Title: A Study on Consumer's Perception Regarding Online Shopping
Abstract: In today’s ever changing and dynamic business environment, it is essential for all online retailers to understand the online consumer’s purchase behavior and their perception regarding online shopping i.e. causes of buying or not buying products and services offered to them over internet. The primary aim of the paper is to examine selected four factors (Privacy, Security, Time-Saving and Convenience) impact and relationship with consumer’s perception towards online shopping. Consumer’s perception regarding online shopping was identified as dependent variable and privacy, security, time saving and convenience were considered as independent variables. The study findings indicate that all four selected variables have positive impact upon dependent variable with varying degree of contribution and also having significant relationship with dependent variable i.e. consumer’s perception regarding online shopping. Statistical techniques such as mean, standard deviation, correlation and regression analysis are used for the purpose of analyzing data. Introduction Now-a-days, mass population of globe is having internet connections on mobilesanytime, anywhere and consumers especially young generation adopting online websites to order/buy products and services offered by e-retailers. Due to advancement in internet and technology, online shopping is becoming popular. Online shopping is a process whereby consumers directly buy goods or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over internet. An online shop, e-shop, e-store, internet shop, web shop, web store, online store or virtual store restricts customers frombuying products or services at a bricks and mortar retailer/shopping centre. This process is called Business to Consumer (B2C). In simple words, online shopping is an act of purchasing/buying products or services over the internet. When, instead of going to a traditional brick and mortar store, you buy a product or service over the internet, it is called online shopping. Internet has offered many benefits such as abundant information, convenience, time saving, cost benefits, international brands etc. The growth of internet usage has lead to the birth of concept e-commerce/online shopping. Through E-business various kindsof businesses has gained an opportunity to increase their sales and can maintain a direct relationship with their customers without any mediator. The concept of E-business has helped a lot in globalization of businesses throughout the world. Now it becomes easy for all kinds of companies to market their products and services in whole world and also to capture great market for their products. As such, it is important for already existing online businesses or offline businesses interested in venturing into online market, to understand their consumers’ perceptions, both online and offline, and what are the factors responsible to influence their shopping decisions. With better understanding of what factors play an important role in process of consumer decision making in doing transactions online or offline, retailers and businesses can better gear themselves to serving their customers in either of the shopping venues. Literature Review Monsuwe et al (2004) found thatintention to shop online are not only affected by ease of use, usefulness, enjoyment, but also by exogenous factors like consumer traits, situational factors, product characteristics, previous experiences, and trust. Jongeun Kim (2004)examined four consumer groups: nonweb shoppers, web-store visitors with no intention of purchasing, Internet browsers with intention to purchase and Internet buyers, using an empirical model based partially on Fishbein and Ajzen’s “Theory of Reasoned Action” (1975) and Cowles, Kieker, and Little’s “E-tailing Theory” (2002) to examine those individuals that completed Internet purchase and to compare them to those who just shop and brows. ChuleepornChangchit (2006)identified that consumers perceived a higher level of risk and uncertainty with online shopping and prefer shopping at a physical store and suggested that to attract more customers, they must be awaked regarding security techniques implemented on their websites. VaggelisSaprikis et al (2010) divides the respondents into two groups i.e. adopters and non-adopters and provides interesting insights that adopters had higher expectations from online shopping on issues related with privacy policy and risk, whereas, non-adopter’s main reasons for not buying online were mainly security and privacy concerns andneed to physically examine the products. Dan Su &Xu Huang (2011) studied that security and convenience are widely approved by undergraduate consumers, while price is more important for them. Further suggested that internet experience and skills can reduce perceived risks and increase shopping intention and real purchase. SajjadNazir et al (2012)identified that prime hurdle in the way of back-up of online shopping is that people usually get embarrassed when other computer demands complete details about customers i.e. customer gets worried that his
Publication Year: 2015
Publication Date: 2015-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
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