Online Sales Promotions of Grocery and Other FMCG Products in Chennai Entity

: Along with the explosion of Internet user, Internet has been considered as the new channel for companies implementing their sales promotion activities. Online Sales promotions are generally looked at as tools that undermine the brand; yet a tool that is necessarily meant to speed up sales by attractive promos. Consumer online sales promotion in Chennai entity takes up a large share of the total marketing expenditure despite which it remains an area that still attracts attention as an essential component of the promotion mix meant to increase short term sales. It is therefore not surprising that most of the Chennai marketers resort to sales promotions to attract the competitor's market share. Consequently, this paper seeks to offer insight into how popular Chennai online promotions (price-discount, coupon and free shipping) influence consumer's quality perception and purchase intentions. Moreover, brand awareness was expected to moderate the relationship between promotion and consumer responses. Findings from this study will be able to provide useful knowledge for online sellers to choose appropriate sales promotion tools to successfully induce consumer's purchase intentions.


INTRODUCTION
More than 60 percent of the consumers in FMCG are Buying electronics goods including camera, coming online. laptops, computer peripherals, apparels, flowers and gifts Today's generation prefers to shop online rather are quite a common phenomenon for net savvy than drive to physical store and most of the FMCG consumers. However, now get ready to receive the products are being purchased by age group of 18 to groceries like vegetables, food items and other FMCG 35. products like shampoo, soap clothing and accessories at Discount offer will certainly drive customers to your doorstep. After touching apparels and personnel shop online. We have witnessed the success of items now Chennai retailers are gearing up to facilitate apparel, electronics, computer peripherals and group grocery and other FMCG products through power of buying through discounts. online. As of now there are very few retailers providing Online availability of grocery and FMCG product grocery including other FMCG products, however the would help consumers to save time and avoid rush trend would be catching up as grocery and other and hassle of processes like billing. FMCG products are big opportunity for retailers.
Investment of retailers in offline medium is high, According to the data available the food and grocery however in online medium they do not have to go for segment constitutes about 50 per cent of the total 10 huge investment. lakes Chennai retail market [1]. Here are the reasons why grocery and FMCG market will thrive by coming FMCG companies and Chennai retailers have started online: using the online medium not only for brand promotion Increasing PC and Internet Penetration break into in terms of online sales, but many retailers are Retailers are looking for newer verticals and grocery making best efforts to do so. Chennai Marketing and sales and FMCG have huge market and potential.
Companies, like: multinational. So, they will not have any hesitation in but also for sales [2]. However, it is a difficult category to Chennai hyper market Maligakadai Chennai Saravana stores Medplus pharmacy and beauty Chennai Online grocery Landmark Chennai.
Are targeting Internet savvy consumers to expand their reach through the internet.
online grocery is growing in urban population are aware

A Literature Survey on Online Sales Promotions:
Sales Promotion Here is an example how grocery and FMCG products become saleable after a boom in telecom sector we have seen consumers make order on phone to local retailers (SEAKR, Chennai) and retailers deliver the order to the customer. In the same fashion online process will also work [3]. Speaking about online grocery and FMCG product Dinesh, MD, Pachha.in said "Online grocery and FMCG products have challenges and opportunities too. On one side it is difficult to meet supply chain requirement, tough operation and short delivery commitment and thrive on thin margins. The demand of about convenience they get. This is good time for entrepreneurs to foray in to by considering FDI norm get relaxed in times to come". Apart from all advantages of online availability of grocery and FMCG products there are some challenges. Here we have outlined the challenges: Pointing out the potential of grocery and FMCG products on online platform, Bala Subramanian, BDM, Chennai online grocery shop also outlined the real challenge of running an online grocery store is fulfilling customer's need and wish. "We regularly do market survey in order to know consumer's expectation and based on those surveys we discover in which particular product consumers are interested [4]. Consequently, we alter our product line based on our surveys". One of the interesting trends Subramanian has informed that sometimes he gets order from abroad to deliver the grocery for their respective family in Chennai. However, he reiterated about the fact that online grocery and FMCG products have great potential but it will take some time to flourish [5].

Online Sales Promotions:
Online Sales Promotion is one of the important elements of marketing mix. There are so many elements of online promotion such as …

Advertising Direct Marketing Public Relations
Online sales Promotions have been used by marketer to increase sales in the short term. Sales have grown in both importance and frequency over the past few decades. Although an accurate estimate for total online sales promotions expenditures does not exist, we can be sure that the trend is up.

Online Sales Promotion Serves Three Essential Roles:
It informs, persuades and reminds prospective customers about a company and its products. Even the most useful product or brand will be a failure if no one knows that it is Tools of Consumer Oriented Online Sales Promotion: available. As we know, channels of distribution take more There are so many tools or technique available to the time in creating awareness because a product has to marketers for achieving objective of sales promotion. pass through many hands between a producer and These tools should be used considering all other factors consumers. Therefore, a producer has to inform portal affecting such as cost, time, competitors, availability of members as well as ultimate consumers about the goods etc. These tools are as under… attributes and availability of his products. The second purpose of online promotion is persuasion. The cut Coupons throat competition among different products puts Price-Off tremendous pressure on their manufacturers and they Freebies are compelled to undertake sales promotion activities.
cratch Cards The third purpose of online promotion is reminding ucky Draws consumers about products availability and its potential to undling Offer satisfy their needs. From these elements Online Sales Extra Quantity Promotion is the element which is in the focus of this study [6].
A coupon leads to price reductions so as to

Types of Online Sales Promotions:
There are two types product which may leads to regular sales [8]. A reduction of Online Sales promotions.
in price always increases sales but the use of this number one or two.
Nature of the Product: There are various product Perceived Quality: Majority of respondents had a attributes which influence sales promotional strategy.
perception that the quality of the promoted brands When the unit price is low the manufacturer as well as the remained the same during promotion, while some of customer has low risk but he can get the benefit of mass them felt that it was inferior to before. It can be inferred marketing. Therefore, mass marketing requires mass sales that promotions were not leading to negative brand promotion schemes. Sales promotion scheme differ for quality perceptions. It is found that some customer products like its durability, perishable goods etc.
strongly preferred to buy their regular brand and said that Stage of product Life Cycle: Online Sales promotion the brand. strategies are influenced by the life cycle of a product. When a new product introduced, prospective buyers Trade Oriented Online Sales Promotion: Trade must be informed about its existence and its benefits Oriented Online Sales Promotion aimed to motivate and middlemen must be convinced to stock it. Later, if a channel member of the company and to encourage them product becomes successful, competition intensifies and to push company's product. Trade Oriented Online Sales more emphasis is placed on sales promotion to increase Promotion includes dealer contest and incentives, trade its sales [12].
allowances. Point-of-purchase displays, sales training Budget Available for Promotion: The funds available for other programs designed to motivate distributors and promotion are the ultimate determinant of the promotional retailers to carry a product and make an extra effort to programme. A business with ample funds can make more push it to their customers effective use of online sales promotion programme than a firm with limited financial resources.

Online Sales Promotion from the Consumers Point of View Willingness to Buy on Sales Promotion Offer:
Sixty per cent of the sample did not show willingness to buy a brand due to promotion while 30% showed willingness and 10% were not sure. This indicates that when 30% showed willingness and 10% consumers who were not sure, these groups might be lured through innovative and lucrative sales promotion offer.

Ability to Induce Trial: Forty per cent of the respondents had said that sales promotion had the ability to induce
Online Sales Promotion from the Retailer's Point of trial which reinforces the above inference. View: Long-Term Impact: In order to understand ability of the retailer perceived price offs as a better form of sales promotions to increase long-term sales, respondents were promotion activity. Price offs in their opinion had asked about continuity of purchase of a brand after the relatively a greater impact compared to any other form of withdrawal of promotion. Eighty per cent of the sales promotion activity like Bonus packs, Premium, respondents indicated that they would not continue.
Contests etc. Retailers preferred price offs the most, then But 20% said they would. Thus, it could be inferred that bonus pack, premium, contests, in order of importance.
sales promotion would not weaken their loyalty towards programs, trade shows, cooperative advertising and

Perceptions on Scheme Preference: It was found that
Perceptions about Buying Roles: Retailers viewed that Gifts for Retailer Motivation: Companies at times were the person who do online shopping, was the decider of a toilet soap brand and not the Income provider (e.g. head of the family). It could be inferred that visibility of information about the sales promotion activity at the point of purchase could result into the purchase of a promoted brand.

Perceptions about Response to Online Sales Promotion
Offers: They believed that younger age-groups were more experimental in nature, amenable to trying new brands and sought/looked at the time of purchase.

Perceptions about Communications of Online Sales
Promotion Schemes: Retailers perceived that role of word of mouth and communication advertising played an important part in providing information inputs to consumers regarding online sales promotion activities.
Dealer-retailer Dynamics: At the time of online sales promotion activities, dealers had tendency to push unwanted stocks onto the smaller retailers. In fact these retailers preferred to stock variety of brands and wanted payment for shelf and window display to increase traffic into their store. However, supermarkets and big retailers were pampered and given special services and given better margins and better allowances [14].
Margins: It was found that in online sales promotion schemes margins varied from 6 to15% depending of the size of the retail outlet, quantity ordered by him etc. Mostly margins were linked to size of the volumes that were ordered.

Perceptions about Terms and Conditions:
Retailers were not found to be happy with online sales promotion schemes where their margins were cut on the pretext of just fast movement of inventory of the brand being promoted. Also if additional incentive was offered it was subject to minimum performance requirement.

Problem of Left-over:
A leftover stock at the end of any scheme was required to be sold by the retailers before they ordered fresh stocks. In case of bonus packs scheme, leftover stock was often dismantled (cut open buy one get one free) and sold them individually as a regular soap. This approach of the company leads to misappropriation which in turn could result in adverse brand image. rewarding retailers by giving free gifts like thermos flasks or clocks on purchase of above 1000/-or 5000/-, if they sold more than certain quantity in a given period. Companies were making a half-hearted effort to motivate retailers.
Handling Problems: Many a time's retailers had to handle various online sales promotion offers simultaneously in a category and also across categories and there was no formal communication planning either from the dealer or the company. Remembering each offer and handling was a problem especially for a small retailer which was often an as one-man show.

Methodology and Data Analysis on Online Sales Promotions of Grocery and Other Fmcg Products in
Chennai Entity: Consequently, this dissertation seeks to offer insight into how popular online promotions (price-discount, coupon and free shipping) influence consumer's quality perception and purchase intentions. Moreover, brand awareness was expected to moderate the relationship between promotion and consumer responses. To achieve this objective, a 3 (promotion: price-discount / coupon / free shipping) x 5 (brand: well-known / fictitious online retailers in Chennai) between-subjects factorial design experiment was conducted. The participants were 100 college students. The results revealed significant main effects for promotion and brand awareness on consumers' perceived quality. Specifically, in contrast with coupon promotion, price-discount revealed greater impact on consumer's perceived quality. In addition, well-known brand has successfully played a moderating role in the relationship between promotions and consumer responses. The data finding suggested that promotional strategies used by well-known brand/online retailers are more possible to result in more favorable responses [15].
Do you consider online promotional schemes while purchasing a particular brand of Grocery/any FMCG products? Findings of the Data Report: Online Sales Promotion, a short-term inducement, offered to a consumer or trade has gained momentum as a promotional tool world over. It represents nearly three fourth of the marketing budget at most consumer product companies. Online sales promotions can enhance consumers' self-perception of being "smart" or a "good" shopper FMCG are such a market where the level of loyalty remains low and this is because of many reasons. Quality as the most influencing factors in the purchase decision while price is also an important for purchase decision. Schemes always attract more and more consumers towards particular brand. Simultaneously it gives idea about the factors which consumers look most in the product before they make final decision. Price off and extra quantity is the two main offers/schemes which consumers have came across at the time of purchase. People are not much aware of the schemes which continue in the market it may be because of the present stock of the product at their place.
People are ready to switch over to another brand if they find better online promotional schemes which suits their budget means more good brand + less cost + quality. Extra quantity with less or same price, more satisfaction, quality and other factors influence consumers to switch over to other brands.
People are more quality and price oriented.
the company name and also from the past performance of that company. Retailers are not suggesting purchasing particular brand because of personal relation or those customers are brand loyal. Margin and of better relations with consumers and too provide quality product to consumers they suggest consumers too bye particular brand. Customers are looking for any type of the promotions on the product before them going to purchase. Price off, product bundling and extra quantity are more demanded by the consumers over others schemes.

Disadvantages of Online Promotions:
Supply chain could be a great problem as for online operation it should be very imperative to have smooth network of supply chain [16].
In FMCG products and grocery retailers get very thin margin, consequently it would be tough for retailers to provide discount and offer on these products. Customer satisfaction is a big challenge. Gaining and retaining customer's faith is tough to maintain as there is no face to face interaction with consumers.

CONCLUSION
From the article it was found that the retailer would be a rich source of information about the consumer and the likely response to online sales promotion activities. Developing a system to tap such responses from time to time both at retailer and consumer level would be helpful for planning future sales promotion activities. In order to build trust and commitment online sales should tap preferences, perceptions of retailers as well as consumers. Thus, it is an easy process where we can view and get our favourite Grocery and other FMCG products like shampoo, soaps, snacks, cosmetics and even medicines near our door step within time is a boon for us.