India Inc. versus Rest of the World

The Great Indian Political Tamasha, the general elections are over and as we await the results and the new political equations to take shape, there is a positive vibe created in the business arena. The stock markets are breaking into new highs every single day and the likelihood of a pro-growth and investment financial policy is building the new hope.

The biggest talk is around a change in the FDI policy and we are still in fear about 100% FDI in retail sector. Retail is a primary sector catering to the billion plus Indians directly and while it might be the most attractive area for FDI, India Inc. has fears that it has the potential to destroy the domestic retail segment.

Honestly, I find this as no threat at all and have complete faith in the enterprising attitude of Indians. Retail in India may get organised, supply chain may get streamlined and middle men may find it difficult. But increases in competition from both national and international players is likely to erode the margins and pass on benefits to the consumers. But will it destroy the mom-pop shops or the local baniya- unlike many I don’t think so.

Organised retail in India has been around for close to 15 years and has had little impact on the so called unorganised retailers. Pantaloons and Future group along with Spencer from the south might be credited with the first noticeable impact in modern retail in India, many others soon entered the arena. Today, along with Big Bazaar, More (Aditya Birla Group), Reliance Super Mart, Star Bazaar (Tata), D-Mart are all selling from groceries to clothing under the same roof. Competition is growing with e-retail has now entered every segment (even groceries).

But this has still not eroded the local baniya, vegetable vendor or clothing store. Yes, there is a change in buying behavior from the urban middle class who have changed to modern retail. But there are some factors which are very intrinsically Indian which have kept the local retailers alive. I sight these as a reason for closure of some of the Big Bazaar outlets and change over to KB’s and the end of Subhiksha retail and Truemart (a now defunct retail chain by Piramal).

So what differentiates Indian compared to the rest of the world in terms of buying behavior? Three simple rules: Indian customer appreciates being treated like a king, shown a variety of products with a recommendation from the sales guy and that opportunity to touch and feel product before they buy.

Let me pick a small example of buying a shirt to illustrate. What consideration goes into picking a shirt? Colour, pattern, design, size and pricing- mostly standard. But what about variety? How often do you leave a store in a mall saying I didn’t like anything and how often does it happen in a local store? Spell a desire for X style in Y colour in a Z size and if not available today, a local store will get it organised in a few hours or a day. If there is time- they would even customise.

The difference lies in the attitude. For a store in a mall or a super market; you are just one customer; for a local retailer, the attitude changes to a feeling of being the customer. The difference in salesmanship from someone in a mall to a Sindhi/Punjabi salesman in Gandhi Market is amazing. I challenge anyone to walk into a store in the market and walk out not having bought something they wanted.

Let us talk groceries now. Most of the local groceries in Mumbai are run by the Kutchi or Marwadi communities. Stories about how these people manage their business and finances are legendary. But apart from being a shrewd business oriented (and not stingy as shown in movies) and community driven set, they are also enterprising beyond imagination. Let me just illustrate how well they function by a live example.

Bhandarkar Road in the prime Deccan area in Pune once had an outlet of Spencers, Trumart and an assortment of local kirana stores. The advent of Marwadi run shops slowly entered the area and simply based on their enterprising attitude and range of products eliminated shops run by local Marathi people (Not a difficult task considering they are known for not so great customer outlook and pride for ‘We have no branches’).

The next they took over the organised market; armed with very simple tools- service hours of 6 am to 11pm and free home delivery in two hours- irrespective of order value. Trumart meanwhile lost the plot under management issues and exited the arena, leaving Spencers to wage a lone battle against the local stores. This too did not last long and today has resulted in a scenario where the entire road has nothing but two Marwadi grocery stores catering to them.

Bottom line; Indians engaged in the retail sector are culturally very strong and enterprising to be subdued by any form of retail invasion from rest of the world. If any, it will only inspire the existing organized retailers into improving their standards and offer better quality, pricing and service to the consumers.

The Terabyte Problem

I recently came across an online ad of an online retailer- Forget GB, welcome to TB; objective was very simple: push the sales for the external 1TB hard disk into high gear. Does it work- well if I cite personal examples, they do. I have one for the last 3 months, but to this day I have not stored a single file on it. The main reason is that I have another one of 320GB and even that is not utilized to the full.

I am at a loss to understand how I ended up this way. I upgraded my desktop (I still have one) to 500GB, have a laptop with the same, my father has two laptops with 320GB and 50GB at hand. What is now lacking is content to fill up all this space. My desktop is my active backup for all my media and has a mirror on the external. This also included taking data off DVDs which I burnt when I college.

Even then, at present I am facing a very peculiar problem which I never have faced before- a problem of plenty.

I take pride in the fact that I am amongst the generation which welcomed computers into Indian homes. Honestly, this also gave us a chance to be witness to changing data storage devices. My friend from childhood across the road had a Sinclair machine with a tape drive. We actually had to insert game on magnetic tapes to play. The somewhere in 1994, my brother got home a 5 1/4” floppy from his computer class which was like a prized possession. A year later we had a 286 at home and 3 1/2” floppies made their debut and I can say we lasted on 1.44MB data limitation till 2004. Sure the CDR and CDRW had arrived but USB pen drive was like a paradigm shift in portable data.

While in MBA, the minnows had 128 or 256MB pen drives and at that time, the Data Lord was my roomie with a 500GB HDD in 2006-07. But most of these Data Lords I have seen,  have a disorder of a compulsive type- they cannot survive without downloading; mostly movies. For them, pride runs in the fact that I have an unlimited high speed internet and movies and music spread across 3 to 4 external drives of terabyte capacities. What is a disaster though is most of these guys have no idea of what all they have and where. Worse is they have not even seen half of the stuff they have downloaded (my roomie was an exception here)- a colossal waste in my view of time and space resource.

One thing I have realized is that a lot of data space was lost in duplication of content. With me, the same movies existed in three different folders- Downloads, English and New Movies and as a backup also on some DVD which I had now completely lost track of. The same was also true for music; same songs under genres, artists and parts of folders that were exchanged between friends and family. My mission to clear out duplication resulted in deletion of unwanted archaic data as well as leaving me with load of space.

So bottom line- how much is enough? I really don’t know. But what I am sure of is that there is no use filling up terabyte space with movies, music and other stuff unless you go back to it time and again. Coz honestly most of it is not so rare and so unique that you will not find it again someday. 

Achievers from the bottom of the pyramid

In my blogs, I have often written about Indian retail and home grown brands which have made it big in this space. This time around, I feel I need to talk about brands which may not have a dominant national presence but have actually realigned market spaces in their own small way to challenge multinational and established brands.

If you are in any way connected with marketing, ‘Bottom of the Pyramid’ is not a new phrase you might come across. In fact it is not new to begin with as its first recorded mention was by Roosevelt in 1932 as he unveiled plans for wide scale infrastructure and development projects in the shadow of the depression. The phrase again caught the wind in its sails when C K Pralhad and Stuart Hart proposed the market development strategy for the billions earning below $2 a day and found buyers at times when the urban demand was unable to drive the economy.

What is admirable though is that this concept was implemented in India far before the marketing strategy was proposed and the point where the company which implemented this stands today is a testimony to its success. Way back in 1980’s a then small company from Chennai with a manufacturing unit in Cuddalore run by C K Ranganathan started selling Chic shampoo in a sachet priced at 50p. The FMCG market in India at that point had big wigs like Hindustan Lever, P&G, TOMCO offering shampoo in bottles, while traditional herbs like shikakai and reetha were also prevalent.

Shampoo or a soapy emulsion have always been a part of the Indian personal care arena for two basic reasons: India is a tropical country making sweat and grime an everyday thing- not to forget the fact that use of oil in hair for nutrition is a tradition well entrenched. In both cases, removing the oil from the hair and scalp was a need irrespective of socio-economic class. The availability of shampoo at an affordable price, in traditional fragrances like jasmine and enriched with the goodness of natural extracts all helped it gain market share.

A huge part of the success was also the fact that in this market segment, brand did not matter as much as availability and affordability. So even when the FMCG giants took notice of the success through small packaging for tier 2 brands, Chic managed itself through aggressive promotions. Not just one time sale- it was about repeat purchasing to a level where actions become habits. Exchange 5 empty sachets for one free; this was like a boon for the buyers in respect for their loyalty. Also, since they were predominantly selling to women in southern India, roping in Arvind  Swamy for an ad was like a master stroke.

By 1993, Chic was not just No 1 in Southern India but also ruling the Pan-Indian rural markets. The company underwent changes right from its name; from Chic India Pvt Ltd to Beauty Cosmetics and finally settling in on Cavin  Kare in the late 90s. The company is now based out of Mumbai and has diversified into other personal products like hair oils, hair dyes along with a professional care range of them. But the company has also ventured into other verticals like pickles (Ruchi and Chinni), and most shockingly (for me at least) packaged farsan snacks (Garden) and dairy products (Cavin). I will confess, I have seen Ruchi pickles and Garden snacks in supermarkets but never knew that who owned them- Garden being an acquisition thanks to their established popularity in Mumbai.

Never the less, while I think of Garden snacks I feel the packaged snacks category cannot undermine the contribution of a certain Virani family (not from Saans bhi kabhi bahu thee fame J) which brought a radical change.

Chips and farsan have long existed in every part of India traditionally. The typical source for it was either homemade or bought from a reputed Surti  Farsan mart. There was nothing called branded farsan or chips until some like Simba or Uncle Chips tried some moves. But the landscape transformed around 1991 when PepsiCo (then Leher-Pepsi) got in Cheetos and Lays. But I believe even they realised that it was easy to enter the market with Indian taste rather than impose US palette.

But while farsan, sev-bhujia got picked up, a part neglected was the variety of nuts and pulses that formed a big part of the Indian choice. Rise up time for Balaji Wafers. The roots cannot be further modest as suppliers of namkeens and wafers to Aston Cinema in Rajkot. As demand grew, the family got into their own production. Growing from the city limits to the state, the company has a formidable distribution presence in western India- its boasts of availability at every few 100 meters. I don’t think they are off the reality. While competition is stiff in the chips category; Balaji has been monumental in the packed nuts and pulses coming back in vogue.

Balaji Wafers is an empire standing on quality product at affordable pricing. A  26 gms pack of Lays costs Rs 10, with Balaji, its 45 gms at Rs 10. At its defined price band, Balaji is something that a pan-vendor, cold drink house or even a wine shop is ready to stock. The biggest reason for the openness of this distribution channel is their customers are usually interlinked. A cheap and wholesome pack of farsan or chips goes over a smoke, a soft drink and definitely munches along with some beer.

Advertising- no; availability- yes; affordability- yes.  Lays builds the aspirations, Balaji fulfils it for the masses. Lays rides on the brand and value sales; Balaji fuels its growth on smaller margins but the volumes given by the pyramid bottom.

A small dipstick I did just gave me an insight that people now at times also ask for Balaji out of choice rather than chance. Reason: it is cheaper, tastier and more appealing to the palette than a pack of Lays or Bingo. As for availability in small towns; wafers was a term that got no response- but yes for Lays and was handed over a pack of Balaji. The first thought in my mind, wow- I wonder what the biggies from the Biz-schools are thinking at PepsiCo or ITC. 

The two above cases are just few of many where the rabbit has taken down the lions; but goes miles to say that it is not about the big budgets as much as business acumen that transforms into success.

General Elections- The great Indian Saga

It is deemed to be the largest political exercise on this planet involving close to a billion people. It might also be among the most expensive democratic exercise (cost us Rs 846.67 Crore in 2009) and practically a logistical nightmare. The great political tamasha called General Elections in India.

We live today in an age where communication and technology have transformed the coordination process; but I cannot even image the kind of pains Sukumar Sen, the first person to be the Election Commissioner in India, might have gone through. Holding elections in India in 1951-52 and 1957 might have been the most herculean task. A time when 85% of the 176 Mn age eligible voters were illiterate, a time when accessibility of some areas was almost impossible and designing a code of conduct, ballot papers, boxes and the procedures had no references. The worst of it all- registering 176 Mn voters onto a list.

A fitting tribute to his capabilities- Sen was also the Election Commissioner in Nepal and Sudan. Not to mention, there were a few votes cast with his name written on it by some in 1951- I feel people just felt that if one person can orchestrate a process so daunting; he can run a country as well.

Indian’s have always been starry eyed when it came to people they vote for. From the Thakur of a village to a religious head, a union leader to sportsmen, everyone has come under the democratic process at some point or the other. Film actors have a special mention here, as they have always portrayed larger than life characters. So if an MGR was campaigning, his words became the words of the god he played in his last super hit. This trend will only grow as I see it.

Electoral reforms have been coming in throughout the years beyond with change in the rules for political campaigning, propaganda and use of resources- but the Election Commissioner as a person rarely rose to a recognizable figure until almost 40 years after Sen. T N Seshan will possibly be always remembered as a man most responsible for cleaning up the election process- not to mention; feared by politicians and political parties alike. Seshan along with MS Gill and GVG Krishnamurthy was the trio who in my opinion could have also taken up against the Chicago mobs.

I did read that Gill and GVG were brought in by the government in power then to negate Seshan’s one man army by bringing in parallels- but together (along with all their internal disagreements) made the Election Commission a force to reckon with. Any irregularities in the election procedure, suspected malpractices or violations usually resulted in disqualification of the person or the result. The iron fist method was a remarkable success. Gill went on to succeed Seshan as the big boss and successfully brought in the Electronic Voting Machines- which now limit the possibilities of a booth capture or bogus voting to a fair extent. Not to mention, the counting process is now far more efficient and quicker.

One large and significant change that has come to the fore front of every election campaign has been spending of large sums of money on media campaigning. Penetration of radio and televisions across the country was very low till the 80's and the state run network only accessible to the ruling party. The traditional means of mass campaigning remained dominant with the megaphones on jeeps and last minute campaigning with car drop services for voters.

But advent of private television networks post 1991 firstly provided options to a wider array of options to the people. Add to it the rise of music videos and private albums- all contributed to use of new media in elections. It brought with it national debates on channels, opinion polls along with expert opinion panels.

By the time the 1996 elections came around, private media was well entrenched in India and I was also enriched with some understanding of the political parties and their policies. If media had anything to play, I got to see some of the political campaigning of the Rao government trying to push forth their development agenda and liberalization via a songs. What was funny in that song though, was seeing how the destitute couple was uplifted to their smiling glory by a government led by a leader whose frowns became a cartoonist delight.

The by-elections in 1999 were amazing for one reason- every political party had entire Video CD with songs in their praise and criticize the other. I still can’t get over “dauda dauda bhaaga bhaaga sa… Deve Gowda bhaaga bhaaga sa”, and attracting Bollywood singers and directors as the talent. Advertising agencies were running the political campaigns and public relation agencies wrote speeches, designed press releases and managing the public image of leaders to a level where even the dress they wore for a public appearance was orchestrated. Today I can listen to Modi adding in verses to Sukhvinder Singh's 'Saugandh mujhe iss mitti ki' almost 3 times an hour on radio and the 'Shiv Senaaaa' tune playing across Mumbai.  

Mobile phones as a medium of political campaigning came in dominance in 2004 with BJP having a pre-recorded message of Atal Behari Vajpayee playing out to every voter on a reliance network. In 2009, the UPA bought the rights for “Jai ho” and the NDA fought back in mocking them with “Bhay ho”… the latter failed miserably though.

Internet and social media has taken political campaigning to a whole new level. BJP and AAP are amongst the most prolific users of this media with dedicated teams working overnight. Youtube videos are helping voters excited. Websites are updated on daily basis and even a “Mann se hai Mulayam…” can become the talk of the town in minutes. Anything said in any form cannot miss the public eye and the person involved cannot get away saying he was misquoted.

Well, so the stage has been set for the next big saga to unfold… all that remains is how all the media and popularity transforms the political landscape of this country. 

Roti, Kapda aur Mobile

If I wanted to sum up the changing fabric of India over the last 20-25 years, this is what I would say.  While roti and kapda have been popular political slogans right from the 60’s as basic and essential needs for a population, mobiles have become a key requirement for people. And why not; calling rates in India are cheaper than in comparison to any place in the world, handsets and even smartphones are available within budget and tower penetration has been improving. One big reason for this is the advantage of a large population base; the numbers compensate for operating revenues.

Mobile phones have changed the way India has functioned over the last 20 years of its existence in India. It started off as a luxury which only the super-rich could afford. No ordinary Indian could afford a handset resembling a brick costing above Rs 5000 and paying Rs 16 the moment they said hello. But this was an era when number of networks were few and competition had not set in yet. Orange

The first winds of change came in from Reliance which came in with its captive low cost handsets and lowest calling rates for the day. They targeted corporates and roped in the biggest names with their massive employee strengths to come through with corporate offers that gave them scale as well as steady clientele.

The next boom came around early 2000s when Airtel was launched and came in with a sweeping offer of free SMS every month. This was revolutionary in terms that mobile phones unlike fixed lines were no longer for voice alone and SMS was the choice of communication which was most analogous to an internet messenger. And as always, even at times when a call would cost Rs 1, an SMS was free.

This coinciding with cheaper handsets entering the market which set the trend for mobile phone rising higher in the must have list. Finally, when TRAI scrapped the free SMS schemes and limited discounting, some felt was there scope to innovate beyond calls and SMS at 50p. Enter Tata Docomo and its game changer per second billing. In reality, this is not discounting at all… in fact this is expensive that what other players offered; but the perception of value won the game.

Running parallel to this was the handset market with Indian market flooded with low cost options through joint ventures with East Asian companies. Between 2008 and 2010; there were a total of 26 handset companies which entered India. Everyone had a phone; the maid, the watchman. The neighbourhood vegetable vendor now took orders on the mobile phone and delivered on the door step. You could now call a taxi cab as the driver had a phone. STD calls were now dropping as migrants could call their relatives in rural India at places where power and water may be a problem, but telephone networks were always present.

During this time, I used to avidly follow the blog of an ex-Nokia guy; Tomi Ahonen. In my view, he was among the first guys who had predicted how the mobile phone screen would be the next big thing. At first, the idea seemed a distant dream considering India was still in the WAP days with abysmal subscriptions. But how right he was. In the next few years, the personal space of the telephone screen was doubling faster than the traditional computers and with the advent of smart phones is almost looking to replace takeover the market completely. Mobile based internet access has been increasing ever since. Today there is more revenue being generated through mobile based internet services as compared SMS. Just a few numbers- 185Mn mobile internet users in India alone. It kind of justifies the reason why an internet platform like facebook has bought a small mobile social App like Whatsapp. 

Blackberry was considered a serious business phone until BBM became a college hangout. It was now a scenario where a business person carried a top of the line Blackberry and a collegian had a low end model with almost every functionality as the top end. Dedicated widgets for applications were a rage when launched. But all this was just a phase as we see it today.

The rules of the game have changed and the biggest game changer has been Android. The open software platform and Apps for android rendered Symbian as an ancient relic and Android, Windows and iOS became the mobile softwares by choice. Today, it is not surprising for me to find people from modest backgrounds flaunt a high end phone as a combined effort of low tariffs, cheaper handsets and a host of free Apps to cater to everyone. It is astonishing to find that globally, 24% of all internet access is through Android (phones and tablets), 18% is iOS (all devices including PC) and Windows is only 9% (all devices including PC).

Where will we go next is anyone’s guess. But one thing is for sure, what is the ordered of the day, will be a page in history soon. What Motorola and Nokia were once; Samsung and iPhone are today. Mobile technology is changing so rapidly that the jump from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5 has been about 6 months. Mobile phones are now a need and it won’t be long when nomophobia (phobia of having no mobile connectivity) will be as prevalent as common cold.

India- The State of Ignorance and its Youth

I was not born the time India became a sovereign nation. Nor did I witness the China war, the East Pakistan conflict or the Emergency. I was a toddler when insurgencies brew in Punjab and not even in my teens when Babri Masjid was knocked down. I will agree that it has been my self- driven need to know about my socio-political surroundings and an insatiable thirst for history as a subject. But what is disturbing is that how many people of my age chose to update themselves with India post 1947.

One of the arguments made by Ramchandra Guha in his scholarly book- India after Gandhi, is why the history textbooks of India stops abruptly after 15^th August 1947 with only small references made to the Goa liberation. I second this sentiment. The constitution, local self government and the legislature are a small part of a small annexure called the Civics text book; treated so insignificant that it was reserved for last day look before exams (or so it was in my times). The transition from the Nehruvian economy to the post ‘91 liberalization came in an even smaller textbook of Economics. Sadly this book also failed to capture the License Raj era; so one day in the 50’s we were a socialist economy building the dams and steel plants (the temples of modern India), next in ’77 we threw out Coca-Cola and IBM and the day after that in the 90’s we got in Coca-Cola and IBM to make us the 2^nd fastest growing economy in the world.

While these thoughts resonate my mind in a lot of ways- what got me to write them down was a recent interaction and some research I did to verify why this was happening.    

It has been just over a week after the Rahul Gandhi and Arnab Goswami saga unfolded on TV and the reactions on how and what was said and what should have been said are still high. Amidst the discussions on at work, I stumbled upon a line asking what should Rahul Gandhi apologise for; there have been so many riots in India. What was so special about 84 riots?

Though it was not my argument; I simply could not refrain myself from the discussion even as I could sense there was a bagful of ignorance to plough through. My question was pretty simple- no doubt any of you were even born when the riots happened, but what as per you all were they all about? The answers I got were both hilarious on one part and raising a concern as well. Indira Gandhi made derogatory remarks against a Sikh religious leader... some sardar ending in‘walla’- Indira Gandhi had called some Sikh saint a terrorist and the Sikhs retaliated by killing her- Indira Gandhi sent some police into Golden temple to catch terrorists and so there was rioting, Operation Blue Star- AC ka ad hai kya???

As much as I was taken aback, I could not help clarify that it was a chain of events leading to the assassination followed by riots which involved some Congress leaders in the fore guiding mobs. Okay, but why should Rahul apologise? He said na that I was not even born then. Needless to say that a man of 40 was most definitely born then; but what was ignored here was that it was moral responsibility for party actions was being demanded much on lines that Modi is being asked for in the 2002 case. Finishing touch came in a statement- I’m not into politics so I don’t know much.

This incident involved people who are 20 something and voters in this land of the largest democracy. The Congress campaign is stating that 50% of the country is under 30. If this is the awareness about our own country and its state- what are the young turks planning to vote on?

I am not sure who should be blamed or is there anything to blame at all? This part of our country’s history is not written in text books, politics is a dirty and dynasty driven business, TV has Sitcoms and social media always has dancing kitten videos to entertain GenY. Until someone wants to take it seriously by interest- there is no reason or mens to know it.

But I don’t know, somehow we know more about United States than India. Though when I probed these set of people (until I got ‘kya subah subah bore kar rahe ho...) I got some winners as well- the tallest waterfall was Niagara, Kempe Gowda Airport was my mythical creation and Chhattisgarh (like Raigad, Rajgad) is a fort.   

Bottom line, I know it is much cool to know all about the latest gadgets, hottest house DJ and even every word of what Pitbull yaps in his song and say India is in its state due to corrupt Politicians; somehow it is our own ignorance and neglect that we have such people deciding our fate. 

Click- Shopping ka naya formula

Diwali- one of the biggest festivals in India was underway last week and possibly serves as the time when massive spending on shopping takes place. Amidst talks of a weak economy, slow down in terms of manufacturing and spends likely to go down, I saw a report on the fact that this festive Indian were high on shopping for high end consumer durable and smart phones and that most of this was  through online purchases. Online shopping was up by 30% this year for Diwali against last year while foot falls at malls were up by 10%.  

While I was writing about the slow death most malls in and around Mumbai were seeing, I had mentioned that the next big threat to malls was going to be a completely different form of shopping with the ‘Click to cart’ replacing the ‘Pick to cart’. While I was reading today that traditional retailers of electronic goods have filed in a petition to counter the online attack claiming online retailers selling at a loss, retail chains with spaces in malls definitely seem to be bearing the brunt of the internet savvy crowd moving away from the showroom outlets.

I have been a slow mover to the online shopping spree. My first online purchase might have been back in 2004 from bazee.com (now ebay India) where I got a 256MB Sony pen drive for about 900 bucks. At that point, I had no idea of online retail and was actually wondering how the ‘Buy Now’ option worked on a site which was known for bidding. I did not even have a credit card then and the transaction was done for me by a colleague.

 As a contrast, I picked two pen drives of 4GB and 8GB with a combined cost of 600 bucks.  I reserved online book purchases only for exclusive titles which I could not get pirated on the street or ones which I did not find in Crossword. I was astonished when a recent purchase of two books online was at 50% of the bookstore cost. I have now started exploring other avenues as well. Though my experience of a pair of dark glasses or an mp3 player some years back was not too encouraging, the same with shoes and earphones has been good so far.

So will I try foods or clothing next? Traditionally, these areas have been my choice for pick off the shelf as quality for things I eat or wear is of utmost importance to me. I have still not too much faith in the online system for performance oriented items which cost more than a thousand or things where touch, feel, demonstration and replacement still matter. But I don’t see that trend to last too long by the way things are going.  

As for as I am concerned, paying for shipping is not a huge cost for items where reaching out, parking my vehicle and time spent in the activity are monetized. For all low value items; Click- is my shopping ka naya formula.