Identification of benefits, challenges, and pathways in E-commerce industries: An integrated two-phase decision-making model

The e-commerce industry has seen significant growth over the past decade as it focuses on convenience and accessibility, leading to a surge in online shopping with more and more consumers opting for it. At the same time, the e-commerce industry faces various challenges. In order to fully harness the potential of this industry, it is important to identify its benefits and challenges and focus on pathways to mitigate the challenges and harness its growth. This study utilizes the Delphi approach and involves experts from the e-commerce domain to get their opinions to identify the top ten benefits, challenges, and pathways for the e-commerce industry. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation (CRITIC) methods are subsequently, employed to prioritize the identified factors. Results of the study revealed that factors such as affordable advertising availability and product variety; and Global reachability are the most important benefits, while technological upgradation; returns or refunds; and counterfeit products posed the greatest challenges for the industry. Government compliance check; better relationship with delivery partners; and strong data privacy and online security policies emerged as the best pathways. This study also provides valuable insights to businesses, policymakers, and researchers in the e-commerce industry on how to navigate the benefits, challenges, and pathways of this rapidly growing sector.