There is different information available for the topic “Online Consumer Purchasing Behaviors”. Growth in the E-commerce is result of growth in penetration of computers and internet technology at various parts of the world. Internet as a platform offers various opportunities to its users. A user can use internet to search for new products and services, compare the prices and features at the same time. It saves money; energy, time and resources. On the other hand, it also has various limitations for instance unfamiliarity with the transaction processes, security and privacy.
Consumers may have security concerns related to confidentiality of information like personal information, social security number, banking or credit card details and other relevant information. In such scenario, researcher can ask questions covering following aspects of online shopping: • General buying behavior o Have you ever purchased online? o How often do you buy or order something online? o Do you feeling shopping online is convenient process? • Product and services: o Category ? What kind of products and services you like to buy online?
Which product or service you feel is easiest to buy online? ? Which product or service you do not prefer to buy online? o Quality ? Are you satisfied with the quality of service received purchasing online? • Issues related to Convenience and comfort o Do you agree with the statement “Purchasing online is convenient process? ” Why or why not? • Security and confidentiality of data Respondents: Students and new age consumers are more comfortable with internet and related technologies. They use internet for various purposes like education, entertainment, shopping and others.
In such case the ideal group for respondents can be people of age group of 15 to 35 years. This includes students, employees and housewives. Instrument of Research: Questionnaire consisting of open-ended and closed ended questions can be used as the instrument to collect primary data. Data Collection process: Data can be collected through personal interactions and e-mail questionnaires. Researcher can contact the target respondents and request them to fill the questionnaire personally. Researcher can send e-mails to the employees or people whom he can not contact personally.
2- Article Summary As mentioned in the article by Ahuja et al, estimated online shopping in the year 2001 (December) was $5. 7 billion. The online retail and household shopping is increasing. In the other example quoted by Ahuja was study conducted by Nie and Erbring which suggested that 52% of the consumers use internet for collecting product information, 42% for travel information and 24% for buying. In such case, internet becomes an important platform for business houses to get attention of consumers to create interest about their products, services or offers.
The study reveals that convenience and customer services are strong motivators for consumers whereas security and privacy are biggest barriers of the online shopping. The reasons for which people buy online are convenience, saving time, getting better deals or prices, availability of products and services, consumer services and others. The reason why people do not but are privacy an security concerns for most of non students and students followed by customer services, lack of interactions, high prices, lack of time and inability to feel the product.
The consumer group using internets for online shopping or pre-shopping research are computer savvy group. Convenience of anytime and anywhere relieves consumers from the pressure of shopping in a particular time from particular store or area. Consumer can save his time on other important works. The layout of websites, content, presentation, time spends by consumer on particular webpage and other aspects are important for motivating consumers for online purchase. 3- Other Methodology Researcher can also contact online shopping companies for the data related to online shopping behavior of the consumers and analyze the same.
There can be particular product or service category where different consumer group are more interested or not interested for their shopping. Demographic details, except for personal information can be requested by these service providers like age group of consumers, product or service category, time of online purchase and frequency of online purchase.
Reference: Ahuja M, Gupta B and Raman P (2003) An Empirical Investigation of Online Consumer Purchasing Behavior, Communications of The ACM, December 2003, 46 (12) 145-151