LBSIM to host national summit on online marketing, commerce

Marketing experts from across the country will be attending a national summit organised by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management (LBSIM) later this week to discuss the changing landscape of online marketing and commerce and its expected complete transformation.

The event to be held on January 17 at the LBSIM campus in Dwarka is likely to focus on how marketing and shopping in India will happen through smart phones.

India's e-Commerce, according to Gartner, Inc will reach six billion dollars in 2015, marking a 70 percent increase over 2014 revenue of 3.5 billion dollars.

Marketing experts have opined that within two to three years, 90 percent of the shopping will happen through smart phones since these are increasingly becoming commonly used gadgets.

Even today, 70 percent of the purchase orders are placed through cell phones and tablets.

The National Marketing Summit in-charge and Professor of Marketing at LBSIM, Professor S.P. Ketkar said, "The development of new IT and communication technologies in the last two decades have brought about a fundamental change in marketing and shopping behavior among consumers and they are increasingly preferring online window shopping and buying online than visiting markets physically."

"Massive cost reduction due to virtual showcasing, on account of substantial reduction in overhead costs, has enabled sellers to offer unprecedented discounts and standardized prices. Consumer emerges as the gainer and his preference for online shopping is taking quantum jump," he added.

Director of LBSIM, Dr Arya Kumar, said, "The survival of traditional market in the changing scenario is under threat, especially for petty shop keepers and traders.",

He expressed the hope that both industry and government would build up mechanisms to ensure that the eco-system of business in India does not go off-balance.

The summit will have six technical sessions that hopefully will address both sides of the challenge suitably.

N K Goel, President, CMAI Association of India, will be the chief guest.