How do Indians from tier 2, 4 cities compare with tier 1 in online shopping? IIM Ahmedabad survey finds out

Ahmedabad: Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), which is considered one of the world's most prestigious B-schools, has thrown up some interesting findings from tier 1, 2, 4 cities in a report titled ''Digital Retail platforms and consumer emotions: An Indian perspective'.

The survey, which focuses on the emotions of consumers doing online shopping, concluded in its report that individuals from India's tier 2, and 4 cities have spent 77% more money than people residing in tier 1.

Less than Rs 10k spent, more men interested in online shopping

According to the survey, 90 percent of consumers spent less than Rs 10,000 in their last online shopping spree with male consumers spending 36 percent more than their female counterparts. The survey also found that consumers upto age 35 are more fond of the idea of online shopping.

While consumers spend 35 minutes in deciding the products they want to buy during online shopping, 72 percent of the consumers stated that they indulged in the same during the thick of the Covid -19 pandemic when the world was shutdown due to the virus.

Differences in product choices, age

The survey found that while electronic products were extremely popular among men, clothing, fashion products are usually preferred by female shoppers.

The differences in approach to online shopping were also stark as the survey concluded that while people under 35 years of age browsed through two or more than two e-commerce websites in search of products, individuals above 60 were fixated on a single platform.

Individuals behind the survey

The survey was conducted by IIM-A's professor of information systems and strategy, Pankaj Setia, chairperson of the centre for digital transformation (CDT), Swanand Deodhar and CDT research manager Ujjwal Dadhich.