ABSTRACT

While the world reeled from the shock result of the US Presidential Elections, on November 9th, 2016, a nation of a billion of people faced an even bigger surprise. The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, dropped a bombshell, declaring that all existing currency notes of 500 and 1000 rupees would be demonetised, with immediate effect. PM Modi pointed out that the objectives behind such a drastic measure were to combat corruption, to curb terror financing and discourage tax evasion on undeclared income, which is also known as “black money”. Since November 8, every Indian is in the dilemma of choosing a secure and convenient cashless payment option. The cashless payment options that are currently available include credit/debit cards, e-wallets such as Paytm, Mobikwik, SBIe-wallet, etc., RTGS, NEFTetc. This unpredictable action taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only impacted e-commerce but at the same time has an impact on the consumers and their shopping behaviour through online shopping. Thus it becomes necessary to study the impact of demonetization on e- commerce industry and the purchasing habits of the people. The main focus of the study is to understand and analyze the effect of demonetization on consumer’s frequency of buying product and consumer’s mode of payment for online shopping post demonetization.

Keywords: Demonetisation, Digitisation, E-Payment, UPI, E-Wallet