Integration of offline apparel traders with e-commerce mode of business: An empirical study of Assam

The fast and advance growth of Information and Communication Technology has a greater impact on the way of conducting business. Though Electronic commerce can be considered as a very familiar retail channel in different developed countries but it is still considered as an innovative technique in the developing countries of the world. As the different Electronic commerce websites have taken the market into a new form of digital business, the offline stores are under pressure and hereby engaged in finding new techniques to survive in the cut throat competition. This transformation has led the offline stores to integrate with the Electronic commerce in order to have sustenance in the market. This paper focused on the apparel traders of Guwahati city of Assam, India, in the context of E-commerce integration with special approach to study the certain synergy opportunities and the modified marketing mix due to the new concept of integration. For the purpose of the study 50 apparel offline retailers has been studied by way of providing a well structured questionnaire and the responses has been recorded by using Likert scale. The results of the study hereby indicates that certain opportunities like Global Accessibility, Flexibility and convenience has arise due to the synergy and also the concept of marketing mix regarding product, price, place and promotion is being digitalized due to the integration.