In recent years, online shopping has become a popular choice for purchasing goods and services. The Office for National Statistics (2012) reported that 83.5% of the UK population now have access to Internet. Furthermore, adults who indicated that they had purchased or ordered goods or services online within the past twelve months has reached 32 million which represents 66% of the UK adult population (Office of National Statistics 2011). With the growth of Internet purchasing, recent studies have found various influences that can affect th online purchasing behaviour of consumers. Consequently, this represents a desirable marketing opportunity for businesses. Past research in online shopping is quickly becoming outdated and hence there is a need to update and extend these studies (Delafrooz, Piam and Khatibi 2010; Doolin et al., 2005; Haque, Sadeghzadeh and Khaibi, 2006). As technology continues to improve and new trends start to form, it is important to develop a better understanding of the current online shopping population. Some past studies focused on a specific issue of online consumer behaviour but they differ in emphasis, hence there is a necessity for an integrated model of consumer behaviour with supporting empirical evidence. The purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of the various influences that affect the decision of online shoppers to purchase in the United Kingdom. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data in order to gain a detailed understanding of the various factors. Following the exploratory study (semi-structured interview), an online survey consisting of 983 respondents was conducted as the other data collection method for this study. The findings from literature review (secondary data), semi-structure interviews (qualitative data) and questionaire (quantitative data ) reveal main influencing factors that affect a consumer's decision to purchase online. The factors were identified as convenience, social, risk, product and merchant factors. Through the analysis of the data, evidence was found to support the presence of relationships between factors and online shopping, and the significant differences between the consumer's demographics and the vaious factors. Furthermore, the results suggest that different types of online consumers (casual,regular,and frequent) perceive the importance of each factors in a different manner. The findings in the study help facilitate in the development of the Integrated Model of Factors Influencing the Online Consumers. This model integrates the findings from the literature, semi-structured interviews, and the online survey to capture the factors that influence the online shoppers, this model can help online retailers and marketers to target their marketing activities and to develop appropriate strategies to convert potential consumers into actual buyers.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:655866 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Lui, Vincent Ying Fung |
| Publisher | University of Bolton |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://ubir.bolton.ac.uk/592/ |
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