Jarvenpaa and Todd, (1997) suggested an important factor that affects buying behaviour is consumer attitude. A representation of shopping attitudes towards the internet was proposed. The representation includes a different indicator that belongs to four main categories. The value of the product, the shopping experience, the risk perception of retail shopping and excellence of service rendered.
Know and Lee (2003) looked into the fears of consumer about the use of online payment and their actual altitude and number of purchases made. They noted a negative correlation about buying online and online payment. They argued that consumers with a positive attitude are not bothered about online payment. Most popular literature on the topic cited are of the opinion that easy shopping, low prices, convenience, improved customer service speedy-email service, low shipping cost are major reasons for the increase in online shopping. (Lorek, 2003; Magee, 2003; Maloy, 2003; Retail Merchandiser, 2003).
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Most of these studies have all contributed to the understanding of online shopping. Nevertheless, there is a lack of consistent perceptive of the impact of appropriate factors on online attitudes and behaviour and conflicting discovery of appropriate autonomous and reliant variables. Hence, it is difficult to compare different studies, apply the findings of various researches and compile them together.
Li and Zhang (2002) research on taxonomy of consumer online shopping attitudes and behaviour. They analysed a total of 35studies in which 29 of them used survey method. After the study a total of ten interrelated factors were identified and each of them was empirically related. The ten factors are external environment, demographics, personal characteristics, vender/service/ product characteristics, attitude towards online shopping, intention to shop online, online shopping decision making, online purchasing, and consumer satisfaction. The five external factors which are demographics, personal characteristics, vendor/service /product characteristics and website quality are in general independent while the other five which are attitude toward online shopping, intention to shop online, decision making, online purchasing and customer satisfaction are dependent variables in the empirical literature.
Other research such as laboratory experiments and free simulation experiments are used occasionally. Every one of the studies focuses on an aspect of online shopping altitudes and behaviour.
Their aim was to widen a categorization representing different aspect related to online shopping attitudes and behaviour. Bellman, Lohse and Johnson (1999) looked into the relationship among demographics, personal characteristic and altitudes towards online shopping. Their findings showed that people who are timed conscious and internet addicted prefer to buy online frequently. Demographics, website quality, vender/service, product quality was measured by Bhatnagar, Misra, and Rao (2000) and they argued that all have influence on online buying behaviour. They conclude that the handiness the internet provides and the risk perceived by the consumers are related to two dependent variables positively and negatively which are the behaviour and altitudes of the buyers.
Their argument was buttress with recent research by Noor and Hamid (2008) who looked into the roles of perceived and users experience in determining consumer’s adoption level. Their findings indicate that perceive risk does not control the type of actions conducted on the internet. Nevertheless, it is the experience of the users that is important. They further argued that that consumer behaviour differs due to the level of education, age and experience level.
The more the internet is being used by consumers, the more they learn the usefulness and the risk associated with the technology. (International Journal of communication issue 3 vol, 2, 2008)
2.2 What role does the issue of branding plays in motivating customers online shopping?
Business-related internet has been around for over a while with different literature on marketing activities of firms has being long overdue. The high cost faced by every organisation in other to remain competitive in the market as a major concern to any forward looking organisation. As a result every organisation that is forward thinking device a means of establishing long term relationship with its customers. As Morgan and Hunt, (1994),Andersen, (2005) et al as cited in Casalo, Flavian and Guinaliu(2008) we are in a new era where relationship marketing has been suggested to be the foremost marketing strategy for the future .(Promoting consumer participation). They argued effective interactions with the customer are the most important thing in relationship marketing. In this era the internet is a place where constant interactions take place within the customer and organisations (Pita and Flower, et al 2005). Thus, more and more organisation uses different online kit, such as chat, forum, email and intranet to communicate with their customer and establish a relationship. This online association has helped in the creation of communal groups that is known as Virtual brand communities. Hence it can be argued the communal group is a useful device to help customer to participate promotion discussion which is an important factor in achieving brand participation and allegiance. (Promoting consumer participation, Journal of Marketing communications, Vol 14, No 1, 19-36 Feb 2008)
There have been different definitions about essential community in literature, but it has been looked into as a social point of vision (Li, 2004). However this idea was first suggested by Rheingold (1993) who argued that communal faction originated from the internet when people discuss about contact. Also Ridings et al (2002) argued that an essential community are people with common interest that network frequently about the internet. Consequently one of the most important things about the essential community is that people meet undermining the distance, space and time barriers unlike the traditional way of shopping. (Anderson, 2005) (Journal of Marketing communications, Vol 14, No 1, 19-36 Feb 2008)
Without a doubt the internet make available the communications for social interaction and invariably the development of the essential group are fostered. Hagel and Armstrong (1997) suggested the group community helped in satisfying four types of customer wants; sharing resources, establishing relationship, trading and living fantasies.
As Jansen, Zhang and Schultz (2009) suggested branding is the elusive amount of organisation qualities which can reflect the name of an organisation, its history, character and mercantile. A good brand can be identified with its logo, name or mark that differentiates it from its competitors. As a result good branding result in customer loyalty and positivity of firms’ product and services. As an example Robinson, Borzekowski, Matheson and Kraemer (2007) studied the influence of branding on food products. The emphasis was on children view about MacDonald’s food and identical food that was given to them. They concluded that MacDonald’s food tasted better than the identical food.
Organisation with strong brand character usually has the financial capability to drive away competitors and newly competitors find it difficult to enter a new market especially when the customers are satisfied by the brand. Example of such brands is Nike, Coca-cola. As a result brands enable an organisation to establish distinctive characteristics and increase the prospect of attracting a large amount of old customers.
Nevertheless, not much empirical work has been written on branding strategies of internet organisation. Worldwide electronic branding activities have received less research attention. Customarily branding is about creating value with the prerequisite of a convincing offer and the customer return to the same brand if they are satisfied with the product. With this we can describe the domination of some organisation with their benefits, competiveness, different products, services offered and better customer loyalty. Organisation that performs highly by creating a favourable environment with their customer as a result of efficient branding normally acquires strong market share and a competitive advantage.
A brand is the intangible sum of organisation’s attributes which can reflect and organisation name, history, reputation, and advertisement. It can be documented as identifiable symbol, sign, name or mark that distinguishes an organisation or a product from competitors. The beginning of internet technology and the demand for better efficiency, enhanced competition, lower barriers to entry, improved customer influence has raised new ideas about branding which will help building an effective and communication strategies in the online environment.
However, there has been not much studies about branding but its role to business performance is still contentious and also how branding motivates online shoppers.
Even though a lot of money is being invested in advertising and the construction of E-brand some internet organisation still spends more than their annual sales revenue to maintain a leading role in the crowded internet market.
There have been different views among researches and practitioners in regard to the value of E-branding. Many studies have forecast the end of E-branding other researchers argued that the success on internet depends only on branding. Those researchers who argued the end of branding suggested that brands have not much to contribute to the internet marketplace, especially when the price of goods on the internet is open, the opportunity of checking and comparing products online (E-branding strategies of the internet).
Those who argued the relevance of E-branding believed that by making known the image of an organisation by its brand is very important especially during this competitive period on the internet. As Berry, suggested (2000) organisation with well-built e-brands raise customer belief of physically invisible products or services, while at the same time is helping the customer to understand the products better and what they are buying.
Dayal et (2001) view is in line with Berry suggestion that for organisation to be successful on line they would need to create a digital brand to make them unique and familiar to their customer. This is very important with the customer as this might help them not to change to imitated goods and other inconsistent marketing messages.
In recent studies by Cheskin Research group they suggested that branding tops the list of market fundamentals which is meant for building and maintaining trust on the internet. The others are navigability, fulfilment, presentation, technology and seals of approval.
It is obvious that the internet has obviously impacted on businesses from the traditional companies to the new modern online shopping. New ideas on how to compete effectively has emerged as a result the barrier to entry is high. Organisations are now re-defining their strategies as a result of marketing and branding because of the distinctive trait of the internet. Normally brand induces the customer mind to a product or service rendered by an organisation. It adds value, simplify the time the consumers use for search and comparisons of product before the goods is purchased.
The introduction of the internet technology especially is capability that allows different types of customers to interact and seek for information has made the marketplace overcrowded, this has made branding difficult and vibrant. This has paved the way for most online organisation to look for new e-brand strategies that would help in creating uniqueness and be able to engage their customers.
2.3 Evaluate consumer responses to online shopping.
Since the beginning of the internet era, the medium has created apple opportunities to increase the efficiency of internet shopping behaviour. The consumer behaviour of online shoppers has been influenced by various factors such as consumer trust on internet shopping and this is view in regards to its size, the status of its physical store connections, risk involving in shopping online , the awareness of convenience and the opportunity to shop at any times. (Hofacker 2001). As Rao (2006) argued in the review of literature analysed, he suggested that consumers have various motives that influenced consumer behaviour. He believed that fear and uncertainties, that are genuine hinders shopping online and this are important in the decision making.
(Determinant of behaviour in E-tailing an Empirical Analysis).
A survey by Donthu and Garcia investigating the purchasing behaviour on online shopper’s shows that online shopper’s behaviour are spontaneous and varies from one another. The survey was used to identify and understand issues that will provide insights into online purchase behaviour and emphasis was on issues such as convenience, web store environment, web shopping enjoyment, customer service and trust.
They argued convenience was one of the major reasons for shopping online, their argument was buttress by the findings of Alba et al (1997) who argued that shoppers in Florida can shop at Harold’s through their website and it is faster than walking to shop in their street. Childers et al (2001) argued in as many consumers do not visit different traditional retails shop before purchasing, interactive shopping lowers the cost of looking for information before purchase and at the same increase the remuneration of search by providing different products at a cheaper price.
The opportunity to shop at home at your convenience gives room for efficiency as frustrations about traffic; looking for space to park and avoiding the long queues in store are eliminated. (Childers et al.2001). Consumers who noticed the above conveniences removed psychological cost from their shopping as a result have the tendency to shopping online for the next purchase .(Determinants of behaviour in e-tailing)
Different research has looked into shopping service dimensions (Jarvenpaa and Todd 1997; Loshe and Spiller, 1998; Szmanski and Hise, 2000; Liu and Arnett, 2000).
They classified the dimensions into four parts namely merchandise, customer service and promotions, navigations and convenience and security. Merchandising is classified as different products, seeking of product information and other range of varieties. (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997). Their views is consistent with the argument of Chung –Hoon Park and Young –Gul Kim (2003) who suggested that when consumer seek for information about product quality is one of the important features that affect purchase decision. Barko, s et al (1991) and Alba et al (1997) believe that the most important thing about electronic commerce is to search for information has this gives the opportunity of reducing the cost of information. (International Journal of Retail &Distribution Management).
Evaluating consumer responses to online shopping.
As cited in Roper and Parker(2008) Belch and Belch (2004) defines Customer behaviour as “ the method and manners people employ in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using evaluating, and disposing of products and services so as to satisfy their needs and desire. Most definitions of consumer behaviour contain post-consumption behaviour and it contains reference to the use of products. With this definition I would be looking into how customer satisfaction is measured in view of the above.
How to measure customer satisfaction?
Deng (2007) used a revised approach of the Importance-performance analysis (IPA) in analysing the most important factor to identify critical service performance that creates customer satisfaction. There are three factors considered in customer satisfaction and they are basis factors, performance factors and excitement factors.
Basic factors (Dissatisfies). They are the least desires that produces consumer dissatisfies when they are not fulfilled, but
Excitement factors (satisfiers) they are factors that increase when delivered correctly, but do not cause dissatisfaction when they are not delivered. This indicated that positive act for these factors have a stronger influence on overall consumer satisfaction than negative act.
Performance factors create pleasure when performance is high and dissatisfaction when performance is low. The association between customer characteristic performance and overall customer satisfaction is nonlinear and asymmetrical for essential and pleasure attributes. (Matzler, Bailom et al., 2004; Ting and Chen, 2002).
Customer value and customer satisfaction are essential but presently there are not much concepts in services marketing. As Huber, Herrmann and Henneberg (2007) argued market share and ultimately corporate profitability depend heavily on perceived customer value.
Zeithaml and Bitner (1996) as cited in Huber, Herrmann and Henneberg (2007), described value as the major competitive aspect that determines the way services are bought and sold.
Customer satisfaction is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. It is a key performance indicator within any organisation. In a competitive environmental marketplace, each organisation compete for customers, customer satisfaction is seen a major differentiator and has progressively become an important part of any organisation strategy. Organizations are ever more concerned in retaining existing customers while targeting new customers; measuring customer satisfaction provides an sign of how flourishing the organization is at providing products and/or services to the marketplace. (“Customer Satisfaction,” 2008)
The customer satisfaction is measured using a survey with a set of statements using a Likert Technique or scale. Likert Technique is a psychometric response scale often used in questionnaires, and is the most widely used scale in survey research. The customer is asked to evaluate each statement and in term of their perception and expectation of performance of the organization being measured. (“Customer Satisfaction,” 2008).
Nevertheless, various researchers hypothesize clearly or unconditionally a satisfaction influences perceived quality relationship (Gronroos, 1990) based on the underlying case that perceived quality is a superior bid, at this instance –limitless build which to some extent resembles an attitude. Although this basic association has not be observed experimentally. Different researches believes that the level of satisfaction with individual service transactions view perceived quality as an enduring attitude towards a service provider as evidence suggest that the affiliation connecting the two may influence satisfaction experiences. (International Journal of Consumer Studies 31 (2007) 554-564).
For us to be able to understand the association between service quality and satisfaction, we need to understand the concept of value. The value of a product or service as viewed by the customer is how the consumer adjudges the product and the services that are offered. Based on this fact Woodruff and Gardial et al (1996) as cited in Huber, Herrmann and Henneberg (2007) identify customer value on the bases of the consumer view of whatever they wanted at a particular period with the assistant of a product or service offered in order to fulfil a principle. Value in a broader sense is a symbol of an occurrence focussed towards consumption preference.
Conceptual model and Hypothesis development:
In evaluating consumer experience towards online shopping , the researcher propose the online factor conceptual model which depicts the online attributes and the outcome of their online shopping process (see figure 1). The factors are discussed in details followed by hypothesis that will be investigated;
Product characteristics
Zhu, F. And Zhang, M (2010) suggested that product and consumer specific characteristics can significantly moderate the relationship between reviews and purchase decisions. Their study was on product popularity and they looked into product specific characteristic and the consumer experience of using the internet. The consumer view of reviewing the product to be purchase has a great impact on the sales of the product. Firstly products that are popular are always reviewed frequently, the frequent review might lead the customer to trust the site more based on the information that has being acquired. With the frequent reviews popular product receive; consumer tends to be more confident that they can find most reviews of popular product online thus are more certain to search online for popular products. Reviews of popular product could influence consumer behaviour decisions because the consumers are exposed to these reviews often.
In view of these findings, it is hypothesised that:
H1: Frequent review of online products sales will impact on consumer purchase decisions; hence organisation online strategies need to adjust accordingly.
Efficiency: Information technology provides on line customers with incredible opportunity to access product information on the internet from any part of the world and from multiple sources. The less time available for shopping , limited information –processing means and the volatile amount of information on the web, has led customer to seek more control , less effort and greater efficiency during shopping. To be able to respond to customer views organisation needs to design a website in an efficient manner that would allow customer to find what they need quickly and efficiently. Hu and wu (1999) as cited in Shergill & Chen (2005), found out that web page were found to affect consumer online buying decision.
In view of these findings, it is hypothesised that:
H2: Different customer will perceive website design differently as a result it is very important for marketers to build a site that is easy to navigate that customer would find easy to access.
Fulfilment:
Satisfaction is an important to the individual consumer because it reflects an optimistic outcome from the outlay of scarce resources, and/or the fulfilment of previously unfulfilled desire. From the viewpoint of previous circumstances and the consequences of satisfaction, model was proposed by Oliver (1980) that looked into consumer satisfaction as a function of anticipation and expectancy disconfirmation. Moreover, satisfaction significantly affected customer’s attitudes and their intention to buy. Many researchers have found the quality of web retailing sites is a dominant antecedent of customer satisfaction within the online shopping environment.
In view of this is hypothesised that:
H3: That it is important to convince buyers that Electronic –retailers can fulfil their promises, as online consumers cannot obtain promises from salespersons as in traditional shops.
Privacy.
In the study of the growing use of internet in New-Zealand by Shergill and Chen (2005) they investigated four factors that impact on online shoppers. The factors are Website design, website fulfilment, customer service and website security and privacy. They suggested consumers have different views about website design and reliability of the website but they all have different opinion about website securities this indicates that security issues and privacy issues are important to online buyers. One of the major fears that consumers encounter when the shop online is the concern of security and privacy. The main concern is the possibilities of their details been intercepted by someone else.
In view of this it is hypothesised that:
H4: Marketers that decides to use the internet for marketing offerings must be able to address the concerns of the potential customers to increase the chance of success.
ENJOYMENT.
According to Shergill and Chen (2005) the impact of trust and perceived risks coupled with online shopping with the enjoyment of the online shopping experience is an important factor in determining the retaining of online shoppers. Most online shoppers said that they would not shop on any particular store next time if they had a bad experience. Consumers are stimulated by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivation is about the drive to a behaviour or to be able to achieve a specific aim or rewards while intrinsic motivation speak about perception of pleasure and satisfaction gain from performing the behaviour itself. (Vallerand 1997).
In view of these findings, it is hypothesised that:
H5: It is essential to keep promises to provide high quality additional services and respond quickly to customer inquiries.
Functionality: The use of technology that includes personalising web-sites, shopping catalogs and news pages so that the users might not required password to search for information or products that they consider important.
In view of these findings, it is hypothesised that:
H6: A well organised website without much difficult will attract customer because of the ease of use.
Branding:
In this study, branding refers to attitudes and response of online shoppers to brand decisions of online business to build and develop brands using combinations of brand name, web appearance, logo and slogan. It also includes the use of promotion to attract consumers. The study of Park and Lennon (2009), which relied on the theory of Stimulus-Organisms Response (SOR), gave an insight on how brand influences consumers’ perceptions of online shopping. The SOR theory stated how the environments physically influence individual internal behavioural states. The motivations are the product features, brand reputation. Price and promotion that are within the environment that influences consumer behaviour. The state of the individual which is the cognitive state is affected by stimuli which will result in a behavioural response.
The study identified brand name and promotion in which the consumer encounters as stimuli which affect the cognitive processes. It was observed that consumer allocate more time to a familiar brand as a result more effort is put on the brand processing its information on the product. Another useful use for cognitive evaluation of product is the promotion and purchasing decision. Most online retailers give varied sales promotions such as discounts, free gifts, free shipping to attract customers. Promotion is an important aspect because it keeps the customer informed about the product, raise the public view of the marketing activities of the retailer and it also encourages old customers to revisit which leads to customer loyalty.
Based on these findings, it is hypothesised that:
H7: A well conceived and properly articulated branding strategies will positively attracts consumers towards shopping online.
2 Conclusions
The chapter reviews the literature on the success of factors that affects online shopping and consumer behaviour and this informs the hypothesis that was tested. The next chapter would focus on the design and methodology of the research design and research methodology
3. Methodology
3.1 Research Purpose:
As Saunders et al argued (2007); research is about finding the significant things in a systematic way in order to enlarge knowledge. The purpose of this study is to analyse and investigate the responses of consumer behaviour to internet shopping and the effect of branding strategies to customer behaviour. The research process adopted for this study is depicted in the below diagram
3.2 Research Philosophy:
Research point of view contains major scheme that will hold the chosen research technique and the methods that are component of the research (Saunders et al, 2007). There are two renowned schools of thinking on research paradigms and both emphasised on how a research is to be performed and they are Positivism and Phenomenological. (Amaratunga et al, 2002). The researcher would adopt a positivism approach this is about essential laws and contributory explanations and it also reduces the overall study into simple potential elements. The phenomenological approach would be used for understanding a phenomenon. Nevertheless, this study on the whole deals with identifying the relationships of the customer online and analysing the impact of branding on consumers.
3.3 Research Approach:
As Saunders (2007), argued there are two basic approaches namely deductive and inductive approaches that are used in research, and at the same time the usage depends upon how the research question is framed. With the use of deductive approach, a theory is formed and various analyses is carried out carefully to test the approach whereas in the inductive approach, theory is developed on the basis of data’s collected during the process of research. This research will use the positivism approach as a result deductive approach was used. In view of this the research would be using the deductive approach because the research cannot form theories.
3.4 Research Strategy:
The research strategies to be used in the research are quantitative and qualitative research (Saunders et al, 2007). As mentioned earlier, this study will be testing and verifying of theories. As a result quantitative research is calculated as the paramount method for this research.
- Sample Selection and Collection of Data’s:
The respondents to the survey are students and retail shoppers who have shopped online in the United Kingdom. The probability sampling procedure adopted is stratified random sampling; the reason for choosing this technique is to include certain strata of the respondents based on demographic reflection. The sample size is 160 and survey questionnaires were administered at the university of East London library and at Sainsbury store in Gallion street Beck ton. Out of the 150 questionnaires administered, 4 questionnaires were not returned but all the 36 returned instruments were properly filled. So the response ratio is ninety percent.
- CONSUMER RESPONSES TO ONLINE SHOPPING QUESTIONNAIRE
The research question contains 35question which are divided into two parts .Part A of the questionnaire contains item that would measure the factors that influence online shoppers and evaluate their experiences. There are five items in total, Product characteristics which consist of five items, efficiency consists of five items, fulfilment four items, privacy four items, enjoyment four. Functionality four items, online brand strategies and consumer response four. The second part contains three items to profile the respondents, and the questions are basically about gender, age and shopping rate. The rationale for this technique is the need to include certain strata of the respondents based on demographic thought. However, traditional paper based surveys are also conducted in order to reduce the bias.
The measuring instrument contains two types of questions; the first type, the respondents are expected to respond descriptive statements using the Likert type scale of 1 to 5, where 1= strongly agree, 2=agree, 3=Neutral, 4=disagree and 5=strongly disagree and the second type is a multiple choice question which respondents are excepted to choose an appropriate response suitable to the user characteristics.
3.7 Measuring Instruments
Attributes of Service quality
The seven determinants of online consumer experience product characteristic, efficiency, fulfilment, privacy, enjoyment, functionality and branding strategy.
Consumer Response - Satisfaction
The perception of quality of service as a performance variable was measured using item adopted from Shamsadani, 2008. The table 2 below outlines the literatures reviewed and the tangible service quality attributes used in the evaluation.
3.8 Data Analysis Methods
The analysis of the data would be performed statically by using SPSS Version 15 for the descriptive and regression analysis. The analysis when concluded will let us understand the relationship between the various factors and online shoppers. Also the steps adopted in depicting the Importance –performance analysis and the grids are outlined below.
Step 1: Draw together customer insight on the performance quality. The most common method used for this is the questionnaire survey. The questionnaire survey measures the quality performance and the overall customer satisfaction in view of the services.
Step 2: Obtain unreservedly imitative significance of each attribute by performing natural logarithmic partial correlation analysis.
STEP 3: The IPA is divided into four parts and all the mean derived for the factors and also the mean for the performance are divided into the four quadrants
STEP 4: All determinants to be plotted on the IPA matrix.
Step 5: Each quadrant have a plan of how it is being managed, nevertheless, the improvement main concern of each factors in the Quadrant is very important. The action is to be concentrated on the sequence for customer attributes.
3.9 Validity and Reliability:
As Saunders et al (2007), argued to ensure a good result it is important for the researcher to scrutinize reliability and validity issues.
3.9.1 Reliability:
Cronbach alpha would be used to measure the reliability of the data and its consistency. As Cronbach (1951) argued, cronbach alpha is use in determining internal consistency or average correlations of items in a survey instrument. According to Saunders et al (2007), reliability is the robustness and the consistency of an instrument under different situations.
3.9.2 Validity:
Validity is the extent to which the questionnaires actually measure what it intends to measure (Saunders et al, 2007). For ensuring the validity of the research different approach were taken in view of the questions.
- Relevant literatures on online shopping and branding strategies were examined thoroughly before preparing the questionnaire.
- The questions are based only on literature with just few words reframed. The Questionnaires were pre-tested regarding the item wordings, layout and item difficulty.
- All the relevant data’s were collected from the respondents who have access to the internet and have shopped on the internet.
3:10 Conclusion
The chapter detailed the research methodology that was used for this study and shows the research design, the collection of data’s and analysis technique used. The next chapter is about the data collected, analysis and discussion.
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Chapter 4: Presentation, Analysis and discussion
This chapter presents the results of the data collected from the primary research conducted on online shopping, followed by analysis and discussion.
4.2 Data Presentation and Analysis
4.3 Profile of the shoppers
The characteristics of respondents’ profile are known to be weak predictors of consumers’ attitudes’ to technological experience. However, previous electronic commerce researchers posited that demographic profile of shoppers such as age, gender and internet usage rate can aid online retailers to have insight of market segmentation, target market and ultimately consumer online shopping experience which will inform their channel strategy. Appendix 1 depicts the respondents’ opinion based on gender, age and usage rate. Therefore, the characteristics of the online shoppers surveyed are charted and analysed further:
Gender of the shoppers
As highlighted in Appendix 1, The respondents to the online shopping consumers survey are 68 male (55%) and 56 female (45%). Out of the 68 male, 70% have positive attitude towards their online experience female above, while 30% are dissatisfied with their online experience. The gender based evaluation of the consumer experience is depicted in the above chart. This agrees with Dittmar, Long, and Meek (2004) finding that that male adopt online shopping than the female consumers and gender based differences may be motivate online shopping.
Age of the Shoppers
Most of the respondents are under the age of 50 accounted for 115 representing 93%, while the elderly above 50 years are 9 representing 7%. The chart above indicates that 78% of the consumers under50 years are satisfied with the online experience. A similar finding was recorded by the elderly above 50 years, 67% of the elderly surveyed are satisfied with online shopping. A possible explanation could be the complaints of elderly on overcrowding of stores, self checkouts characterised by long queues and the need to depend on assistance for store based transactions, but they still regards retail stores as an opportunity of social interactions (Meneely et al., 2009)
Online shopping Usage Rate
As indicated in the above chart, Out of 124 respondents surveyed, 86 satisfied with their online shopping experience and 28 are dissatisfied. The very frequent users accounted for 74% of the satisfied respondents, frequent users 20%, rare users 2% and users who often shop online accounted for the remaining 4%. This outcome affirms the result of
Lian, J. and Tzu, L. (2008)
4.3.2 Descriptive Statistics for Measuring Items
Table 4.2 Descriptive Statistics for Measuring Items
The descriptive statistics of respondents who evaluated the online shopping dimensions with the consumer response are shown above All the mean results for each of the dimension in the construct is below the mid point of 3 which is neutral on the likert Scale (product characteristics =2.16, efficiency =2.01, fulfilment =2.14, privacy =2.11, enjoyment =2.16, functionality =2.06, brand strategy=2.07 and consumer response =2.32). The result upholds that the consumers are quite satisfied with the quality of service provided by internet based service providers.
4.4 Test of Reliability
Table 4.3 Reliability of Items
Patton (2002) and Saunder et al., 2008) described, reliability as the internal consistency and robustness of the measuring item and scale to achieve evaluation of consumer response to shopping online under different situations and circumstances. According to Cronbach (1951), determines is the average correlation of items in a measuring instrument and the acceptable limit is 0.7 in the opinion of Nunnley (1978) and Hair et al, (2007:p244). As indicated in the table above, the overall reliability of the data was determined with SPSS and the alpha value of 0.956 is within the acceptable limit. Table 4.3 denotes the outcome of the test for reliability for the factors influencing online shopping. The individualised items are also consistent with alpha values in the range of 0.521 and 0.904 and they are within acceptable limit of 0.3 for the individualised items.
4.4 Partial Correlation Analysis:
Partial Correlation analysis was computed for the derived importance attribute as proposed by Deng (2007). The mean of performance measures and relative importance measures were calculated and used for the ranking of the attributes. The overall mean score of consumer response was recalculated and the value is 0.2441. Table 4.3: Ranking of Individual Scales and Derived Importance Mean Scores
Having revised the mean score for the individual items, the orthogonal factors’ means and partial correlation were recomputed. The table below denotes the mean score for consumer response and implicitly derived importance scores. Therefore, the Importance performance analysis grid was depicted from the individualised values as explained under analysis and discussion.
Table 4.4: Mean Scores of Implicitly derived performance and Satisfaction Scores
Product characteristics 2.16, Efficiency 2.01, Fulfilment 2.14, Privacy 2.11, Enjoyment 2.16, Functionality 2.06, Branding 2.07, Consumer response 2.32
4.5 The relationship of Factors affecting Online and Consumer response
In order to test the proposition that online attributes are determinants of consumer perception and experience of sopping online, multiple regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship using SPSS Version15.0. In the construct, the dependent variable is consumer response to online shopping and the independent variables are the determinants of online shopping: product characteristics, efficiency, fulfilment, privacy, enjoyment, functionality and online branding strategy. The result is summarised in the above table and analysed further:
Results of the hypothesis verification
The multiple regression analysis establishes a very strong association of online attributes to consumer experience. The model fit, the adjusted R2 of 0.963 is very strong and statistically significant. In the opinion of Palmer (2005), an association exists and is significant when p < 0.05 and the relationship strength ranges from -1 to +1 where -1= negative correlation, 0- no correlation and +1= positive correlation. As shown above, the model fit substantiates the relevance of online shopping attributes to explain what will are consumer responses to online transactions. The multicollinearity was inspected using the tolerance value and all the values are less than (Palmer, 2005). Hence there is no problem with multicollinearity and the level of variance described by the seven attributes is 73%.
The consumer experience could be explained by 80% of the success factors. The standardised beta coefficients for the seven attributes are product characteristics 0.385, efficiency =0.124, fulfilment -0.138, privacy -0.253, enjoyment 0.257, functionality -0.271 and branding strategy = 0.378. The findings validate the hypotheses tested are all accepted and the null hypotheses rejected because but they all have positive or negative relation to consumer satisfaction but it should be noted that two factors fulfilment and efficiency are not statistically significant.
Analysis and Discussion
The purpose of this project is to analyse and investigate consumer responses towards Internet shopping and the effects of branding strategy on consumer’s behaviour. In order to answer the research questions, previous studies were critically reviewed which informed hypotheses that were tested The results and findings of the survey conducted were already presented in the preceding section. The analysis and discussion are examined further in detail in the succeeding section.
Factors considered before shopping online
The first goal of this research is to understand the factors that influence consumer perception of the online shopping encounter. The attributes recognised in this study are product characteristics, efficiency, fulfilment, privacy, enjoyment and branding. In the consumer online purchase processes and decisions, individual responds to online environment in different ways through perception using the five senses, learning from experiences and exhibiting unique attitudes Therefore, factors identified are quite distinct to online shopping experience due to consumer involvement in technology without face to face interaction with the employees in the service encounter. The dominant finding of this research supports the position that online shoppers in the United Kingdom have positive attitude towards online shopping and the result is consistent with the finding that the British consumers were more comfortable with purchasing only search products online.
The online shoppers surveyed ranked efficiency of the online store as the first determinant of online patronage with a mean score of 2.01. The consumers prefer store websites that they can easily navigate web pages, seamless search for information, offer product reviews online, and services available twenty four hours. This affirms the suggestion of Hamid (2008) that database technology plays an important role in providing online stores the ability to analyze consumer behaviours and surfing preferences. Functionality ranked second with a score of 2.06, shoppers opt for online services that support the flexibility of shopping from home, access to comprehensive information resulting in fast transactions.
The online shoppers branding strategies ranked third with a mean of 2.07, the role of branding in the motivation of online shopping but this is discussed extensively in the next section. Privacy ranked as the fourth with a score of 2.11, online consumers favour web store that emphasises safety of personal information in online purchases, fast loading of web pages, minimise or eliminate risks (financial and product) associated with online transactions and ensure safety of credit card details. Fulfilment is ranked fifth with a mean of 2.14, this relates to consumers firms delivery of promises in terms of quality, speed and being truthful. The consumers reliability were informed by the expectancy of the performance of the online shopping and met by the firm, this affirms the expectancy theory in the opinion of Hung and Wong (2007).
Product characteristic is ranked sixth with a mean of 2.16. This signifies the importance of firms that offer product variety, warranties and guaranties for purchases, better prices and possibility of returning defective items. Enjoyment is ranked seventh with a mean of 2.16. This describes the Consumers time spent on shopping online as being enjoyable, nice time and immersed exciting products.
The role of branding in motivating consumers towards online shopping
It has been mentioned earlier that consumers ranked branding strategies third with a mean of 2.07. This implies that online consumers appreciates buying only well-established brands, desire well designed website with strong brand image and reputation of an online store. This finding is acknowledged by Park and Lennon (2009) that a well known corporate and product brand name were powerful factors that influence consumer’s perception of online store image.
The consumer responses after purchase
The final objective is to evaluate the consumer response towards online shopping. The analysis affirms the significance of the online shopping factors on overall consumer response. The consumers were found to be satisfied, contented and happy with online shopping. Further, these findings lend support that customer response is affected by the process and outcome and the linkage is determined by the strength of relationship. In this study, the researcher found that the consumers considered product characteristics as strongest determinant of consumer satisfaction. This agrees with the previous finding that Products and service types determine the relationships between consumer attributes and responses toward online shopping (Lian & Lin (2008).
The second attribute that significantly impacts on the consumer response is branding strategies of the firms. Park and Lennon (2009) also suggested that the creation of a brand experience will lead to consumer loyalty in online purchase decisions. Next, enjoyment has a significant positive relationship to consumer satisfaction in this study. This finding disagrees with Shun and Yunjie (2006) that enjoyment did not influence customer satisfaction and loyalty. Another dimension found to have a strong predictive influence on consumer response is privacy. This finding is acknowledged by Lian and Lin (2008) and (Hamid (2008) that improved web security and increased personal perceptions of online safety of identity would affect user attitude towards purchasing online. However, functionality was found to have negative relationship with consumer response. Surprisingly, efficiency and fulfilment has relationship with consumer response but they are not supported by the hypotheses.
Perceptions of customers on the importance of each self service dimensions in the UK grocery retail
As Shown in the above grid, The four quadrants of importance performance analysis according to Deng (2008) and applied to this study are: “Keep up good work (high performance and high importance reveal attributes such as the provision of adequate guide on usage of the self service and easiness of using it could be leveraged to sustain competitive advantage or achieving differentiation. Possible overkill (high performance and low importance) implies that attributes like reliability of the self scanners and safety as well as privacy are resources which can be redeployed elsewhere because the attributes would be overkill”, “Low priority (low performance and low importance) indicates” indicates attribute like ambience has minimal strength and require a minimal effort to induce satisfaction. “Concentrate here (low performance and high importance) reveal an attribute as fast to use the self service is a success factor and as such require urgent action because it could be source of strong weaknesses for the retailers. The four quadrants are summarized below in Table
Table 4.14 Performance Importance matrix
Conclusion: The chapter uses the IPA performances analysis approach in analysis the customer response. The quadrant is grouped into four labels in which the E-Commerce would be advised based on the findings. Based on our findings the retailer should concentrate on quadrant four , that is more attention should be given to the views of the consumer. On Quadrant 2 the retailer should keep up the good things that is been done.
5. 0. Conclusions
5.1 Introduction
This chapter aims to bring all findings to a conclusion, from the review of literature to research methodology adopted and summary of findings. It also highlights the managerial implications of the findings,
5.2 Summary of Research Problems, objectives and findings
The first research question which review previous literature on factors that consumer considered on shopping online, role of branding and evaluation of consumer responses identified gaps and areas that are under researched. The suggestion by Noor and Hamid (2008) that managers should map out a customer service management strategy that is exceptional to the every organisation. E-commerce retailers should take the advantage of the growth of the internet technological to deliver added value and in return enhance good customer relationship. Mostly, database technology plays a leading role in analysing the consumer habits and purchasing decisions. The research question guided the design of the research in order to under the perception on online shoppers to consumer behaviour. As a result a primary research was conducted to investigate the response of consumer to online shopping behaviour.
Based on the findings, it was established all the attributes influences directly customer behaviour and customer satisfaction. The nature of relationships of the response of consumer to online behaviour in order of strength (from strongest to weakest) are product characteristic ranked highest with 38% followed by branding strategy at 37% and functionality at 27% ,enjoyment and privacy followed with 25.7 and 25.3 respectively. The findings validate the hypotheses tested are all accepted and the null hypotheses rejected because but they all have positive or negative relation to consumer satisfaction but it should be noted that two factors fulfilment and efficiency are not statistically significant.
The final research question ‘which is the response of consumer behaviour to online shopping has a greater impact on consumer behaviour and customer satisfaction. The multiple regression analysis establishes a very strong association of online attributes to consumer experience.
5.3 Theoretical and Managerial Implications of the study
The theoretical implication of the conceptual model developed for the consumer response towards the consumer and customer satisfaction will contribute to literature on theoretical developments in technology. The research elucidates the relationship of perception of online behaviour and the quality antecedent technologies are the importance of performance attributes.
The findings in this study have contributed to knowledge having conducted a test on theories of consumer behaviour, technological attributes dimension and their relationships. The outcome of the examination validates previous researches of consumer behaviour and few studies on branding strategies. Importantly, the study finding that the response of the consumer is a major attribute that can be measured and respond too immediately for better results. It is clear that consumers are very dissatisfied with the lack of privacy on the websites and as a result E-Retailers should build a website this is easy to navigate and protected. The study will also be beneficial to E- commerce retailers as this will help to improve or change their strategies in dealing with responses of the consumers.
Conclusion
6.0 Recommendations
Introductions
This chapter suggests recommendations for future research and concludes with limitations of the research.
Recommendations
The E-commerce retailers must address all the attributes identified in this study that can induce online shoppers and customer satisfaction particularly the attributes mentioned above. It is important for E-retailers to be timely on the important information on consumer attitudes; the most important behaviour towards online shopping is the attitudes towards online transaction, product services and web design. Constant innovation and the adoption of new technologies will drive the growth and use of internet retailing as most internet shoppers are more selective and difficult.
Further research
Further research can be conducted on the effect of culture, language on the technological attributes and its implication on consumer behaviour
Further research is needed to take a broad view of the results across demographics of Internet users
This study could be improved if a Web-based survey was conducted to simultaneously assess respondents’ reactions to a particular site features while they interact with the site.
This research could be applied more broadly to authenticate to what extent the results can be transposed to other regions of the world where consumers’ behaviour may differ depending on culture, beliefs and technology acceptance level.
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Appendix:
CONSUMER RESPONSES TO ONLINE SHOPPING QUESTIONNAIRE
Please use this scale to answer the questions 1 to 10:
1= strongly agree 2= Agree 3= Neutral 4=Disagree 5=strongly disagree
Please circle the number you consider as the best description of your experience when you buy online and the attributes that influence your decisions:
Product characteristics
-
I choose from stores that offer greater variety 1 2 3 4 5
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I buy from stores that offer after-sales 1 2 3 4 5 services online
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I purchase from store that offer better prices 1 2 3 4 5
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I like online store that accept returned 1 2 3 4 5 defective items
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Product quality is important to me 1 2 3 4 5
Efficiency
- I prefer online stores that is available 24 hours 1 2 3 4 5
- Navigating (moving around) on the site is easy 1 2 3 4 5
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Searching for information online must not 1 2 3 4 5 be time consuming
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The time to find online stores should requires 1 2 3 4 5 less effort
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I order products from distant online stores 1 2 3 4 5
Fulfilment
- My preferred online store makes it easy to 1 2 3 4 5 find what I need.
- I patronize online store that is truthful about 1 2 3 4 5 its services.
- I prefer shopping online with stores that deliver 1 2 3 4 5 within the promised time
-
I don’t like to wait for delivery 1 2 3 4 5
Privacy
- Safety of personal information is important 1 2 3 4 5 in my online purchases
- My online Website loads pages fast 1 2 3 4 5
- My online Site performs the service right first time 1 2 3 4 5
- I buy from store that the risk associated with 1 2 3 4 5 online transactions is low
-
I buy from online store where credit card 1 2 3 4 5 number is safe
Enjoyment
- Time spent on shopping online was truly enjoyable 1 2 3 4 5
- Shopping on online site was a very nice time out 1 2 3 4 5
- My online store must immersed me in exciting 1 2 3 4 5 products it offers
- I enjoyed online web site for its own sake, not just 1 2 3 4 5 for the items I may have purchased
Functionality
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Easy access to information is important 1 2 3 4 5
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comprehensive product/service information 1 2 3 4 5 is necessary
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Possible to purchase goods/services faster 1 2 3 4 5
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Stay home and shop online 1 2 3 4 5
Online Branding Strategies
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I buy only well-established brands on line 1 2 3 4 5
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Appearance of website influences 1 2 3 4 5
the store I buy from
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I buy from online stores with strong brand image 1 2 3 4 5
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The reputation of an online store is important to me 1 2 3 4 5
Consumer Response
- I am happy with my online shopping experience 1 2 3 4 5
- I am contended buying online 1 2 3 4 5
- I am satisfied shopping online 1 2 3 4 5
Profile of the respondent
- Are you?
Male [ ] Female [ ]
- Which of the following is your age group?
Less than 18 [ ] 18 – 30 [ ] 31 – 50 [ ]
51- 60 [ ] 61-70 [ ] Over 70 [ ]
- Please select your online shopping rate monthly:
Very Frequent [ ]
Frequent [ ]
Often [ ]
Rarely [ ]
Not at all [ ]
Thank You for participating in the Online shopping Survey
by
babatundejames (student)
