Enhancing User Experience of E-commerce Platforms—A Case Study of B2C Applications in the Indian Market

Abstract

The Indian e-commerce industry is rapidly growing. One of the major contributing factors toward the success of these companies is the quality of user experience their platforms provide. The study reported in this paper primarily focuses on India’s top B2C organizations and the role of definitive user experience elements in shaping the success of these organizations. A heuristic-based comparative study was conducted among the top e-commerce Web applications in order to identify unique features that contribute to a sumptuous user experience. The analytical study was backed up by user studies that report the expectation of the customers and their frustrations. The collective insights were then correlated to each platform’s market ranking and share with an objective to identify and analyze features, design cues and elements that contribute to their standing in the Indian market. In a nutshell, the qualitative study explores connections between market ranking, usability heuristics, and user study insights in order to prescribe design features, cues, and elements that benchmark the user experience framework for B2C applications in an Indian context. The insights elaborate on the current trends, gaps, and opportunity areas for B2C applications.