International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 CORRELATES OF CONSUMER ONLINE BUYING BEHAVIOUR 1 AHMED AUDU MAIYAKI, 2SANY SANURI MOHD MOKHTAR 1 PhD, Department of Business Administration & Entreprenuership, Bayero University Kano, Nigeria 2 PhD, Quality Management Institute, Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok E-mail: [email protected] Abstract—The increasing usage of internet provides a developing prospect for online retailers. The purpose of this research is to ascertain the factors that influence consumer online buying behavior (online shopping intention). To this end, a survey was conducted by administering questionnaires on respondents. In total, 200 students from University Utara Malaysia (UUM) were chosen based on convenient sampling method. Descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, and multiple-regression were employed to analyze the data collected. The results show that price and product variety have significant effect on consumers’ online shopping behavior and online shopping intention. Subsequently, it was recommended that retailers should adopt appropriate pricing and product assortment strategies which are found to be the most important factors influencing online buying behavior of consumers. Keywords— Consumer Behaviour, Online Shopping, Shopping Intention, Price, Product Variety. consumers also worry about receiving wrong product during delivery. This often occurs when the orders are filled manually and mistake was made in the online retailer's warehouse. This will most likely result to the loss of consumer. Consumer buying behaviour is the process by which individuals search for, select, purchase, use, and dispose of goods and services, in order to satisfy their needs and desire (Belch & Belch, 1998). Favourable consumer buying behaviour leads to bonding between the buyer and seller (Maiyaki & Mokhtar, 2011b). The consumer buying process is a complex matter as many internal and external factors could have an impact on the buying decisions of the consumer. It is presumed that for businesses to enhance online purchase by customers, they have to identify the key drivers of online purchase. Therefore, in this study, we intend to investigate the key factors that influence consumer online shopping and their buying behaviour. It is presumed that six factors among others have influences on consumer online buying behaviour. The factors include convenience, price, security levels, product variety, reliability and web design I. INTRODUCTION The invention of the internet has significantly modified to a great extent the way consumers shop. A large number of consumers change from tradition shopping to the online shopping brought about by the technological advancement. Hence, now consumers are more likely to engage in online shopping because they become active virtually and this enables them to shop at any time for any product and anywhere around the globe. Consequently, there is an increasing usage of internet and easier paying methods. In Malaysia, internet service providers like P1 Wimax, Digi, Maxis and etc and the mobile device have contributed to the expansion of online shopping. With mobile devices like smart phones and tablets, people can make online purchases anytime and anywhere. Over 254,000 of Malaysian online shoppers use their mobile devices for shopping. Hence the Malaysian e-commerce industry is growing and has a great potential for growth. Malaysian spent RM 1.8 billion through online shopping in the year 2010 and the market size is estimated to grow to RM 5 billion in 2015 (The Star online, 2012). According to the same source, the three top categories of products or service that mostly attract the patronage of Malaysians are travel (RM 435 million), bill payments (RM 329 million), and entertainment and lifestyle (RM 255 million). However, the amount of online shopping revenue in Malaysia is RM1.8 billion. This amount was found to be less than the amount obtainable in other countries of Asia Pacific, such as Singapore, RM21.19 billion in year 2010 (The Star online, 2012). This means that Malaysians are not active in online shopping compare to other countries in the region. This is because Malaysians are concerned about the security of the online shopping. For example 69% of users consider online credit card fraud a major concern and 85% of users are concerned about being a victim of identity theft (Ipsos-Insight, January 2004). Besides, some of the Based on the above, the focus of this paper is to investigate the extent to which some selected factors affect consumer online buying behaviour. Findings of this research are expected to be useful in broadening the understanding regarding consumer buying behaviour. Additionally, by understanding the reasons why consumers buy or not buy online, online stores would be able to incorporate suitable marketing strategies, moderate consumers’ concerns and convince customers to transfer from offline to online shopping (Teo, 2006). II. LITERATURE REVIEW Several researchers have carried out studies in the effort to assess consumers’ online buying behaviour (Saprikis et. al., 2010). These include those Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 12 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 addressing the factors that have significant effect on online shopping (Shergill & Chen, 2005; Jarvenpaa & Todd, 1997; Shah Alam et. al., 2008). Ernst and Young (2000) reported that internet users purchase online because of good product selection, competitive prices, and ease of use. Similarly, popular literature cited ease of shopping comparison, low prices, timely delivery, convenience, time saving, low shipping costs, improved customer service, tax exemption status and speedy e-mail response, as key reasons for the increase in online shopping (Lorek, 2010). Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 credit card number, e-mail address and other privacy information. Know and Lee (2003) states that the security for online transactions is a major concern for customers and it determine their online purchase. In other words the higher the perceived level of security the higher will be the tendency for customer to engage in online shopping. Security trust has received the most consistent support as a factor that influence online buying (Jarvenpaa et al., 1997; Koufaris & Hampton-Sosa, 2002). To this end we propose that security level is related with consumers’ online shopping behaviour. H3: There is a significant relationship between Security Level and online shopping behaviour The relationships between the factors and consumer’s online buying behaviour have been found to be positive in a number of studies which include Delafrooz et al., (2010), Saprikis et al. (2010), Shergill and Chen (2005) and Shah Alam et al. (2008). The key factors that will be investigated are convenience, price, security levels, product variety, reliability and web design. Convenience is anything that saves consumer’s resources like time or energy. In the study of Saprikis et al. (2010), authors refer to convenience as time saving and having more time to evaluate and select the products. Additionally, Karayanni (2003) states that convenience means that online shoppers tend to value avoidance of queues, availability of shopping on a 24-hour basis and time efficiency. Product variety is the quantity of different product types provided by online retailer. Saprikis et al. (2010) state that online retail shops have more options compared to brick-and-mortar stores and thus, the former attracts more customers than the latter. It means with if the types of product that the online retailer provided is various than the traditional shopping, consumers will switch to online shopping. Hence, we hereby propose that product variety is related with consumers’ online shopping behaviour (online shopping intention). H4: There is a significant relationship between Product Variety and online shopping behaviour According to Nielsen (2007), more than 627 million people in the world have shopped online. Forrester (2006) research estimates e-commerce market reached $228 billion in 2007, $258 billion in 2008 and $288 billion in 2009. The convenience and ease of online shopping encourage consumers to engage in online shopping. Hence, we propose that convenience is related with consumers’ online shopping behaviour. H1: There is a significant relationship between Convenience and online shopping behaviour Reliability is the extent to which a consumer trusts the online retailers in their services. These include delivering the correct products/service after received payments from customers. The specifics of reliability include such things as accuracy in billing, keeping records correctly and delivering service at the designated time (Maiyaki, 2012).Vijayasarathy (2002) states that reliability is closely associated with risk since it is a measure of customers’ perceptions of whether or not merchants can be counted on to deliver on their promises. According to Jun et al. (2004) online consumers apparently want to receive the right quality and right quantity of items that they have ordered within the time frame, promised by the retailers, and they expect to be billed accurately. Accordingly, to be considered as a reliable online service provider, an organization must deliver the promised services within the promised time frame (van Riel et al., 2003). The aforementioned show that reliability is a factor which consumers consider in online shopping. Thus, we propose that reliability is related with consumers’ online shopping behaviour. H5: There is a significant relationship between Reliability and online shopping behaviour Price is the amount or counter value pay by consumer in exchange for a product or service. In the study of Saprikis et al. (2010), it was found that price have a significant influence on consumer online shopping. The findings of the study imply that a price is a factor in enhancing online shopping. The result is consistent with the findings of Ghani et al. (2001) which equally discovered that price positively influence online purchase behavior. Price is always an important issue for a consumer to decide whether to purchase a product or not. Similarly, Price strategy studies argue that price level and quality are important dimensions of competitive strategies in retailing (Morschett et al., 2006). Consequently, we propose that price is related with online shopping behaviour of consumers. H2: There is a significant and positive relationship between price and online shopping behaviour Website design is the extent to which a service provider’s website is carefully developed and designed to enable easy access and navigation by customers. Kim and Lee (2002) states that the web Security level is consumer’s perception of how online retailers deal with their personal information such as Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 13 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 site design describes the appeal of the user interface design presented to customer. According to Turban and Ghehrke (2000) elegant design of web site will attract the intended audiences than a poorly designed site. In this way, it is presumed that customers are willing to visit more often and stay longer with attractive web sites. Furthermore, Shergill and Chen, Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 (2005) identified web site design characteristics as the dominant factor which influences consumer perceptions of online purchasing. Hence, it can be proposed that web design is related with consumers’ online shopping behaviour. H6: There is a significant relationship between web site design and online shopping behaviour Figure 1. HYPOTHESIZED CONCEPTUAL MODEL questionnaire were adapted from previous studies. However, the reliability and specifically the internal consistency of the items were confirmed. In the table bellow, various concepts and their indicators are shown. Scale Construction Previous research developed items and measures for the factors involved in this study. These scales measures are operationalized with formative indicators. Basically, all the items in the Table 1: ITEM SCALE Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 14 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 III. METHODOLOGY Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 Table 3: RESULTS OF DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Given that this research involved assessing the perception of respondents with regards to certain variables, survey and hypothesis designs are adopted. Relevant information was collected from 200 students of the Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). The students consist of both post-graduate and undergraduate which were sampled from all the three colleges in the University. A structured closed-ended questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. The questionnaire was adapted from relevant past studies such as Park & Kim, 2003; Shergill & Chen , 2005; Saprikis et. al, 2010. Additionally, all the 7 variables involved in the research were measured using a five-point Likert scale that ranges from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5). As for the analysis, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was employed to run for the descriptive and inferential statistics. IV. RESULTS Reliability Test Before proceeding to the main analysis, Cronbach’s alpha reliability test was run. Cronbach’s reliability coefficient indicates the internal consistency and how well the items under each variable hang together to measure that very variable (Maiyaki & Mokhtar, 2011a). The closer the Cronbach’s alpha to 1 implies higher internal consistency and thus, more reliable. It is generally agreed that the value of Cronbach’s alpha must be 0.7 or more to be acceptable; however, lower coefficients may be acceptable (Hair, Money, Samouel, & Page, 2007). The result of the reliability coefficients ranged from 0.759 to 0.823 and thus, all the factors are reliable as can be seen from the table below. From the above demographic profile, male respondents constituted 99 (49.5%) while female respondents constituted 101 (50.5%). Majority of the respondents were between the age range of 21 to 22 and thus, representing 73%. Most of the respondents were Chinese 147 (73.5%) and for religion Buddhist score the highest frequency of 127 which is equivalent to 63.5%. With regards to marital status respondents that are single constituted 99.5%. Multiple Regression Analysis A multiple regression was run in order to the test the linear relationship between the predictors and explanatory variables of the study. Hence, convenience, price, security, product variety, reliability and design were regressed against online intention. The model summary, ANOVA and coefficient tables are presented below: Table 2: RESULTS FOR RELIABILITY TEST Descriptive Statistics The demographic variables analyzed in this study include gender, age, race, religion, and marital status as in the table below. Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 15 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 From table 1 it could be seen that the independent variables are able to jointly explain 43.0% variance in online shopping behaviour. This figure is quite sufficient to indicate the robustness of a model in social research. Thus, the whole model is significant as indicated in Table 2 with p < .001. Further analysis shows that only price and product variety have significant relationship with online shopping behaviour both with p-value < .001. On the other hand, each of convenience, security, reliability and web design has no significant association with online shopping behaviour. Based on the above, the research hypotheses were statistically tested as follows: Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 variety are among the key factors that directly affect online shopping behaviour of consumers. The findings further suggest that the influence of product variety on the online shopping behaviour is stronger than that of price. The result is consistent with the findings of Ghani et al. (2001) that has identified price positively influencing online purchase intention and behaviour. The price of the product significantly determines the customers’ behaviour with regard to online shopping. As for the product variety, the positive association implies that when there is large amount of product variety, consumers tend more towards online shopping. This further suggests that when the benefit of product variety such as: wider product range and product information are available, customers are will be more inclined towards online shopping rather than traditional shopping. Table 4: TEST OF HYPOTHESES On the other hand, convenience, security level, reliability and web design were found to have no any significant relationship with online shopping intention. This means these factors are no any significant influence on consumers’ online shopping behaviour (online shopping intention). The findings of this studies is not consistent with those of Ranganthan and Ganapathy (2002), Kim and Lee (2002) and Than and Grandon’s (2002). The divergence of the findings could be accounted for by the differences of the contexts of the various studies. Furthermore, customers might prefer traditional shopping because it provides opportunity for social relationships unlike online transaction which leads to social isolation. Other consumers regard traditional shopping as leisure. V. DISCUSSION VI. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS In this research, we set out to determine whether the selected factors have significant influence on consumers’ online shopping behaviour. The results from this study provide partial support to the proposed research framework. Among the hypotheses proposed, two were supported. The study established that each of price and product variety has a significant positive relationship with online shopping behaviour. This means that the price and product The results of this study provide several important implications for online-pricing practice. The results indicated that online retailer should adopt appropriate pricing strategy for online products as this has a significant positive impact on online shopping behaviour. Therefore, online retailers should measure the customers’ perceptions with respect to price dimensions in their pricing strategies. For instance, Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 16 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 the retailers can offer a lower price to customer via online store to maintain customer loyalty. Furthermore, the price level that is perceived as lower compared to the other online store will also lead to a competitive advantage. Similarly, online retailers should also expand their product assortment as it has a significant effect on consumer’s behaviour towards online buying behaviour. Hence, online retailers also need to provide sufficient product variety on their store because it can attract customers to stay on the online store longer. Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 EFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] Given that this research could not establish significant relationships between convenience, security, reliability and web design on one hand and online shopping behaviour on the other, online retailers should place relatively less emphasis on these variables. [5] [6] [7] [8] VII. LIMITATION As with other studies, there are shortcomings that could not be avoided in this research. This survey employed convenience sampling due to the fact that the sampling frame of the respondents was not available to the respondents at the time of conducting the research. To this extent therefore, there is a difficulty in generalising the findings. Furthermore, the sample size of the respondents is not large enough. A marketing survey of this sort should employ a larger sample size that is representative of the population. [9] [10] [11] [12] CONCLUSION [13] This study aimed at investigating the key factors influencing consumers’ online buying behaviour. Consequently, the research shows that there is a significant and positive relationship association between price and product variety, and online shopping behaviour. This means the price and the product variety in online shopping directly affect consumers’ buying intention and behaviour. So, if the price for a product in online shopping are lower, and the product variety is more than traditional shopping, the consumers will choose to purchase online. On the other hand, there is no significant relationship between convenience, security level, reliability, web design and online shopping behaviour. This shows these factors are less influence and will not directly affect consumer buying behaviour in online shopping. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH [20] The future research should employ a probability sampling design which will enable generalisation of findings. Similarly, more respondents even beyond university students need to be incorporated in the future research of this nature as this enhances representativeness. [21] [22] Belch & Belch (1998). Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective 4th ed. Boston: Richard D. Irwin Bhatnagar, A., Misra, S. & Rao, H. R. (2000). On risk, convenience, and internet shopping behaviour why some consumers are online shoppers while others are not? Communications of the ACM, 43 (11), 98-105. Butler, P. & Peppard, J., Consumer purchasing on the Internet: Process and Prospects. European Management Journal, Vol. 16, No. 5: 600-610, 1998. Delafrooz, N., Paim, L. H., & Khatibi, A. (2010). Understanding consumers internet purchase intention in Malaysia. African Journal of Business Management, 5(3), 2837-2846. Donthu, N. & Garcia, A. (1999). The Internet Shopper. Journal of Advertising Research, 39 (3), 53-58. Ernst, & Young, (2000). Global online retailing: An Ernst and Young special report, Stores, 12(January), 12. Forrester Research (2006). Teleconference: Tapping the Power of User-Generated Content. Accessed online (December 13, 2006) at http://www.forrester.com. Ghani, E. K., Said, J., & Nasir, N. (2001). Cross Sectional Studies on on-line Shopping Among Malaysian Employees. Unpublished Dissertation, University Technology Mara Grabner-Kraeuter, S. (2002). The role of consumers’ trust in online-shopping. Journal of Business Ethics, 39 (1), 43-51. Hair, Jr., J. F., Money, A. H., Samouel, P. & Page, M. (2007). Research methods for business. Chichester: John Willey & Sons Ltd. Haubl, G. & Trifts, V. (2000). Consumer decision making in online shopping environments: The effects of interactive decision aids. Marketing Science, 19 (1), 421. Ho, S. (2011, april 22). Malaysians spent RM1.8bil shopping online in 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2011, from The Star Online: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/4/22/n ation/8534221sec=nation Hoffman, D.L., Novak, T. P. & Peralta, M. (1999). Building consumer trust online. Communications of the ACM, Vol. 42, No. 4: 80-85. Ipsos. (2004). The Definitive Update of the Internet's Global Impact [Online]. Available: http://www.ipsospa.com/dsp_displaypr_us.cfm?id_to_view=1926[2004, January 12] Jarvenpaa, S.L. & Todd, P.A. (1997). Consumer Reactions to Electronic Shopping on the World Wide Web. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 1 (2), 59-88. Jun, M., Yang, Z. & Kim, D.S. (2004). Customers’ perceptions of online retailing service quality and their satisfaction. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, 21 (8), 817-40. Jupiter Research. (2007). [Ipsos online insight survey (06/07)]. Unpublished raw data. Karayanni, D. A. (2003). Web-shoppers and nonshoppers: Compatibility, relative advantage and demographics. European Business Review, 15 (3), 141152 Khatibi, A., Haque, A., & Karim, K. (2006). ECommerce: A study on Internet Shopping in Malaysia. Journal of Applied Science 3(6), 696-705. Kim, J. & Lee, J. (2002). Critical design factors for successful e-commerce systems. Behaviour and Information Technology, 21 (3), 185-189. Know, K. & Lee, J. (2003). Concerns about payment security of Internet purchases: A perspective on current online shoppers. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 21 (4), 174-184. Koufaris, M., Kambil, A. & LaBarbera, P.A. (2002). Consumer Behavior in Web-Based Commerce: Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 17 International Journal of Management and Applied Science, ISSN: 2394-7926 [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] An Empirical Study. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 6 (2), 115-138. Liao, Z. & Cheung, M. T. (2001). Internetbased eshopping and consumer attitudes: An empirical study. Information and Management, 38 (5), 299-306. Limayem M., Cheung, Ch., & Chang, G. (2003). A Meta-Analysis of Online Consumer Behavior. Empirical Research. Information System Department, City University of HongKong. Limayem M., Khalifa M., & Frini, A. (2000). What Makes Consumers buy from Internet? IEEE transactions on systems Man and cybernetics- part A. Systems and Humans, 30(4). Lohse, G.L., Bellman S. & Johnson, E. J. (2000). Consumer Buying Behavior on the Internet: Findings from Panel Data. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 14 (1), 15-29. Lorek, S. (2010). Towards Strong Sustainable Consumption Governance. Saarbrücken: LAP Publishing. Maiyaki, A. A. & Mokhtar, S. S. M. (2011a). Determinants of Customer Behavioural Responses: A Pilot Study, International Business Research, 4(1),193-197 Maiyaki, A. A. & Mokhtar, S. S. M. (2011b). Influence of service quality, corporate image and perceived value on customer behavioural responses in the Nigerian banks:Data screening and Preliminary Analysis. International Journal of Contemporary Business Studies, 2(8), 43-53. http://www.akpinsight.webs.com Maiyaki, A. A. (2012). Consumer Behavioural Response: Services of Retail Banks in Nigeria. Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co. KG Miyazaki, A. D. & Fernandez, A. (2001). Consumer perceptions of privacy and security risks for online shopping. The Journal of Consumer Affairs, 35 (1), 27-44. Morschett, D., Swoboda, B. & Schramm-Klein, H. (2006). Competitive strategies in retailing: An investigation of the applicability of Porter's framework for food retailers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 13(4), 75–287 Nielson, A. C. (2008). World statistics on the number of internet shoppers. [Online] Available: http://www.multillingual-search.com/world-statisticson-the-number-of-internet-shoppers/28/01/2008 Volume-2, Issue-1, Special Issue-1, Jan.-2016 [34] Park, H.C. & Kim, G.Y. (2003). Identifying the key factors affecting consumer purchase behaviour in an online shopping context. International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 31(1), 16-29. [35] Ranganthan, C. & Ganapathy, S. (2002). Key dimensions of business-to-consumer Web sites. Information and Management, 39, 457-465. [36] Saprikis, V., Chouliara, A. & Vlachopoulou, M. (2010). Perceptions towards Online Shopping: Analyzing the Greek University Students’ Attitude. Communications of the IBIMA, 1-13. [37] Shah Alam, S., Bakar, Z., Ismail, H. B., & Ahsan, M. N. (2008). Young consumers online shopping: An empirical study.Journal of Internet business (5), 81-98. [38] Shaw, M., Blanning, R., Strader, T., & Whinston, A. (2000). Handbook of Electronic Commerce. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag [39] Shergil, G.S. & Chen, Z. (2005). Web-based shopping: consumers’ attitudes towards online shopping in New Zealand. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 6(2), 79-94. [40] Teo, T. (2006). Attitudes toward computers: A study of post-secondary students in Singapore. Interactive Learning Environments, 14(1), 17-24. [41] Than, C. R., & Grandon, E. (2002). An exploration examination of factors affecting online sales. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 42(3), 87–93. [42] The Star Online (2012). More Malaysians Shopping Online, Retrieved May 18 2012, from http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2012/5/18/ metrobiz/11306418&sec= metrobiz [43] Turban, E., & Gehrke, D. (2000). Determinants of ecommerce website. Human Management, 19, 111-120. [44] Van Riel, A. C. R., Semeijn, J. & Janssen, W. (2003). E-service quality expectations: A case study, Total Quality Management & Business Excellence 14 (4), pp. 437-450. [45] Vijayasarathy, L. R. (2002). Product characteristics and Internet shopping intention. Internet Research: Electronic Networking. Applications and Policy, 12(5), 411-426. [46] Wong, C. (2011). An Outlook on Asia Pacific Ecommerce Statistic. Retrieved October 1, 2011, from eCommerce Zen: http://www.ecomzen.com/2010/06/outlook-on-asiapacifics-e-commerce.html Correlates of Consumer Online Buying Behaviour 18
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz