Submitted To: Prof.

Annaji Sharma
Submitted By: Ankita Agarwal
Mink Monga
Shradda Lama
MFM Semester 2
(2015-2017)

Index
Contents
Index...................................................................................................................... 1
Executive Summary............................................................................................... 2
Chapter 1: Introduction.......................................................................................... 3
Chapter 2: Objective and Methodology...............................................................14
Objectives......................................................................................................... 14
Methodology..................................................................................................... 14
Scope................................................................................................................ 15
Limitations........................................................................................................ 15
Chapter 3: Literature Review............................................................................... 17
Chapter 4: Primary Data Analysis........................................................................22
Chapter 5: Key Findings and Suggestions............................................................29
Key Findings...................................................................................................... 29
Suggestions...................................................................................................... 30
Chapter 6: Conclusion.......................................................................................... 31
Bibliography......................................................................................................... 32
Annexures............................................................................................................ 34

Executive Summary
The title of the project is Attitude of Consumers towards Cool Brands in India. This
research primarily focuses on youth-oriented ventures like Chumbak.com, Happily
Unmarried.com, and Stalkbuylove.com etc. i.e. those companies that associated themselves
with the young generation of India and have successfully made a mark on them. The
customers view these brands as cool and trendy brands. The main objective of this
research understand how the customer view these brands. The other objectives include
understanding the working of the online business operations. To understand the way they
position themselves and cater to the needs of the target customers. To analyze the USPs of
various successful ventures and try to devise a unique competitive strategy. The primary data
for this research was collected from the target customers (in this case the youth targeting
college-goers and freshers in corporate offices) across various regions in India. The research
design was exploratory research to analyze the acceptability of these so-called cool brands
in India. The techniques that were used for data collection were One-to-One Interviews,
individual responses for the questionnaire and telephonic interviews. The key findings for
this project includes: The customers satisfaction with the online retailer is the primary source
of their repeat purchase intention. The satisfaction is completely dependent on the following
factors: Relationship Cultivation, Personalization, Ease of communication, Privacy and
Security in terms of payment and information. These sites are majorly visited for its Apparel
especially Koovs, Chumbak and Bewakoof.com. These brands are accepted positively by the
customers. They are willing to try new products from these brands. From the primary
research, we can establish that the main reason to buy from these brands in for gifting
purposes. It is suggested that these brands create a brand that has the ability to touch a
persons heart is reflection of true knowledge about the needs and youth drivers. The 5 key
attributes of the successful brands: Coolness, Realness, Uniqueness, Self-Identification with
the brand and Happiness. It is important that the brands identify their USP (Unique Selling
Point), and then promote themselves through that. It is important to personalize the shopping
experience for the customers.

Chapter 1: Introduction
The title of the project is Attitude of Consumers towards Cool Brands in India. This
research primarily focuses on youth-oriented ventures like Chumbak.com, Happily
Unmarried.com, and Stalkbuylove.com etc. i.e. those companies that associated themselves
with the young generation of India and have successfully made a mark on them. The
customers view these brands as cool and trendy brands.
Traditional mass marketing using television commercials, trade allowances, discounts,
coupons, and sweepstakes is no longer successful in the Internet market, even in consumerpackaged-goods segments, where rival products now differ very little, since consumers can
easily acquire information on the price and characteristics of products. To manage e-brands
effectively and efficiently, companies have to employ promotional strategies different from
those used by traditional marketing. But since, many companies are aiming for the same,
developing a successful strategy becomes difficult. The biggest question is how companies
decide to position themselves as, in the minds of their target customers. And how do they
achieve their respective goals.
Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumers (1) beliefs about, (2) feelings about, (3)
and behavioral intentions toward some object--within the context of marketing, usually a
brand or retail store. These components are viewed together since they are highly
interdependent and together represent forces that influence how the consumer will react to the
object.

Beliefs. The first component is beliefs. A consumer may hold both positive beliefs toward an
object (e.g., coffee tastes good) as well as negative beliefs (e.g., coffee is easily spilled and
stains papers). In addition, some beliefs may be neutral (coffee is black), and some may be
differ in valance depending on the person or the situation (e.g., coffee is hot and stimulates-good on a cold morning, but not good on a hot summer evening when one wants to sleep).
Note also that the beliefs that consumers hold need not be accurate (e.g., that pork contains
little fat), and some beliefs may, upon closer examination, be contradictory (e.g., that a
historical figure was a good person but also owned slaves).
Affect. Consumers also hold certain feelings toward brands or other objects. Sometimes
these feelings are based on the beliefs (e.g., a person feels nauseated when thinking about a
hamburger because of the tremendous amount of fat it contains), but there may also be
feelings which are relatively independent of beliefs.

For example, an extreme

environmentalist may believe that cutting down trees is morally wrong, but may have positive
affect toward Christmas trees because he or she unconsciously associates these trees with the
experience that he or she had at Christmas as a child.

Behavioral Intention. The behavioral intention is what the consumer plans to do with
respect to the object (e.g., buy or not buy the brand). As with affect, this is sometimes a
logical consequence of beliefs (or affect), but may sometimes reflect other circumstances-e.g., although a consumer does not really like a restaurant, he or she will go there because it is
a hangout for his or her friends.
Attitude-Behavior Consistency. Consumers often do not behave consistently with their
attitudes for several reasons:
Ability. He or she may be unable to do so. Although junior high school student likes pick-up
trucks and would like to buy one, she may lack a drivers license.
Competing demands for resources. Although the above student would like to buy a pickup
truck on her sixteenth birthday, she would rather have a computer, and has money for only
one of the two.
Social influence. A student thinks that smoking is really cool, but since his friends think its
disgusting, he does not smoke.
Measurement problems. Measuring attitudes is difficult. In many situations, consumers do
not consciously set out to enumerate how positively or negatively they feel about mopeds,
and when a market researcher asks them about their beliefs about mopeds, how important
these beliefs are, and their evaluation of the performance of mopeds with respect to these
beliefs, consumers often do not give very reliable answers. Thus, the consumers may act
consistently with their true attitudes, which were never uncovered because an erroneous
measurement was made.

Attitude Change Strategies. Changing attitudes is generally very difficult, particularly when
consumers suspect that the marketer has a self-serving agenda in bringing about this change
(e.g., to get the consumer to buy more or to switch brands).
Changing affect. One approach is to try to change affect, which may or may not involve
getting consumers to change their beliefs. One strategy uses the approach of classical
conditioning try to pair the product with a liked stimulus. For example, we pair a car
with a beautiful woman. Alternatively, we can try to get people to like the advertisement and
hope that this liking will spill over into the purchase of a product. For example, the
Pillsbury Doughboy does not really emphasize the conveyance of much information to the
consumer; instead, it attempts to create a warm, fuzzy image. Although Energizer Bunny ads
try to get people to believe that their batteries last longer, the main emphasis is on the likeable
bunny. Finally, products which are better known, through the mere exposure effect, tend to
be better liked--that is, the more a product is advertised and seen in stores, the more it will
generally be liked, even if consumers to do not develop any specific beliefs about the product.
Changing behavior. People like to believe that their behavior is rational; thus, once they use
our products, chances are that they will continue unless someone is able to get them to
switch. One way to get people to switch to our brand is to use temporary price discounts and
coupons; however, when consumers buy a product on deal, they may justify the purchase
based on that deal (i.e., the low price) and may then switch to other brands on deal later. A
better way to get people to switch to our brand is to at least temporarily obtain better shelf
space so that the product is more convenient. Consumers are less likely to use this
availability as a rationale for their purchase and may continue to buy the product even when
the product is less conveniently located. (Notice, by the way, that this represents a case of
shaping).

Changing beliefs. Although attempting to change beliefs is the obvious way to attempt
attitude change, particularly when consumers hold unfavorable or inaccurate ones, this is
often difficult to achieve because consumers tend to resist. Several approaches to belief
change exist:
Change currently held beliefs. It is generally very difficult to attempt to change beliefs that
people hold, particularly those that are strongly held,even if they are inaccurate. For
example, the petroleum industry advertised for a long time that its profits were lower than
were commonly believed, and provided extensive factual evidence in its advertising to
support this reality. Consumers were suspicious and rejected this information, however.
Change the importance of beliefs. Although the sugar manufacturers would undoubtedly like
to decrease the importance of healthy teeth, it is usually not feasible to make beliefs less
important--consumers are likely to reason, why, then, would you bother bringing them up in
the first place? However, it may be possible to strengthen beliefs that favor us--e.g., a
vitamin supplement manufacturer may advertise that it is extremely important for women to
replace iron lost through menstruation. Most consumers already agree with this, but the
belief can be made stronger.
Add beliefs. Consumers are less likely to resist the addition of beliefs so long as they do not
conflict with existing beliefs. Thus, the beef industry has added beliefs that beef (1) is
convenient and (2) can be used to make a number of creative dishes. Vitamin manufacturers
attempt to add the belief that stress causes vitamin depletion, which sounds quite plausible to
most people.

Change ideal. It usually difficult, and very risky, to attempt to change ideals, and only few
firms succeed. For example, Hard Candy may have attempted to change the ideal away from
traditional beauty toward more unique self expression.
One-sided vs. two-sided appeals. Attitude research has shown that consumers often tend to
react more favorably to advertisements which either (1) admit something negative about the
sponsoring brand (e.g., the Volvo is a clumsy car, but very safe) or (2) admits something
positive about a competing brand (e.g., a competing supermarket has slightly lower prices,
but offers less service and selection). Two-sided appeals must, contain overriding arguments
why the sponsoring brand is ultimately superior--that is, in the above examples, the but part
must be emphasized.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Celebrity Endorsements. The ELM
suggests that consumers will scrutinize claims more in important situations than in
unimportant ones. For example, we found that in the study of people trying to get ahead of
others in a line to use photo copiers, the compliance rate was about fifty percent when people
just asked to get ahead. However, when the justification ... because I have to make copies
was added, compliance increased to 80%. Since the reason offered really did not add
substantive information, we conclude that it was not extensively analyzed--in the jargon of
the theory, elaboration was low.

The ELM suggests that for unimportant products, elaboration will be low, and thus Bill
Cosby is able to endorse Coke and Jell-O without having any special credentials to do so.
However, for products which are either expensive or important for some other reason (e.g., a
pain reliever given to a child that could be harmed by using dangerous substances),
elaboration is likely to be more extensive, and the endorser is expected to be congruent, or
compatible, with the product. For example, a basket ball player is likely to be effective in
endorsing athletic shoes, but not in endorsing automobiles. On the other hand, a nationally
syndicated auto columnist would be successful in endorsing cars, but not athletic shoes. All
of them, however, could endorse fast food restaurants effectively.
Appeal Approaches. Several approaches to appeal may be used. The use of affect to
induce empathy with advertising characters may increase attraction to a product, but may
backfire if consumers believe that peoples feelings are being exploited. Fear appeals appear
to work only if (1) an optimal level of fear is evoked--not so much that people tune it out, but
enough to scare people into action and (2) a way to avoid the feared stimulus is explicitly
indicated--e.g., gingivitis and tooth loss can be avoided by using this mouth
wash. Humor appears to be effective in gaining attention, but does not appear to increase
persuasion in practice. In addition, a more favorable attitude toward the advertisement may

10

be created by humorous advertising, which may in turn

result in increased

sales. Comparative advertising, which is illegal in many countries, often increases sales for
the sponsoring brand, but may backfire in certain cultures.

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About Some Cool Brands

About Chumbak

Chumbak was founded in 2010 as an idea for creating a range of fun souvenirs for India and
Indians. It was a simple thought. Lets give the world something cool to take back from their
travels to India. They also loved design and that was always above everything. Period.
Though little did they know what was to follow. What started with souvenirs stocked in multi
brand outlets soon transformed itself into a business spanning stores across the country in
both the large format, full experience stores and pop up stores across popular malls and high
streets.
About Koovs.com

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The aim is, over the next five years, to help build Koovs.com into Indias one-stop digital
fashion

website.

They intend achieve that with the following five elements:

Build their own label and establish its fashion credibility.

Bring strong international brands to the new Indian consumer.
Extend Koovs.coms fashion credentials by bringing both established and new

designers to the consumer in India through exclusive design collaborations.

Develop delivery and price promises for the consumer that are reliable, affordable and

price-worthy.
Use technology to power the consumers fashion needs.

Description of the business

The Koovs Group (comprising Koovs plc and its 57.5% subsidiary, Koovs Marketing
Consulting Private Ltd), operates a wholesale business supplying branded fashion products
for sale exclusively on the Koovs.com website in India. By providing a range of products
from credible international brands and designing exclusive fashion-forward products under
the Koovs label, the Group intends to support the Koovs.com website in building the leading
fashion website in India and thereby develop the Groups revenues. The Koovs.com website
is operated by a third party under licence from the Koovs Group.

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About Bewakoof.com

Bewakoof is a cool casual-wear brand. The customers are the focus and they believe in
connecting with them to the fullest. They mirror the fondness of todays youth and intend to
sell a unique product line which conforms to latest trend standards at unbeatable
prices. Bewakoof has taken the revolutionary approach to create products in house and sell
directly to customers. Its a no-middleman, no-rentals, no-markups business model, which is
centered around selling straight to customers online. Inspired by design and driven by
creativity, the passionate team strives to offer a wide range of up-to-the-minute styles that is
quality guaranteed. Available in vibrant colors, clean neutrals and prints & patterns, our
fashion line defines the free spirit of the NexGen.

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Chapter 2: Objective and Methodology

Objectives

To understand the customers take on these brands and the way they view them.
To understand the way they position themselves and cater to the needs of the target

customers.
To understand the meaning people attach with Cool brands and the attitude towards

them
To analyze the USPs of various successful ventures and may be try to devise a unique
competitive strategy.

Methodology

For this, a primary research was conducted. The primary data for this research was
collected from the target customers (in this case the youth targeting college-goers and

freshers in corporate offices) across various regions in India.

The research design is exploratory research to analyze the acceptability of these socalled cool brands in India. The techniques that were used for data collection were
One-to-One Interviews, individual responses for the questionnaire and telephonic

interviews.
The questionnaire was created and sent through Google Forms and the response was
recorded therein. The medium used for sending the forms was: Whatsapp, Email,

Facebook and Handouts.

Apart from this, the answers were also recorded by telephonic Interviews and One-toOne interviews wherever possible. The questionnaire that will be used will focus on

studying the behavioral patterns to gain insights on the topic.

The questions were straight forward having an MCQ approach. A sample of 100
people was taken. They were chosen on a convenience basis having a pre-requisite
that they should be aware of these ecommerce websites and must have used them at
some point.

15

The sampling method was non-probability method, under which we focused on

convenience sampling.
In addition to primary data, to address the other objectives, secondary data was also
collected extensively through various other surveys, articles and journals present
online and in the resource center. To develop parameters on which the leading
companies can be compared, a thorough review of the literature was required.

Scope

The scope of this research revolves around the changing consumer behaviour towards

the new upcoming ventures in the market.

This research will help any entrepreneur who wants to enter this market.
The research will primarily focus on youth-oriented ventures like Chumbak.com,
Happily Unmarried.com, and Stalkbuylove.com etc. i.e. those companies that
associated themselves with the young generation of India and have successfully made

a mark on them.
The major companies in this area were studied thoroughly to devise the competitive
advantage.

Limitations
The sample taken for the study is not up to the mark to make a concrete analysis of
the situation.
If the sample size would have been more, we can get results with more confidence
analysis.
Consumer perceptions keep on changing according to the time, hence such surveys
need to be conducted periodically.
Due to constraints of time, all the objectives of the research might not be considered
in the literature.

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Chapter 3: Literature Review

To start, we needed to understand how the term Cool was interpreted and what it meant in
the industry. Sara, in her article, Social Marketing and the meaning of Cool, defines cool as
the term that best describes elusive, exclusive quality that tends to make the behaviours of the
objects hip, happening and desirable to the masses. The characteristics used to describe cool
are as follows: stylish, innovative, original, authentic, desirable and unique. In both the
definitions of Cool, the terms, unique and desirable are common. The best way for social
marketers to use cool is not to try too hard to be what they cannot be. Social marketers can
distinguish themselves from traditional health education patronage not by trying to get down
with the kids but by offering eye-catching yet thoughtful alternatives to (damaging)
behaviours. (Bird, 2008)
Subir has compiled his research on E-branding in his book, Contemporary Research in Ebranding published in 2009. In chapter 7 of his book, he talks about the brand positioning.
The way the brand positions itself in the minds of the customer is how the brand will sell
itself. Brand strategy is termed to be the winning difference that sets it apart from the other
brands. Thus, it is important that the brands identify their USP (Unique Selling Point), and
then promote themselves through that. In another chapter, he unveils that the brands that
have focused on branding based on the product quality have got most brand loyal customers.
It is important to personalize the shopping experience for the customers. The brand must take
care to have the customer care policies so that they can connect better with the brand. But, in
the end he says that it is important to take risks in the branding game and not stick with the
regular branding strategies. (Bandyopadhyay, 2009)
Bergh in his book, How Cool Brand Stays Hot, argues that it takes a great deal of effort to
remain cool and to stay hot for the target consumer group. The age group that the cool
17

brands try to target is the most market-savvy of all the age groups. So, the marketing efforts
need to be in the right direction. Creating a brand that has the ability to touch a persons heart
is reflection of true knowledge about the needs and youth drivers. The book gives 5 key
attributes of the successful brands: Coolness, Realness, Uniqueness, Self-Identification with
the brand and Happiness. These are acronymed as CRUSH. The book says that if the brands
performance is in regard with these 5 characteristics, the brand will enjoy uplift in terms of
satisfaction and purchase preference. (Bergh, 2011)
To understand the competitive advantage of the websites, one of the main components that I
considered is how the consumers are influenced by the websites of the various brands. Not
much literature was available on this topic, but what I found has some interesting insights.
In his paper, The effects of e-commerce websites colours upon consumers trust, Jean Eric,
says that the color of the website has an important role to play in gaining the customers trust.
He says that the color of the website has a direct connect with the sensory system i.e. brain of
the customers and thus, it can alter their emotional, psychological and behavioural responses.
(Eric, 2009)
According to a research conducted in Berlin, it is suggested that virtual embedding, i.e.,
adding social cues to a website, helps to gain the consumers trust. This strategy aims at
adding the names and pictures of customer service agents and introducing chat options with
the representatives to give a personal touch to the website. The photograph of the
representative creates social presence and brings the customer closer to the familiar situation
of a face-to-face sales conversation. Thus, it creates an entry point for the consumer to the
anonymous company and facilitates the establishment of customer trust. (Steinbrck, 2010)

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Another study conducted in South Africa in 2014 by Mercy Mpinganjira examined 201
online customers to understand their repeat purchase intentions from any online retailer.
The research shows that customers satisfaction with the online retailer is the primary
source of their repeat purchase intention. The satisfaction was found to be completely
dependent on the following factors:

Relationship Cultivation
Personalization
Ease of communication
Privacy
Security in terms of payment and information

The study suggests inclusion of all these factors while opening and expanding your
online retail business. (Mpinganjira,2014)

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There is one study examines whether superior online buying experience offers pure Internet
firms a long-run competitive advantage. This indicates that, on average, investments in
improving online buying experience represent a viable long-term competitive advantage. In
particular, the evidence suggests that two of the hypothesized dimensions of buying
experience, namely, customer confidence in the Web business and relationship services,
appear to provide a competitive edge for Internet firms. Regarding two other dimensions,
Web site usability and product selection, the evidence is consistent with the competition
imitating away the potential contribution from such attributes, that is, these strategies do not
provide a long-run competitive edge. Additional analyses indicate that the magnitude of the
documented positive association decreases with the extent of competition in a firms product
market. (Kotha, 2004)
Vivek Prabhakar, the founder of Chumbak, while giving lessons to budding entrepreneurs,
mentioned that the first lesson is to get your hands dirty. That meant that they should be
willing to struggle enough and should know that the initial years will be the hardest. His
second lesson was that Focus passion is better than just passion along with the third lesson
that said a good team is needed for the successful operation of the firm. Chumbak grew from
a souvenir shop to a successful online brand in todays date.
Rajat tuli and Rahul Anand, alumni of MICA, decided to splash every grey and dull area with
jollity,humour, wit and colour. We started or as we say at Happily Unmarried, we were antiestablished in 2003, with an aim to provide everything to the youth, from accommodation to
furniture. And we wanted the whole business to be fun. However,the only thing that actually
took off was the products, says Tuli. Drawing an account of the olden days Rajat said, For a
long time there were just Rahul and I. We wanted to create desi merchandise but most people
we spoke too were not too encouraging. A lot of designers felt that we would run out of ideas,
there is no market blah blah. Since there were no reference points or examples we could
20

show it was difficult explaining people what exactly did we want to do. Even to us clarity
emerged as we spoke to more people. We made a lot of mistakes. Everything was a struggle,
what complicated matters more was the fact that we had no capital. In 2003 there were no
malls and certainly no social media. So, the only thing you could fall back on was, word of
mouth. Mukul Goyal was one of the first designers who bought into the idea of Happily
Unmarried, and we did our initial range with him. We would make stuff and then go to offices
where our friends worked to sell them. The response was good from day one but the lack of
money and infrastructure, and not having enough places to sell was a big issues. (Buy
funny & unique gifts, 2016)
Fashion focused e-commerce startups continue to grab the attention of global investors.
Delhi-based digital fast fashion private label StalkBuyLove has raised an undisclosed amount
of funding from a consortium of investors, including Mato Peric, former CEO, Rocket
Internet and nine others. The company will use the funds to accelerate the growth and drive
profitability. With an average discount rate of only five per cent, the platform claims to
follow a different strategy than any other e-commerce company in India. It focuses on its
customers needs and believes in the combination of art, craft, and science for the growth of
the platform. The platform also claims its annual gross merchandise to be around USD 3.5
million.
Inspired by the proximity sourcing approach that Inditex (Zara) innovated, the platform
combines strong fashion competence with proprietary, custom-made technologies for its
unique sourcing and production strategy, which allows the company to own its entire value
chain. (Stalkbuylove, 2016)

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22

Chapter 4: Primary Data Analysis

103 responses could be collected in a span of 15 days through physical distribution of
questionnaires and online distribution through emails, Facebook and Whatsapp. Following is
an analysis of the summary of the responses question-wise.
Q1. What is your gender?

This question aims to find which gender are more enthusiastic towards these brands.
Although the percentage of males and females who responded to the questionnaire are almost
equal. But, we can see that the percentage of males (51.5 %) is slightly higher than the female
respondents (48.5 %)
Q2. What is your age?

This question aims to find out the range of age in which the majority of respondents lie. The
questionnaires were majorly distributed to the people lying in the age of 21-30 as the
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questionnaire targets the youth-oriented ventures. Thus, 88 % of respondents lie in the age
group of 21-30. 7.8 % of respondents lie in the age group of 15-20.
Q3. What brands come into your mind when you think about cool brands?

In this question, the respondents could choose more than one option. Koovs is one brand
with which majority of respondents perceive as a cool brand. Next brand associated with this
term is Chumbak as 39.8% respondents selected it. In the Other option, the brands that
were listed are: Tommy Hilfiger, Burberry, W, CK, LV, Abercrombie & Fitch, Puma,
Fastrack, Van Huesen, Nike and Razer. We can see that apart from the listed brands, 42% of
the respondents refer to the uplisted brands as cool brands. This means that the meaning of
the term cool is subjective and a clear cut definition is not available.
Q4. Have you visited any of its sites?

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The aim of this question was to know that how many people have seen or browsed the sites of
these brands. 85.4 % of respondents replied in Yes. That means, even if they dont consider
it to be a cool brand, they have witnessed the products of these brands.
Q5. If yes, did you like the stuff?

86.5 % of those respondents who said Yes, to the previous question, liked what they saw on
the sites of these brands. The aim was to know if these brands are accepted positively by the
people. The answer is a clear Yes.
Q6. If yes, then which category of products specifically? (For example, Apparel, Collectibles,
Tech Accessories etc)
To this, 70% of the people who said Yes for the previous question replied with Apparel. 20
% of them replied with Accessories, 5 % with Tech Accessories and the rest with options
like Collectibles, Footwear, Home Dcor, Mugs etc. So, we can see that what people are
looking for on these sites are trendy apparel. These sites are majorly visited for its Apparel
especially Koovs, Chumbak and Bewakoof.com

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Q7. Is there something in your cart?

Sometimes, while shopping, people add the products they like to their wishlist or their cart.
The aim was to find out if the respondents had something specific in their carts which was
asked in the next question. Around 80% of respondents to this question had some products
from the sites in their carts.
Q8. If yes, then Which product(s)?

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As one can observe, most of these products are Apparel and Tech Accessories.
Q9. Do you buy from these brands?

The aim was to find out how many of the respondents actually buy from these brands, 73 %
of the respondents buy from these sites.
Q10. How often do you shop from these brands?

35 % responded with once a year, whereas 31% responded with once a month and 26 %
responded with more than once a year.

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Q11. Why do you buy from these brands?

To understand the motive for buying from these brands, this question was asked. 43.7 %
responded with gifting as the main aim to buy from thee brands. 39% bought from these
brands for its uniqueness. 37 % answers were for cool collectibles and for their vibrant
colours and designs.

Q12. What do you prefer to buy from these brands?

69 respondents answered Trendy Apparel to this question followed by Tech Accessories and
Accessories.

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Q13. Are you willing to buy any new products they offer?

52% replied Maybe and 37% responded with a Yes.

Q14. Can I have your email Id?
This question was asked to have some point of contact with the respondents. In case, any
future clarification or conversation must be required in this area, they can be contacted
through the same.

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Chapter 5: Key Findings and Suggestions

Key Findings

The characteristics used to describe cool are as follows: stylish, innovative, original,
authentic, desirable and unique. In both the definitions of Cool, the terms, unique

and desirable are common.

The way the brand positions itself in the minds of the customer is how the brand will
sell itself. Brand strategy is termed to be the winning difference that sets it apart

from the other brands.

The brands that have focused on branding based on the product quality have got most

brand loyal customers.

The customers satisfaction with the online retailer is the primary source of their
repeat purchase intention. The satisfaction is completely dependent on the following
factors: Relationship Cultivation, Personalization, Ease of communication, Privacy

and Security in terms of payment and information

These sites are majorly visited for its Apparel especially Koovs, Chumbak and

Bewakoof.com
These brands are accepted positively by the customers. They are willing to try new

products from these brands.

From the primary research, we can establish that the main reason to buy from these
brands in for gifting purposes.

30

Suggestions

Create a brand that has the ability to touch a persons heart is reflection of true
knowledge about the needs and youth drivers. The 5 key attributes of the successful
brands: Coolness, Realness, Uniqueness, Self-Identification with the brand and

Happiness.
It is important that the brands identify their USP (Unique Selling Point), and then

promote themselves through that.

It is important to personalize the shopping experience for the customers.
The photograph of the representative creates social presence and brings the customer
closer to the familiar situation of a face-to-face sales conversation. Thus, it creates an
entry point for the consumer to the anonymous company and facilitates the

establishment of customer trust.

The uplisted factors for repeat customers in the key findings need to be included while

opening and expanding your online retail business.

Since, gifting is the main reason why customers visit their sites, they need to make
sure that they offer good discounts and carry on good promotions while festival

seasons and on particular occasions like Valentines day, Mothers Day etc.
These brands need to focus on their Apparel section since that is the most sought after
followed by Tech accessories. They need to bring in variation in the products they
offer in these categories.

31

Chapter 6: Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that building a competitive advantage in e-commerce requires
understanding the overall working of the e-portals. The customers trust depends on various
factors including: Relationship Cultivation, Personalization, Ease of communication, Privacy
and Security in terms of payment and information. Having a good product in hand is not
enough. The customer should be able to cultivate a positive relationship with the vendor
through the website. In these cool brands, the customers look for trendy apparel and technical
accessories like mobile covers and earphones. Every website should understand their Unique
Selling Point and market their products accordingly. A strong customer care approach is
important to build satisfactory relationships with the customers. Any brand can keep an edge
over its competitors only if it keeps its current customers happy and provides distinguished
services to its new customers to attract repeat purchases.

32

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Annexures

35