In India, women form 48 % of the total fisher folk population and about 82 % of those engaged in marketing. In spite of such abundant participation, a noteworthy difference prevails between the work-load, financial gain and participation in higher fish value chain. On the other hand, marketing of food products including fish is witnessing a paradigm shift with the advent of modern retail formats and e-commerce/online retail. So there comes a need for inclusion of women fishers e-retail. Therefore the present study was conducted to assess women fishers' willingness and expectations towards online mobile app for seafood sale.
A total of 105 women fish retailers from four fishing villages of Versova, Khardanda (Mumbai suburban), Mahim and Cuffrade (Mumbai) formed a sample and were personally interviewed using a structured and pre-tested interview schedule. Majority (74%) of sampled women were fish retailers and only 31% were house wives. Willingness to sell fish online Index (WTSO) of the respondents was found out in order to see overall status of willingness of the women fishers to sell online. About 58% women were aware about ecommerce and 55% were smart phone users. As high as 79% were willing to participate in training programme on ecommerce while almost same percent (72%) were willing to come onboard to sell fish online. Futhure a mobile app prototype were developed and tested with 15 fisher women for two week in the Mumbai western suburbs.
Correlation between willingness of women fishers to sell online (WTSO) and selected socio-economic variables showed that education, expenses on fish purchase, use of phone and awareness about online sale were found to be significantly and positively related with WTSO. The Binary logistic regression to understand factors influencing WTSO revealed that age had a negative association with willingness, while expenses on fish purchase (sale value) and awareness about online sale was associated with an increase in willingness of women. The study concludes that 86% of the women felt that the mobile app could help in increasing their sales and thus their net income, 71% felt it's a very convenient way to sell fish but less than half of them (42.9%) believed that it can provide an alternative or additional opportunity to sell fishes. All the women fishers wanted full-fledged and functional App in immediate future and stated that use of mobile app for fish retailing has increased their overall confidence such an application become available.