Vol. 12, Special Issue 9 (2023)

Author(s):
Omkar Biswal and Dr. Mehul G Thakkar

Abstract:
Globalization and blooming IT industry with internet as core, has increased the market reach for customers as well as organizations. At this point, e-commerce in various sectors is growing at an unprecedented rate. Multitude of benefits from having an ecommerce website such as access to wider market, increased efficiency in sales and distribution, direct interaction with customers, improved market transparency, cost effective marketing and advertising, data driven decision making, enhancing competitiveness, etc. are luring different private and government organizations to have one for themselves. However, due to complicated management of the cooperatives, it is less popular among them. With the passage of time, all the competitors are getting ahead of the cooperatives due to quick adoption of advanced technology. Considering all these concerns, even the cooperatives need to show progressive outlook and develop an e-commerce website. In this regard, the present Empirical Research Paper, utilizing the published theoretical literature and Communication Approach of the Descriptive Cross-sectional research design, assesses the prospects of e-commerce website for an established cooperative located in the coastal region of South Gujarat in the vibrant Gujarat State, that is, the Amidhara Cooperative. Based on a survey of 100 respondents – customers, retailers and store staff, this study found that the distance of the store from their place, store schedule, lack of discount schemes and unavailability of items are the top most problems of the customers. The major problems of the store staff are lack of credit facility, discount options, different payment options, customer grievance system and no facility for recording data of loyal customers. These problems can be resolved by incorporating an ecommerce website otherwise if attended to it separately it will require a lot of money, manpower and time. The findings of this hitherto study clearly highlight how an e-commerce web portal will be beneficial to all the stakeholders of a cooperative store.