CONSUMER ACQUAINTANCE AND PERCEPTION ABOUT MOBILE WALLETS IN INDIAN URBAN CONSUMER MARKETS

The Indian consumer markets have observed considerable growth in last two decades. The Information technology revolution has provided opportunities of market expansion to national and international companies in India. The new era is of M-Commerce and mobile applications which have broken all barriers for markets in last two decades. Now point of sales (POS) locations is not important. The consumer can buy anything from anywhere in the world as the multiple online options are available with consumer. In last two decades, rapid urbanization has been observed in India. The purchasing power of urban consumer is also considerably improved in last one decade. There are many companies and financial institutions have realized opportunities in online payment platforms. To make it more convenient to consumers and market, many organizations have ventured into digital wallet business. They have received tremendous response from the urban and rural Indian markets in last four years. There are many reasons behind swift penetration of digital wallet market; one of them is brisk expansion of smartphone market in India with multiple brands from Europe, US and China. This paper mainly focuses on Indian urban markets and tries to understand and measure perception and preferences of consumers of urban India. The findings highlight the issues pertaining to supply chain realignment, on field application problem and financial implications of digital wallet. It also attempts to identify strategies pertaining to supply chain and marketing to make this platform more consumer and market centric.