A Study Of B2c Websites And Traditional Store In Bangladesh

Abstract

There are more than half a dozen Business to Consumer (B2C) websites running online business in Bangladesh by selling requested items and providing home service to different locations. But no study has been done to analyze the prices of online products and how they differ from traditional stores. This study examined important features of four B2C websites (online stores), prices of 31 products from five major categories (grocery, fish, meat, vegetables, and cake) and difference of prices of each of these four online stores and the traditional store (super market) in Dhaka city. Moreover prices of 31 items of all the four B2C websites were also compared.

The objectives and the nature of the study lead to utilize descriptive research method that employs qualitative and quantitative techniques. For this study data were collected from four B2C websites, traditional store and customer service of the four websites. The results revealed eleven important features (for example registration, product information, interaction facility etc) of the B2C websites that increased user friendliness of the websites. This qualitative part of the results was verified by a group of students who are familiar with the online stores that increases the reliability of the findings. The findings also show that the prices of all 31 products of online store are higher than the traditional store and this pattern is consistent for all four websites. However substantial difference is found in case of some selected products. There are also differences of prices of all 31 products among the four online stores.

The data received from customer service of the websites suggested the reasons for very high prices of products were the collection charge incurred for each purchase, and maintenance cost of the websites. There was no scope to collect data from the customers of these websites because of the unavailability of their contacts which is a limitation of this study. Further research should address this limitation for better understanding of the B2C websites in Bangladesh.