Article Type: Research Article Article Citation: Yasser Ali Baeshen.
(2021). FACTORS INFLUENCING CONSUMER PURCHASE INTENTION WHILE BUYING ONLINE. International
Journal of Research -GRANTHAALAYAH, 9(2), 99-107. https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v9.i2.2021.3293 Received Date: 27 January 2021 Accepted Date: 25 February 2021
Keywords: Consumer Purchase
Intention Online Shopping Price E-Tailing Security and Regression
Modeling Motivation/Background: Today, it is very imperative to study the factors that effect and predict the purchase intention of consumer online shopping. E-tailers and e-commerce is expanding very quickly, especially clothing and fashion brands have shifted to electronic channels to reach out their clients. This is one of the reasons that apparel is amongst the most sold items online. The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that influence consumer choices and which factors have significant effect on consumer purchase intention while online shopping fashion apparel. Method: This research has adopted quantitative approach and explanatory research purpose to establish relationship between four independent variables: Convenience, Price, Information and Security on the dependent variable (Consumer purchase intention). Survey response from 300 consumers was collected through online questionnaire and distributed through convenience sampling. Results: Data collected was analyzed on SPSS. For two hypotheses, correlation test one-sample t-test was conducted. Further, two hypotheses were analyzed by regression analysis. All four hypotheses were accepted. Results conclude that there is a significant relationship between online purchase intention of consumer and its factors such as price, convenience, security and information about product or service. Conclusions: This study has many implications for small retailers to focus on factors that can make it easier selling online. Security measures to protect user data are very vital to bring user back on the e-tailing website or webpage.
1. INTRODUCTIONOnline shopping or e-tailing as it is called
is now becoming a more permanent way of shopping and is being adopted by
majority of the brands /companies and consumers have also embraced it. With fast growth and rapid influx of social
media Business pages and online brand communities, most of the apparel and
fashion brands have made their presence and spend more advertising budget and
energy towards advertising their products on online platforms (Kaimkhani, 2018). This has led to a great rise in home-based
businesses in the last few years and it’s still rapidly growing. Some consumers
see it as a convenience, while others participate in online shopping for the
reduced prices and a few do it to avoid any human contact. But the basic reason
would always be the convenience, and how consumers can shop at any time of the
day or night from any part of the world. Moreover, E-payment solutions
availability has quickened up the process of adoption of online shopping
(Soomro, 2019a). To some people it has also become like an addiction which
causes them to purchase all and any product they like, as in their minds they
see the material things they desire only a click away. Clothing and fashion
brands have become an important part of consumer’s lives and many recent studies
have explored fashion industry from different perspectives (Soomro, 2019b).
This is one of the reasons that apparel is amongst the most sold items online.
The purpose of this research is to identify the factors that influence consumer
choices and affect their purchase intention while purchasing online, focusing
on fashion apparel. 2.
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND & TECHNOLOGY
ACCEPTANCE MODEL (TAM)
TAM is a theory which helps explain the
acceptance of technology by consumers. It helps in predicting and explaining
consumer’s behavior in using technology. It explains why technology is accepted
or rejected by users. It explains how one’s belief, attitude, and intention to
use are influenced by external factors, (Park, 2009). TAM proposes two beliefs:
perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. Perceived usefulness is when a
person thinks something can enhance his or her performance while doing
something, like at work if it enhances a person’s job performance, they would
accept that technology. Perceived ease of use is when the technology is not
difficult to use and does not require much effort from the user, (Davis, 1989).
2.2. E-TAILING AND ONLINE STORES
Online shopping is where a buyer directly
consumes goods directly from the seller. Online shopping is done via an online
store, e-shop or Internet shop. Online stores display and define their products
through computer generated visuals, pictures and text, they even sometimes have
attached links which lead to extra information about their products. Online
stores even have videos on how to use the products, the safety measures needed,
how to assemble it and other various demonstrations. (Akbar & James, 2014) Shopping for apparel was once seen as an
experience by the consumers, they were provided with an image of luxury and
expansive retail environment, but with the emergence of e-tailing there has
been a huge drop in physical retail stores. There are various elements of
stores such as lighting, design etc. that affect the consumer decision making
(Soomro, Kaimkhani & Iqbal, 2017). But as the
online shopping is at rise and has become a popular means for buyers around the
world as a way of obtaining goods and services. It has been widely accepted and
has become a very important medium for bartering goods and services as it
provides more choices, is convenient and easier to find any type of product
online. Online stores have many advantages over physical retail stores: they
are convenient and time-saving, no longer need to travel and wait in line for
hours. They are open 24/7 and accessible anytime, anywhere. These stores
provide customers with free and rich information about products and services.
The retailers also have many tools online analyze and to help clients evaluate
and make purchase decisions amongst a variety of products and services, (Javadi et al., 2012). Today, online consumers have more power and
control over price negotiations than consumers in physical stores setting, as
the internet provides more interactivity between consumers, and retailer, in
addition greater availability of information about products and services. There
are also disadvantages to online shopping like the fact that there is no
physical feel when the product is being purchased. There might also be less
devotion from the consumers toward a brand as there will be no face-to-face
communication. 2.3. THE
ONLINE BUYING PROCESS
The Buying process has five steps. First, the
customer identifies the needs or requirements, and then defines the necessary
requirements to meet them. The second is to collect information and evaluate
the proposed options. Once consumers have listed their options, they will
continue to make purchases, including shopping or bargaining at the best price
available. Ultimately, consumers will look at the multiple attributes that
limit or influence the final decision-making and assess whether they have made
a satisfactory choice. (Akbar & James, 2014) Soomro
(2018), stated that it is important to understand the consumers decision making
process in e-tailing and how different professionals evaluate the online
marketing, as consumers require information about the online store to do
comparisons between various products and services. 2.4. CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOR AND E-TAILING
Consumer
behavior is the study of individuals, groups, companies, and the way they adopt
in selecting, acquiring, and get experiences, products, services, or opinions
to meet the impact of these behaviors on consumers and the public. Each
person's consumer behavior is different, depending on the purchase decision,
and the purchase decision is influenced by the purchase behavior and
preferences, and the purchase behavior and preferences are driven by the
psychological and social factors that affect a person's purchase decision. The
behavior of consumers about decision-making when shopping online is difficult
to explain, and is a shortcut and rule of thumb arrangement, irregular.
Shortcuts to decision-making vary from person to person and focus on previous
customers. Researchers can predict future trends by bringing cost-effective
products and services to market. In these modern times, the reputation of
interactive media such as the internet is growing rapidly with each passing day
(Bashir, 2013). Online shopping behavior is also known as online buying behavior, and
online shopping refers to when consumer order or buy anything from the online portals
by using internet (Li, & Zhang, 2002). The online shopping process also
consists of five steps, similar to those combined with regular shopping behavior
(Javadi et al., 2012). Typically, how online shopping
occurs is when a consumer realizes his or her need for a certain product and
they use the internet for information about obtaining it. Sometimes the
consumers are led to certain products associated with their needs and that is
when they compare the products to choose the one best suited to their needs
before a purchase is made. Risk
aversion and innovativeness are two factors that influence consumers to make a
purchase. Risk aversion measures how much risk a consumer should be taking
while buying. There are high risk adverse and low risk adverse consumers which
basically explains which consumers who are sure of what they want to purchase
and those who are not certain about the purchases they are about to make.
Innovativeness measures how will a consumer is to take risk and try new things
and new means of purchase (Velayutham). 2.5. FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE CONSUMER PURCHASE
INTENTION
There are a lot of variables that influence
online shopping such as time efficiency, convenience, security, cost,
information and characteristics of the products and its culture, demographics,
and environment. One of the major success factors of online shopping has been
its convenience and delivery of products to the customer’s doorway. The seller
should take into deliberation numerous aspects concerning security. For
example, the consistency of software, the security of the hardware, the
effectiveness of statistics encryption, the reliability of the website’s system
of payment, are a few (Li, 2012). The design of the website also has an impact
on the purchases made by the consumer. The design should be clean and looks
spacious, color theme should not be too loud or too boring and the fonts should
be easy for the consumers to read, (Li, 2012). Free delivery often attracts
customers who buy very often from Online Shops, to them Shipping expenses
matter most and free of charge Shipping can hold on to these customers for a elongated time, (goswami,
2013). Goswami (2013) further said that to make a
customer loyal to your brand it is necessary to have a return policy especially
in clothing business where size can be easily mismatched. Refund policy should
be stated as the consumers shy away from online shopping because they do not want
to risk that the product is either damaged or not the correct size. Refunds
should be made within a given time period to reassure the consumers that a
product can be replaced with ease if they are not satisfied with it. (Akbar
& James, 2014) 2.5.1. CONVENIENCE Consumers these day’s do not want to squander
away their time and energy in visiting the mall when they can have those same
products delivered at their homes with much less bother by only ’clicking a
button’. Going to the mall is seen as an inconvenience as they are tagged as
crowded places, where first the consumer has to spend their valuable time and
money to reach there and then find parking space, only to be bumped into
shoppers laden with bags full of their purchase and then when they finally
progress towards achieving their goal for coming there, the time they allotted
for spending in the mall is about to end. While internet shopping is like a
mall that never shuts down which you have access to at any time of the day or
night (Lodorfos, Trosterud
& Whitworth, 2006). Easy access to full product information can facilitate
and help user make an online purchase decision (Akbar & James, 2014).
Online stores are also convenient for the products of sensitive nature which a
consumer might not feel comfortable with buying in a retail outlet. Author has
formulated following hypothesis: H1: There is a
significant relationship between Convenience and Consumer purchase intention. 2.5.2. PRICE Vulnerable and conscious to the increase of
the prices the consumers are typically in relation to the possession of
products at the lowest rate or get the best value for the money they splurge
through online shopping (Nazir et al., 2012). When products and brands have lot
of similarity, and are competitive in price; consequently, consumer retention
is quite vulnerable to change their choice of brand or retailer. (Zeng, Bhutto
& Soomro, 2019) Price is the main concern that consumers take
in consideration prior to purchasing online and they have various fears that
price is usually high. Price factor involves examining the consumers move
toward squandering away funds when shopping online as income of the people is
extremely low. Cost sensitive customers are generally concerned with purchasing
merchandise at the lowest prices or getting the most value out of it (Nazir et
al., 2012). Fashion shopping nowadays is a union of the emotional
and the rational. Delivering the correct price is ever more important; but so
is delivering the right price through a context that reflects what the
consumers enjoy most about fashion. Consumers have given performance
advertising channels such a vital position in fashion purchasing since they so
efficiently balance these two very diverse needs, and to avail the best price
consumers now only need to log onto specific blogs and enter codes given for
discount vouchers. Also, they can browse the sites that give price comparison
for products so that consumers can avail the best prices, of course this means
that the businesses have to be more careful when pricing their products as the
competition is cut throat and consumer loyalty wavers to whoever has the lowest
pricing. Akbar and James (2014) stated that the
consumers were not that price sensitive often as when the prices they compared
online where not that different from each other but the process of this
comparison was too time consuming. Hence, the following hypothesis is
formulated: H2: There
is a significant effect of Prices offered on online portals on Consumer
purchase intention. 2.5.3. INFORMATION ABOUT PRODUCT OR
SERVICE The internet has made it easier for the
sellers to supply information concerning their products or services available
for their patrons online. This is more cost efficient for the firms also as it
is cheaper than distributing out promotional material for instance. The
information supplier can obtain an improved understanding of the customer’s
needs and wants as they select the desired information they wish for from the
websites. However, the firm has to form a passageway and demonstrate to the
consumers where their site can to be found as the internet is packed with
competition (Jayaprakash
& Pavithra, 2017). Therefore, the following hypothesis is
formulated: H3: There is a
significant effect of Information about product or service on Consumer purchase
intention. 2.5.4. SECURITY Awareness of security has been explored to
deepen understanding of consumer buying behavior, especially in the field of
e-retail. Bhatnagar, Misra and Rao (2000) recognize
two main types of risk: product category risk and financial risk. Product
category risk is focused on the product itself and is related to the customer's
belief in whether the product will perform as per expectation. Financial risk
is related to interne fraud related to theft of identity and personal bank
details or credit card scams. Consumer’s aim to shop online depends on their
past experience shopping online. If they had an excellent experience with no
troubles then they will consider doing it yet again but if they faced security
issues or problems with the product, they purchased then that will see it as a
negative point in their minds and they will prevent from shopping online again
(Mittal, 2013). Showing the customers an order confirmation page after a
purchase is made is necessary. Li (2012), extends that necessity of presenting
the customers with an order confirmation page along with an order confirmation
email. He states that it is imperative to show customers all the order
particulars as well as product details in addition to delivery details soonest
possible to assure customers that their purchased items were chosen properly.
Li (2012) further discusses that identity theft is also a concern of the
consumers. Fear of leakage of their
personal information holds them back from making purchases online, so to show them
that their information is safe a disclosure policy should be made. Hence, the
following hypothesis is formulated: H4: There
is a significant relationship between Security of e-tailing websites and
Consumer purchase intention. 3.
MATERIALS
AND METHODS
3.1. METHOD
OF DATA COLLECTION
For this research, primary data collection
method was performed. A questionnaire was administered among sample
population. Convenience sampling has
been used for identifying sample respondents for this research. Secondary data was
extracted from various articles and research journals and is thus based on the
literature findings, reviews and interviews. 3.2. SAMPLING TECHNIQUE
In the
process of data collection and application method, “convenience sampling” that
is a non-probability sampling technique has been administered. The areas taken into consideration
for the research are the metropolitan city of Saudi Arabia such as Jeddah,
Riyadh and Dammam. 3.3. SAMPLE SIZE
To get the information required
for the thesis topic chosen, 300 respondents on the basis of various
demographic factors filled the questionnaire. 3.4. INSTRUMENT OF DATA COLLECTION
Questionnaire was the medium of
data collection through which questions were asked consisting of independent
and dependent variables through which data has been analyzed and interpreted. A
structured questionnaire was developed with closed ended questions in order to
find accurate data that should not contain any biasness. 3.5. CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH MODEL DEVELOPED
1)
Independent variables: Convenience, Price, Information about
Product or Service and Security. 2)
Dependent variables: Consumer Purchase Intention Figure 1:
Conceptual Model 4.
RESULTS
AND DISCUSSIONS
4.1. STATISTICAL TECHNIQUE APPLIED
In this research One
Sample T Test and regression is used as the statistical technique. One Sample T
Test is applied to determine whether there is a significant relation between
convenience and consumer buying behavior as well as security and consumer
buying behavior. This technique is used to examine the correlation among
dependent and independent variables. Regression test is applied to find the
significant relationship between price and consumer buying behavior as well as
information about product or service and consumer buying behavior. Table 1: One-Sample Test
Table
2: One-Sample Statistics
H2: There is a
significant effect of price offered by e-tailers on consumer purchase
intention. Table 3:
Model Summary
Table 4: ANOVA statistics
Table 5: Coefficients
H3: There is a
significant relationship between information about product and service and
consumer buying behavior
Table 7: ANOVA
H4: There is a
significant relationship between security of e-tailing website and consumer
purchase intention.
The above table 9 and 10 shows
that the mean of the model is 3.2008 and Sig. (p value) of the model is 0.000
which is less than 0.05 so hereby we accept the hypothesis. Table 11: Hypotheses Assessment Summary
5.
CONCLUSIONS,
DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1. CONCLUSION
After carrying out this research and looking
at both the primary and secondary research, it can be concluded that there is a
significant relationship between online purchase intention of consumer and its
factors such as price, convenience, security and information about product or
service. It is suffice to say that the factors that motivate a consumer to shop
online are lower prices or discounts. It is more convenient to order online
rather than to go to a mall, plus online shopping saves time. Another factor is
there is more information on various products present online which are not
found in retail outlets and lastly the security factor which indicates that the
consumers are more at ease with keeping their identities safe and shop online. 5.2. DISCUSSION
Consumer purchase intention is the
behavioral intent to prefer purchasing online and it is proven from our
research that consumers prefer to shop online for various reasons a few of
which has been discussed in this research like price, information, security and
convenience. A consumer browses through the internet and searches through
various channels to compare prices, which has now become easier with certain
websites which offer comparisons on products from different channels. This has
created more competition which has led to lower pricing and product innovation.
The internet has given the consumers a wider range to select from and the
chance to order any products they wish at any time of the day. Fashion Apparels
items are one of the highest selling products online which has led to a boom in
the fashion industry of Saudi Arabia as many women have started their home-based
businesses online. Pricing has been an issue for many consumers but through
internet that issue has been resolved as products with in all ranges are
available. Security is also a factor which is discussed in the research. For
those purchasing for the first-time security is an issue but those who have
purchased multiple times online are comfortable with giving their information.
Most of the online sellers have also gone an extra mile to try and ease the
consumer’s fears by offering returns or exchanging the product if it is damaged
or the wrong size; which is one of the biggest problems faced by consumers.
Also factors like information about the product or service and convenience as
well play a major role in consumers purchasing online. 5.3. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
The research interpretation signifies the
high implication of convenience, security, information about product or service
and price on consumer purchase intention. They all play a vital role when a
consumer is making a decision to make a purchase online. Especially when
purchase an apparel pricing and comparison is done, and seeing as clothing is
now a major part of how a person judges himself or others through the clothing,
they wear wearing the trendiest outfit is the norm. 5.4. FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
Keeping in mind the conclusions and
discussion along with the implications that are present, further research may
be conducted by researching other factors that influence consumer buying
behavior while buying online like; quality of the product, website quality,
experience shopping and service quality. The study can also be more focused on
luxury apparel items and accessories. SOURCES OF FUNDING
This
research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public,
commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The
author have declared that no competing interests exist. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
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