The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of the factors affecting consumer foreign online purchase process when taking country of origin, the company’s website and the company itself into account. Four narrative stories were used to describe consumers’ buying process before the purchase, during the purchase and after the purchase. The results show that the website level and country of origin level played a significant role only during the pre-purchase and purchase phase when the factors included in the company level were not known to the consumer. However, when the consumer was familiarized with factors related to the company level, the website level and country level factors lost significance. The factors concerning the company seemed to be the most important during the majority of the foreign online purchase processes.

Consumer foreign online purchasing (CFOP) in this thesis refers to the exchange between consumers and foreign online retailers. Despite empirical facts showing increasing interest of consumers to purchase from foreign online retailers, researchers have only paid modest interest to this new marketing field. In response to recent researchers’ calls for further studies in this new field, this thesis aims to add knowledge on why some consumers purchase from foreign online retailers and others do not. CFOP is associated with uncertainty, so it is important to study what affects uncertainty and how consumers deals with uncertainty. Contrary to marketing-management theory studies, this thesis employs behavior theory and adopts views from relationship and network perspectives. The theoretical framework in this effort is business relationship concepts (commitment, trust, and uncertainty) and provides deeper understanding of how consumers behave in foreign online purchasing contexts. The empirical studies in this thesis employ multiple methods, including, in-depth, focus groups, narrative interviews, and two quantitative studies. This thesis discusses previous studies on marketing management theory, business-to-business and business-to-consumer relationships. Based on the framework, this thesis contributes with deeper insight for understanding consumers’ foreign online purchasing behavior. The empirical and theoretical contributions of this thesis not only advance understanding of this market arena, but also may attract the interest of other researcher. In addition to the four papers with different theoretical contributions, the thesis contains a summary to properly position its theoretical background. Since the papers have a variety of emphases and stress different uses of analytical tools, uncertainty, commitment, and trust, the summary connects the four papers into a theoretical framework. The theoretical frame explicitly states the findings in the papers. It explains factors that affect uncertainty in CFOP and also how consumers deal with uncertainty in order to establish and develop relationships through the pre-purchase, purchase, and post-purchase phases.

Several studies have shown that there is a negative impact of perceived risk on trust and on the online purchasing behaviour of buyers. Other research suggests a positive impact. However, these relationships have been suggested by using evidence obtained from the purchase of inexpensive, uncomplicated, and hence low risk products such as books, compact disks (CD’s, DVD’s), or clothing. Exploring whether such associations could be generalised within the complex, costly high risk and credence products such as gemstones has not been examined. This gap in the literature was addressed in this study. The results of the study suggest that perceived risk and trust are significant determinants of the online purchasing behaviour of gemstone buyers. The study also shows that the type of Internet marketing strategy used by the seller (the place strategy) and the buyer’s privacy, and security concerns influence a buyer’s perceived risk to purchase gemstones online. Furthermore, Internet fraud protection has been found to be the only significant factor that has an influence on the buyer’s trust to purchase gemstones online. These results have implications for the literature, and all sellers and consumers.

Program: MIMA student – International Marketing Course name: Master Thesis (EFO705) Title: Consumer behavior toward online purchasing behavior Authors: Kaorat ThienmongkolPongsatorn Thaisuntad Supervisor: Daniel Tolstoy Problem: “What factors trigger the online purchasing decision of young SwedishConsumer?” Purpose: The purpose of this report is to study the insights about the factors that triggerpurchasing behavior of young Swedish consumer to shopping on the internet.The result will enable managers of e-commerce firms to outline strategies topenetrate the Swedish market, and will also contribute to e-commerceliterature in general. The students who study and interested in this area will beable to use this result as their empirical data and to enhance their knowledge. Method: 160 questionnaires were used as primary data. Stockholm, Goteborg, Uppsala,Vasteras, and Eskiltuna are the cities that authors collected the data. Forsecondary data, authors collected data from the website. Conclusion: Young Swedish consumers have positive experience on online shopping, trustand like to shop online. They concern on the type of product when shoppingon the internet. And young Swedish consumer also effect by situational factor. Keyword: online shopping, online purchasing decision, consumer behavior

<p>Background: From a marketing perspective, personalisation of online advertising is a very promising way of reaching customers and will play an increasingly important role in the future. Personalisation on the Internet is far more widespread than in the offline world and can cover all online interactions when it comes to the question of what information to personalise. It directly relates to the issue of privacy of personal data and creates a need for a privacy policy that clarifies the relation between personalisation and privacy.</p><p>Problem: Personalisation represents one of the main advantages of the Internet and al-lows marketers to target individual customers directly and adapt their marketing communications to the user’s preferences and needs. On the one hand, personalisation can give customers access to better service, products and communication and provides an experience of one. On the other, privacy issues related to the Internet and personalisation in particular are a contemporary topic of growing interest. Internet users are increasingly aware of the fact that websites collect information about them and their privacy concerns are growing. Personal information is necessary for personalising advertisements. Therefore, this development contradicts the customer’s increased demand for personalisation and the trend towards narrowly targeted marketing.</p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore if personalised online advertising could be perceived as a danger to customer’s privacy or on the other hand, facilitate the purchase decision process.</p><p>Method: In order to answer the purpose and the research questions, a survey has been conducted with 152 JIBS students asking them about their opinion on e-advertising and their fears about it. After the questionnaires had been collected, different analysis such as univariate analysis and bivariate analysis has been done using SPSS.</p><p>Conclusions: In summary it can be said that the respondent’s general perception of personalised e-ads is negative; they do not believe that they make shopping easier and they see a danger for their privacy in how companies collect the customer’s information and use it.</p>

Background: From a marketing perspective, personalisation of online advertising is a very promising way of reaching customers and will play an increasingly important role in the future. Personalisation on the Internet is far more widespread than in the offline world and can cover all online interactions when it comes to the question of what information to personalise. It directly relates to the issue of privacy of personal data and creates a need for a privacy policy that clarifies the relation between personalisation and privacy. Problem: Personalisation represents one of the main advantages of the Internet and al-lows marketers to target individual customers directly and adapt their marketing communications to the user’s preferences and needs. On the one hand, personalisation can give customers access to better service, products and communication and provides an experience of one. On the other, privacy issues related to the Internet and personalisation in particular are a contemporary topic of growing interest. Internet users are increasingly aware of the fact that websites collect information about them and their privacy concerns are growing. Personal information is necessary for personalising advertisements. Therefore, this development contradicts the customer’s increased demand for personalisation and the trend towards narrowly targeted marketing. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore if personalised online advertising could be perceived as a danger to customer’s privacy or on the other hand, facilitate the purchase decision process. Method: In order to answer the purpose and the research questions, a survey has been conducted with 152 JIBS students asking them about their opinion on e-advertising and their fears about it. After the questionnaires had been collected, different analysis such as univariate analysis and bivariate analysis has been done using SPSS. Conclusions: In summary it can be said that the respondent’s general perception of personalised e-ads is negative; they do not believe that they make shopping easier and they see a danger for their privacy in how companies collect the customer’s information and use it.

This paper studies airline customers' online search and purchase behaviors. Two fundamental aspects of online behavior are examined: (1) the link between search behavior and buying behavior and (2) the evolution of inter-temporal search and purchase decisions of strategic buyers. In the first study, we examine online customers' dynamic conversion behaviors using clickstream data. A new model based on Markov chains that incorporates discrete choices and decision-timing is proposed to capture key search effects on consumer decisions as well as dynamics of browsing behavior both within and across visits. Empirical results show that within-site search activities lead to strong consumer engagement and thus increase purchase and revisit propensities. Fit comparison between first and second order Markov chains allows us to conclude that consumer decisions are primarily influenced by the current search. Furthermore, we observe that consumers dynamically adjust their browsing behavior both within and across visits. The second study investigates the evolution of inter-temporal search and purchase decisions of strategic buyers. Risk neutral buyers follow simple behavioral rules based on future and current prices and options available. We show that the trade-off between waiting and purchasing will become less and less favorable to waiting. Price elasticity should therefore drop as departure date approaches. With stationary price distributions, search and purchase efforts increase with proximity to the deadline. We extend the base model to allow for price evolution and demand uncertainty. We find that increases in mean price and price dispersion may attenuate increasing propensities for search and purchase. We demonstrate our models through a logit estimation on a unique data set from a major online travel agency.

Purpose: This study aims to identify the most influential aspects that affect the consumer’s behavior regarding purchasing online, also why consumers choose not to complete their purchase or actually do complete it. 
 Research questions: How do an online retail store companies create a consumer experience resulting in a purchase or cancellation, and how do consumers perceive online experience? Methodology: A qualitative research approach was conducted, utilizing semi-structured interviews with two online retailing stores and five online consumers. Conclusion: The wants and needs in order to fulfill a purchase is the same for the companies and the consumers. However, the companies are clearly lacking on some aspects since they both confirmed that they have plenty of cancellations and items left in the basket.  Consumers base their knowledge on previous experience, and companies base their knowledge on their own investigations. The connection is lost sometimes, and then i results in cancellations and left items.

Date: (05/01/22)   Level: Bachelor thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr   Institution: School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University   Authors: Las Amin, Saad Husseino, Nour Kellawi   Title: The Impact of Instagram Influencers on Consumer Purchasing Intention   Supervisor: Noushan Memar   Keywords: Influencers, Online purchasing intention, Instagram, Online influencer marketing, Trust, eWOM, Generation Z   Research question: What are the impacts of Instagram influencers on online consumer purchasing intentions?   Purpose: The primary purpose of this research is to investigate how social media influencers, otherwise dubbed as “Instagrammers,” particularly impact the online purchasing intentions of buyers and understand the role of Instagram influencers in the different online purchasing trends in organizations that rely on these individuals for their marketing activities in e-commerce.   Method: Qualitative research using focus group method for data collection and analysis. Conclusion: Instagram influencers of all types have a noteworthy influence on the different online consumer purchasing intentions on the platform, where several factors determine the scope of their impact. Trust is considered one of the most significant ones. It is perspicuous that trust in Instagram influencers is intertwined with three aspects: the emotional feelings of the users in regard to the person, the social responsibility of the influencer toward the society, and the influencer fan base. Most users consider electronic word-of-mouth very effective, as it makes a difference in their pre-purchasing stage. The research resulted in a clear distinction between two types of eWOM, one being negative and the other being positive.

Abstract Key words:E-commerce, women, online purchasing behavior, online shopping, Internet shopping Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to map out the present behavior of women between 40-55 years concerning Internet shopping. Fur-thermore, the research aims at finding and analyzing factors that might help marketers when persuading the target group to increase their usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textile and decorations. Background: Along with the increasing usage of computers, E-commerce has emerged as a sales channel, and grows rapidly in Sweden. Due to the high growth rate many companies start up web sites for E-commerce. Hemtex AB followed this trend and started their web shop in October 2008 (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30). Studies have shown younger consumers to be more frequent online shoppers than older consumers (HUI, 2006) and men to make more online purchases than women (Belanger et al, 2002). This might imply some difficulties for Hemtex concerning their start up of a web shop, since their main target group conists of women in the age 40-55 years. This demographic group is however large and has a high purchasing power (SCB, 2008), which mean it is a profitable group to target for marketers in various industries. One major difficulty with online shopping is the inability to touch the product before purchasing it, which can be a difficulty to overcome when selling textiles on the Internet (Forsythe &amp; Shi, 2003). There-fore it is interesting to conduct research of the online purchasing behavior and habits of women age 40-55 years concerning the home textile industry. Method: The purpose of this thesis was achieved by using customers of Hemtex AB as a critical case to take part in a survey as well as in a focus group. Two models concerning consumers‟ intention to make purchases in an online environment were used to analyse the out-come of the survey and the focus group. Conclusion: The thesis determined computer experience and age of women to have an impact on whether they make online purchases or not. The largest obstacle for online shopping was payment discomfort and the largest benefit of shopping online was the conveniece factor. Several factors that could increase the probability for women of making online purchases age 40-55 was discovered, and specific rec-ommendations for marketers which target women in this age group were developed. Furthermore, one of the models concerning con-sumers‟ intention to make purchases‟ in an online environment was modified to focus the intentions of women to shop online. / Sammanfattning Sökord: E-handel, kvinnor, Internet köpbeteende, Internet handel Syfte: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att kartlägga det nuvarande köpbe-teendet bland kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år beträffande Internet shop-ping. Vidare ämnar forskningen att hitta och analysera faktorer som kan hjälpa marknadsförare att få målgruppen att öka sitt användan-de av Internet som ett medium för att handla hemtextilier och in-redning. Bakgrund: Samtidigt som användandet av datorer ökar så har E-handeln ut-vecklats som säljkanal och ökar snabbt i Sverige. På grund av den höga tillväxten väljer många företag att starta webbsidor för E-handel. Hemtex AB har följt trenden och startade sin Webbutik i Oktober 2008 (S. Lindström, personlig kommunikation, 2008-10-30). Studier har visat att yngre konsumenter tenderar att handla mer på Internet än äldre konsumenter (HUI, 2006) och att män handlar mer än kvinnor (Belanger et al, 2002). Detta skulle kunna innebära svårigheter för Hemtex när de startar upp en Webbutik eftersom deras huvudmålgrupp består av kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år. Denna demografiska grupp är stor och har stark köpkraft (SCB, 2008), vil-ket betyder att det är en lönsam grupp att rikta sig mot för mark-nadsförare i olika branscher. En stor svårighet med E-handel är att man inte kan undersöka varan före köp, detta kan vara en svårighet att överkomma när man ska sälja särskilt textiler över Internet (For-sythe &amp; Shi, 2003). Därför är det intressant att forska i köpbeteen-det på Internet bland kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år beträffande hemtex-tilbranschen. Metod: Syftet med uppsatsen uppfylldes genom att ett urval av Hemtex kunder fick delta i en enkätundersökning samt i en fokusgrupp. Två modeller om konsumenters avsikt att göra köp i på Internet använ-des för att analysera resultatet av enkäten och fokusgruppen. Slutsats: Uppsatsens resultat var att datavana och ålder hade en effekt på om kvinnorna genomförde ett köp på internet eller inte. Det största hindret för köp på Internet var osäkerhet kring betalning och den största fördelen med Internet köp var bekvämlighet. Flera faktorer som kunde öka sannolikheten för kvinnor i åldern 40-55 att göra In-ternet köp var identifierade, och specifika rekommendationer fast-ställdes för marknadsförare som riktar sig till den här åldersgruppen. Vidare utvecklades en av de teoretiska modellerna om 'konsumenters avsikt att göra köp i en Internet miljö' för att fokusera på kvinnors avsikter att handla på Internet.