framing, price promotions come in different formats such as discount,
coupon, rebate, and purchase with free gift, etc. While most promotion forms involve monetary
savings, some promotions are non-monetary. One type of non-monetary promotion often used
is offering consumers a free product or gift instead of a price discount.
If consumers who are planning to buy a product are more focused on the monetary sacrifice,
they would prefer a price discount (reduced loss) over a free gift promotion (small gain).
However, consumers who are not planning to buy may be more attracted by a small gain
associated with the free gift.
4.18 Consumer Response to Deal Exclusivity:
Self-construal reflects the potential for people to hold varying self-view and involves the degree
to which people define themselves in isolation of others (i.e., independent construal) or in
relation to a group (i.e., interdependent construal). Although self-construal can be represented
as a chronic, relatively stable dimension of a person‘s personality or as a frame of mind that is
situationally primed by contextual factors , in either case, it holds implications for the values
people strive to achieve in managing their self-concepts. As a result, self-construal can influence
judgments , including those made in response to sales promotions tactics.
To this end, people adopting independent, ego-focused construal tend to manage their self-
concepts with respect to considerations that centre on their relative uniqueness. Such people
should therefore strive to achieve marketplace exchanges that lead to outcomes that are more
equitable (versus inequitable) in nature. In turn, this distaste for inequity should negatively
affect the evaluations of a targeted deal provided by recipients with interdependent self-
construal.

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4.19 The Effects of Gender on Consumer Response to Deal Exclusivity:
Research on self-construal suggests that recipient gender can influence how deal exclusivity
affects the evaluations of customized offers. Specifically, Western men are often characterized
as possessing independent self-views, while Western women more typically adopt
interdependent self-construal.
Men‘s independent self views should prompt them to value unique (i.e., exclusive) offers that
provide them with the basis for self-enhancement to a greater extent than women, whose
interdependent self views should result in less favourable evaluations of targeted deals.
Accordingly, the level of effort a consumer invests in building a relationship with a firm should
be positively related to the degree to which recipients are sensitive to deal characteristics
(including promotional exclusivity) and, as a result, to the extremity of their response to a
targeted offer. Therefore, consumers who have invested heavily in a relationship with a firm
through their transactional history should prove sensitive to receiving a targeted offer; in
contrast, those with lower levels of relationship equity may be less responsive to a deal‘s
exclusivity, given that they have little vested in the relationship.
Sales promotion refers to any incentive used by a manufacturer to induce the trade
(wholesalers, retailers, or other channel members) and/or consumers to buy a brand and to
encourage the sales force to aggressively sell it. Retailers also use promotional incentives to
encourage desired behaviours from consumers. Sales promotion is more short-term oriented
and capable of influencing behaviour. Totten and Block stated that the term sales promotion
refers to many kinds of selling incentives and techniques intended to produce immediate or
short-term sales effects. Typical sales promotion includes coupons, samples, in-pack premiums,
and price-offs, displays, and so on.
Coupons have been used to produce trial. Price promotion does influence new product trial
According to hort-term peaks in sales were due primarily to purchases made by occasional
users of a brand rather than by new customers. Furthermore, the study concluded that these
occasional users, after taking advantage of the price reduction, would most likely return to their
favourite brands in their portfolio rather than buy the promoted brand at full price.
With regard to free sample, another important promotional tool often used by firms, marketing
managers recognize the importance of product trial and direct behavioural experience with a
product; hence they often mail free samples of products to consumers so that consumers can
try the products for themselves, rather than just hear about the products.

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Product trial involves actually trying or using a product. Trial ability refers to the degree to
which a product can be tried on a limited basis or divided into small quantities for an
inexpensive trial. Banks wrote that with sales promotion, brands have a chance to quickly affect
consumer choice and behaviour by adding value through an on-pack offer, by achieving
incremental display or by encouraging trial via sampling and/ or couponing.
4.20 Sales promotion and brand equity:
Sales promotion in FMCG industries is used to create a temporary stimulus on the sales of a
brand by making consumers a special offer. This promotional stimulus is part of the marketing
offer made up of factors such as product features and benefits, price, availability, customer
service and quality. Consumers are expected to act on this offer, which, in turn, has an
immediate effect on the sales rate of an organization. Market-based assets, such as Brand
Equity, are part of the benefits accruing to the organization as a result of trading. These
benefits include the development over time of positive brand awareness, image, secured
distribution, brand franchise, brand equity and also positive relationships with customers and
intermediaries.
Techniques falling under the banner of sales promotion are both diverse and complex, and
offer management the opportunity to address a range of different marketing situations. Its
purpose may be: to stimulate quick response in the market place, as a retaliatory device, or to
reward and retain existing customers. When techniques are considered individually, several of
them could be, and indeed are, used as retaliators. Price-related promotions (such as ―cents-
off‖ the regular price, and refund offers for coupon redemption) form a large share of
consumer promotional activity. They also represent the greatest concern in terms of potential
damage to brand equity because price plays an important role in the evaluation of a brand. It is,
therefore, relevant in terms of potential equity outcomes to consider the impact of using price-
based promotions.
Consumers develop their value and perceptions of a brand on the strength of the marketing
offer. If they see the offer as highly favourable, then it may be that the franchise, or
relationship, between the consumer and the brand is strengthened. It could, therefore, be
suggested that overusing sales promotion potentially causes the brand to be devalued in the
mind of the consumer, and the subsequent franchise or equity enjoyed by the brand may
likewise be damaged. It is well documented that building and maintaining positive brand equity
with one‘s consumer base is considered to be critical for long-term survival.

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4.21 The effect of sales promotions on brand knowledge:
Earlier, it was posited that brand knowledge is the source of brand equity. Therefore any
potential encounter with a brand may affect brand equity as far as it changes the mental
representation of the brand and the kinds of information that can appear in the consumer‘s
memory. Some of these potential encounters may be marketing-initiated, for example through
marketing communications tools.
These findings are in line with the approach that has inspired most of the research conducted
on sales promotions. That approach is characterized by the fact that (i) most studies have
examined the convenience of using promotions instead of examining their benefits to the
consumer, (ii) sales promotions are seen as a sale tool having effective effects‘ only on
behaviours‘, and (iii) it is assumed that monetary savings are the only benefit that motivates
consumers to respond to sales promotions.
Taking into account that brand knowledge includes different kinds of information linked to a
brand such as attributes, benefits, thoughts, feelings, experiences, and so onit follows that
brand knowledge may be potentially affected and changed by the sales promotions experience.
First, this experience can change the number of associations evoked about a brand because
sales promotions have brand association-enhancing power.
Second, they can also generate favourable associations if the associations are desirable to
consumers and successfully conveyed by the supporting promotional campaign for the brand.
In other words, the value that sales promotions have for brands is related to the value or
benefits they have for consumers.
Finally, sales promotions can develop meaningful points of difference to the brand (unique
associations) if the promotional campaign is not attributed to another brand or is not seen as a
generic promotion of the product category.

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5. Research Methodology on E- Commerce and its Consumer
Behaviour
India has an internet user base of about 137 million as of June 2012. The penetration of E-
commerce is low compared to markets like the United States and the United Kingdom but is
growing at a much faster rate with a large number of new entrants. The industry consensus is
that growth is at an inflection point.
Unique to India (and potentially to other developing countries), cash on delivery is a preferred
payment method. India has a vibrant cash economy as a result of which 80% of Indian e-
commerce tends to be Cash on Delivery. Similarly, direct imports constitute a large component
of online sales. Demand for international consumer products (including long- tail items) is
growing much faster than in-country supply from authorised distributors and e-commerce
offerings.
5.1 Market size and growth
India's e-commerce market was worth about $2.5 billion in 2009, it went up to $6.3 billion in
2011 and to $14 billion in 2012. About 75% of this is travel related (airline tickets, railway
tickets, hotel bookings, online mobile recharge etc.). Online Retailing comprises about 12.5%
($300 Million as of 2009). India has close to 10 million online shoppers and is growing at an
estimated 30% CAGR vis-à-vis a global growth rate of 8–10%. Electronics and Apparel are the
biggest categories in terms of sales.
Key drivers in Indian e-commerce are:
 Increasing broadband internet (growing at 20% MoM) and 3G penetration.
 Rising standard of living and a burgeoning, upwardly mobile middle class with high
disposable incomes
 Availability of much wider product range (including long tail and Direct Imports)
compared to what is available at brick and mortar retailers
 Busy lifestyles, urban traffic congestion and lack of time for offline shopping
 Lower prices compared to brick and mortar retail driven by disintermediation and
reduced inventory and real estate costs
 Increased usage of online classified sites, with more consumer buying and selling
second-hand goods

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 Evolution of the online marketplace model with sites like eBay,Flipkart, Snapdeal,
Infibeam,qnetindia.in,Dealkyahai.com and Tradus. The evolution of ecommerce has
come a full circle with marketplace models taking center stage again.
India's retail market is estimated at $470 billion in 2011 and is expected to grow to $675 Billion
by 2016 and $850 Billion by 2020, – estimated CAGR of 7%. According to Forrester, the e-
commerce market in India is set to grow the fastest within the Asia-Pacific Region at a CAGR of
over 57% between 2012–16.
As per "India Goes Digital" a report by Avendus Capital, a leading Indian Investment Bank
specializing in digital media and technology sector, the Indian e-commerce market is estimated
at Rs 28,500 Crores ($6.3 billion) for the year 2011. Online travel constitutes a sizable portion
(87%) of this market today. Online travel market in India is expected to grow at a rate of 22%
over the next 4 years and reach Rs 54,800 Crores ($12.2 billion) in size by 2015. Indian e-tailing
industry is estimated at Rs 3,600 crores (US$800 million) in 2011 and estimated to grow to Rs
53,000 Crores ($11.8 billion) in 2015.
On March 7, 2014 e-retailer Flipkart claimed it has hit $1 billion in sales, a feat it has managed
to achieve before its own target (2015).
Overall e-commerce market is expected to reach Rs 1,07,800 crores (US$ 24 billion) by the year
2015 with both online travel and e-retailing contributing equally. Another big segment in e-
commerce is mobile/DTH recharge with nearly 1 million transactions daily by operator
websites.
5.2 Closures
Though the sector has witnessed tremendous growth and is expected to grow, a lot of e-
commerce ventures have faced tremendous pressure to ensure cash flows. But it has not
worked out for all the e-commerce websites. Many of them like indiaplaza.com, 21diamonds.in,
allshcoolstuff.com amongst others had to close down.
5.3 Infrastructure
There are many hosting companies working in India but most of them are not suitable for
eCommerce hosting purpose, because they are providing much less secure and threat
protected shared hosting. eCommerce demand highly secure, stable and protected hosting.
Trends are changing with some of eCommerce companies starting to offer SaaS for hosting web
stores with minimal onetime costs.
There could be various methods of ecommerce marketing such as blog, forums, search engines
and some online advertising sites like Google adwords and Adroll.

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India got its own version of the so-called Cyber Monday known as Great Online Shopping
Festival in December 2012, when Google India partnered with e-commerce companies
including Flipkart, HomeShop18, Snapdeal, Indiatimes shopping and Makemytrip..
"Cyber Monday" is a term coined in the USA for the Monday coming after Black Friday, which is
the Friday after Thanksgiving Day.
In early June 2013, Amazon.com launched their Amazon India marketplace without any
marketing campaigns.
5.4 Funding
As of 2012, most of the e-commerce companies are yet to start making money. However, due
to their growth prospects, many venture capital firms such as Accel Partners have invested
considerably. In one of the biggest fund raising, Flipkart.com, in August 2012, raised about 822
crores (US$140 million). Entertainment ticketing website BookMyShow.com raised 100 crores
(US$17 million) investment by Accel Partners.
On July 10, 2013, Flipkart announced it had received $200 million from existing investors Tiger
Global, Naspers, Accel Partners, and ICONIQ Capital. New investors making up the additional
$160 million include Dragoneer Investment Group, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management,
Sofina, Vulcan Inc. and more from Tiger Global.
Snapdeal - USD 50 million in April 13.
In Feb 2014, online fashion retailer Myntra.com raised $50 million from a group of investors led
by Premji Invest, the investment company floated by Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro. May
2014 also witnessed an acquisition of Myntra by Flipkart reportedly reportedly for Rs. 2,000
crores.

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5.5 Consumer Behaviour
Consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to
select, secure, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts
that these processes have on the consumer and society.
5.6 Consumer Behaviour over Internet
According to Consumer Behavior Report, “ One in four consumers indicated that they spend more time
online because of the tough economy and 53 percent of consumers said they spend about the same
amount of time online.
The online shopping trend around the world spread very fast. “The Neilson Company conducted a
survey in 2010 and polled over 27,000 internet users in 55 market from Asia Pacific, Europe, Middle
East, North America and South America to look at how consumers shop online” . Globally online
shopping is made on books and cloths as per survey data. Most people are interested to purchase and
bought usually books and cloths. Airline tickets, book hotel reservations are also commonly bought
through internet which indicates the progress and stability of economy.
5.7 Drawbacks
There are billions of people online and each of them is potential online consumer for a company which
providing online services and goods. Now a day, there are rapid and fast developments in information
technologies industry. According to Keynote, “Online retail competition is heating up as consumer’s
behavior savvier on the Web”. Competition increases day by day due to increase attention of consumers
towards online shopping. The best retailer is based on their experiences on web. Online consumers also
increase their expectations and they are set by their experience with online retailers across the Web.
Brown says in his interview, “It is becoming increasingly imperative for retailers to provide a strongly
positive online shopping experience”. It is very important to know that what kind of things and
strategies help to increase sales in this fierce competition in market with high expectation of online
consumers. “Our research shows that the sites that perform best in customer experience have a
significant advantage in driving online sales.”
Online shopping and online consumer behavior depend on these factors such as Website visibility,
online shops credibility, information comparison, payment security, privacy, website interface,
convenient time, education level and experience of network . Culture, social, personal, psychological
behavior also affects the consumer behavior in online shopping. Online shopping is based on individual
to individual perceptions.
Consumer behavior in online shopping and in traditional shopping is very different. Both include social,
cultural, personal and psychology etc. factors but traditional shopping is much more influenced by these
factors as compared to online shopping. The reason is that online consumers are restricting with social
cultural environment and psychological factors.

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Online shopping basically based on individual thinking point of view and his personal perceptions. Online
shopping makes its own character for its development.
The problem is that most of the online sellers don't know about the social and cultural norms about
India and Indian consumer behavior as we have discussed above that consumer behavior is based on
perceptions, its education, language, age, economic factor, income distribution, facility available in
society and other factor as well.
5.8 Limitations
There are number of factors that affect the behavior of online consumers in India’s market. But in this
research, main focus is to study the behavior of the consumers in the process of purchasing from online
stores. There are many theories and models that identify the consumer. This research is limiting itself on
the scenario to identify consumer behavior variables in the buying process of electronic goods in India.
Consumer behavior would be changed according kinds of goods and products. Therefore, different
factors have different importance in the eye of consumer based on quality and kinds of electronic goods.
Therefore, this research limits itself only to consumer behavior in online shopping of electronic goods in
India.
5.9 Online buying behaviour
Online shopping consumer behavior is also called online buying behavior and internet shopping/ buying
behavior. Online shopping behavior has direct relationship with these five elements such as e-stores,
logistics support, product characteristics, websites’ technological characteristics, information
characteristic and home page presentation. According to studies, those people who have wired
lifestyles and who have time constrained, they spend less time to buy things online.
Different authors define consumer behavior characteristics differently. Researches on online consumer
behavior and characteristics have been done by so many market researchers and authors. The research
on online consumer behavior is important because it helps to understand when and how online
consumer prepares themselves for purchasing. Turban has defined a model on consumer behavior
online. In this model, electronic environment consist of three variables such as independent variable
(which is also called personal characteristics and environment characteristics), intervening or
moderating variables ( it is under vendor’s control) and the decision making process (effected by
independent and intervening variables) .

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5.10 Factors Predicting Online Shopping
Researches tell us that online Consumer have ability to bargain and purchasing power to buy goods.
Consumer lifestyle plays a main role in the process of online purchasing on electronics goods. Consumer
lifestyle should have compatibility which have effect with positive attitudes towards technology, have
ability to accept multiple kinds of new technologies, online skills, knowledge and remain online
experience. All these factors have a strong effect on consumer lifestyle. Online purchasing is very
dependent on these factors
5.11 Factors influence online consumer behaviour
There are so many factors involve that have influence on online consumer behavior while he would do
online shopping, in simple word, it is a complex mixtures of so many factors such as social, culture,
education, race, personality, environment and resources availability. It involve many variables some are
controllable and some are uncontrollable such as environment and consumer personality are
uncontrollable variable which always prevail in every online transaction but some are in our span of
control such as medium of exchange, medium of goods information, products or services characteristics,
merchant or inventory characteristics. There are other factors as well like building trust factor,
confidence, appealing website, proper and full information about goods and services by this purchasing
decision would be more encouraged.

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6. Data Analysis on E- commerce Consumers in India
6.1 Age Wise Analysis
Age Distribution Frequency Percentage
20-25 111 46.25
26-30 74 30.83
31-35 35 14.58
36 or More 20 8.33
GRAND TOTAL 240 100.00
46.25
30.83
14.58
8.33
Age Wise Analysis
20-25
26-30
31-35
36 or more

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6.2 How long have been doing online shopping
How long have been doing online shopping Frequency Percentage
Less than year 60 41
1 to 5 years 45 38
More than 5 years 22 21
Grand Total 127 100
41
38
21
Duration wise
Less than year
1 to 5 years
More than 5 years

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6.3 Buy Online Products Segmentation
Product Segmentation Frequency Percentage
Mobile/computer/camera (Electronics Products) 87 69
Clothes 15 12
Music Software 14 11
Books 6 5
Cosmetic and Jewelry 3 2
Others 2 2
Grand Total 127 100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Product Wise
Product Wise

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6.4 Education Analysis
Education Background Frequency Percentage
Matriculation or Below 8 3.33
Intermediate 35 14.58
Bachelors 109 45.42
Masters or Above 88 36.67
Grand Total 240 100.00
3.33
14.58
45.42
36.37
Education Wise Analysis
Matricluation or Above
Intermediate
Bachelors
Masters or Above

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6.5 Frequently Buy Online Analysis
How Frequently do you buy Online ? Frequency Percentage
Frequently or at least one a month 37 15
Once in Six month 35 15
Once a Year 55 23
Never Bought Online 113 47
Grand Total 240 100
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Frequently or at
least one a month
Once in Six month Once a Year Never Bought
Online
Frequency
Frequency

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7. Conclusions
In review this internship has been an excellent and rewarding experience. I have been
able to meet and network with so many people that I am sure will be able to help me with
opportunities in the future.
One main thing that I have learned through this internship is time management skills as
well as self-motivation. When I first started I did not think that I was going to be able to make
myself to go to office and work for 8-9 hours a day, six days a week, spending almost half of the
day in the market. Once I realized what I had to do I organized my day and work so that I was
not overlapping or wasting my hours. I learned that I needed to b organized and have
questions ready for when it was the correct time to get feedback. From this internship and
time management I had to learn how to motivate myself through being in the office for so
many hours. I came up with various proposals and ideas that the company is still looking into
using.
I am still keeping my options open for new opportunities. I enjoy this line of work, but I am not
sure if there is enough room to grow through this company. I will continue to work hard in my
position and hope to continue to learn about the industry and meet new people. This was an
excellent experience and I hope that other interns got as much out of it as I did.
8. Recommendations
To be honest, this internship was really a very useful experience that will help me in acquiring further
career opportunities in the near future. While I was working in the company I found certain mistakes
which I think if corrected then this company will make an enormous increase in the real market soon.
Some points which I would like to include are :
 The employees working there need to be more planned and organized
 There is a shortage of resources when it comes to promotion side
 Lot of investments are needed on Promotional activities
 There should be separate department of people working on their respective skills
 Need to hire more employees for faster working environment.
As a whole, I personally think that if the company starts applying the necessities which the company
needs right now being a start-up then we might see this company among one of the top online
shopping websites in India.