Janet Nelson, a designer who specialises in wedding gowns in New York, keeps a busy schedule. Shopping for her means visiting a nearby shopping centre to get essentials for the house. For the rest-clothes, electronics, furniture, etc- she prefers going on line to browse through what is available and then order. It saves her time and energy and occasionally she gets a good bargain.

"Returns happen because something doesn't fit, " she points out. "The credit is given quickly and some vendors also e-mail you to let you know when they receive a return. The only drawback is that you have to pay for the shipping,"she says, adding,"Catalouge shopping by mail has been pretty mainstream for a while here in the US. Internet shopping is just another variation. But people still do not trust it entirely.

Even Dubai has a catalogue and online shopping culture. "But almost everybody I know shops on US based sites or European ones because the local sites are not interesting enough or do not have good merchandise," says Sudhir Satyanarayan who works with a leading garments firm in Dubai.

The Indian experience hasn't always been so smooth. Some years ago, Ria, a journalist, fell in love with an exquisite pearl necklace in a mail order catalogue. She promptly placed the order through mail and necklace arrived. But she was taken aback with what she got. The necklace was huge and the pearls chunky.

"I couldn't possibly have worn such a hideous piece so I decided to return it within stipulated period," she says. As per the instructions she called the dealer and informed them about the return and then waited…… endlessly. Till she called back again a few days later to be told that it would be good if she could personally go to return the piece. By this time Ria wanted to get rid of it so she went. And finally after some verbal exchanges managed to get a refund on the piece.

It started 12 years ago

What is convenience abroad is considered an inconvenience in India. Burlingtons brought catalogue shopping to India about 12 years ago. Their colourful catalogues attracted attention and there were a lot of takers. But then they disappeared.

"It would be wrong to say that the catalogue-buying culture never picked up in India. When Burlingtons launched their catalogue in 1990 we sold 50,000 copies in the first season, 75,000 in the second and 150,000 copies in the third season. The growth was remarkable, the trends positive and our customer database excellent. It was because of this growth and the enormous potential that we entered into a joint venture with Otto in Germany, the world's largest mail-order with annual sales of DM 26 billion," says Andre Kapur, Managing partner, Otto-Burlingtons. But then what went wrong ?

"Burlingtons were doing fine when they were independently running the catalogue. Joining up with Otto in a joint-venture with aggressive European marketing techniques resulted in an escalation of sales but an unsupportable cost. The result was huge losses and Otto decided to exit from the joint-venture in mail-order," explained Kapur. In fact,"Burlingtons is considering its options to restart the catalogue," he added.

Online more popular

"Catalogue shopping was big business initially but with the coming of online and TV shopping its popularity slithered,"explains Rajan Chhibba, managing director, KSA Technopak. In any case, catalogue shopping is a high investment game and the comapanies have to strive to make the catalogues better than the store to lure people into buying."

As per a survey conducted by KSA Technopak, non-store formats did better in small towns with cosmopolitan populations like Dehradun, etc. But catalogue suffered on distribution and later, catalogue buying jumped straight to the Net.

In western countries, there has been an explosion in e-commerce. "The big surprise, however, is that this shift is happening now, rather than some time in the future, as most industry observers have thought.

A newly released shopping study finds that 39 per cent of those with access to the Internet say they go to the store or mall less often now that they can easily shop for and buy a wide variety of products online," says B.S. Narula, managing director, Ebony Retail Holdings Ltd. Ebony, having recognised the growing market for online shopping sites. Narula feels there has been a definite growth in the earlier non-existent market in India.

He also feels online shopping is more convenient and inexpensive as it"overcomes the limitations of paper catalogues without incurring extra distribution costs (don't have to print it and mail it out every six Months!). Also, the Net makes it simpler to update rates and new products quickly," says Narula. He is hopeful that there will definitely be a growth in terms of online shopping in the recent future as the lifestyle trends are changing in India. "Yet there are still some products, which require the touch and feel for Indians like clothes where the percentage of sales would be lesser," says Narula.

Many loopholes

Today with the Internet, online shopping is probably what is in. But even here the figures are not too heartening. Not more than two percent of the five million Internet users in the country shop online. And even this two per cent is not comfortable shopping online. There is a small matter of trust. After all, they would be supplying their credit card numbers online.

Elaborates consumers rights columnist, Pushpa Girimaji, "The few factors responsible for this kind of shopping taking off is: one, the number of people with Internet facilities is very small; two, people are wary of using their credit cards online; and three, there are no guidelines for consumer protection. The European Union has definite guidelines for the same - seven days cooling off period, right to return during that time- but here we don't have any such policy. Therefore people are still not sure about shopping through catalogues or even online. It is very important on the part of the retailer to assure consumers of security, privacy and delivery time."

Touch and feel factor

Also, most shoppers like to 'touch and feel'. Especially in India. ("The touch and feel factor is not only in India, it is worldwide,"corrects Kapur) But in India women enjoy shopping more than men and if there is time then they would rather go to the shop and buy whatever they want. But definitely those items that do not require 'touch and feel' sell through catalogues or the Net. At the end of the day it all boils down to much time one has. If one can do away with visiting a store, searching for the product and then buying it, then it is good enough reason for online shopping. Add to these some heavy discounts and they are sure to be a hit.

Yet the lack of confidence in the retailer puts off. Especially about refund if the product is not what they wanted or the fact that the products mentioned in the catalogue are available in the store. "The key mistakes in the catalogue shopping not doing well in India were:one, assuming a high repeat buying rate; two, understanding the cost of customer acquisition; three, low reliability of delivery; four, slow new product introduction policy; and five, no systems to sell slow moving products into other channels. Also, most ventures were financially undercapitalised,"explains Chhibba.

Kapur is quick to jump on the defensive: "Our catalogues offered a full money-back guarantee. In the normal course of events our returns were only seven per cent, far less than the European average of 17 per cent. After-sales service for electronics and other products was locally offered by the brands to the customer." He adds, "When any product is returned, whether in mail-order or regular retailing, the process is tedious and annoying. At least with our catalogue we offered a full money-back guarantee that we honoured; most shops print "Goods once sold cannot be exchanged or refunded" on their cash-memos."

Whatever the reasoning may be the fact remains that most catalogues cater to bargain hunters with special discount pages and mailers. And if, as Girimaji rightly points out, the crisis of confidence between the consumer and the retailer continues, the stalemate will continue.