View of A STUDY ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDORE REGION

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Vol.04,Special Issue 07, (RAISMR-2019) November 2019, Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

A STUDY ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS ONLINE SHOPPING WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO INDORE REGION

Rahul Choudhary, Research Scholar at PIMR, Indore

Abstract:- Online shopping is a new form of business which known as electronic commerce that enable consumers to purchase their goods or services through the Internet by using a web browser. Online shopping is a revolution in a business world. E-commerce has made life easier and Simpler with its innovative practices. Behavior of Consumer varies in online shopping from physical market where consumers have access to touch and fill the products. Traders are now forced to change their way of business now they become e- Marketers and have to adopt new technology based business. Over, the past some years the trust of the customers for online shopping websites has rapidly increased. The increase in the number of these online merchants on one hand has led to increase in competition which resultant to cheaper and better products and services for customers. But, on the other hand customers have some concerns like privacy and security when they go for online shopping. The growing use of Internet in India provides an emergent prospect for online shopping. This phenomenon is rapidly evolved into a global trend. This study attempts to understand the consumer understanding and preferences towards various products available online, it also tries to explore the factors affecting online purchase. Some factors like Cash on Delivery, Return and refund policy, Varity of products, Product quality, Offers and Discounts are the dominating factors which influence consumer’s attitudes toward online shopping in Indore region.

Keywords:- Online shopping, E-Commerce, Consumer behavior, Physical market, Internet, Indore.

1. INTRODUCTION

Today we are living in the 'Internet Era'. Internet has changed nearly everything and has become a integral part of our lives. Year 2014 has been an amazing one for web in India. As indicated by a report of IAMAI, By December 2018, India would have crossed 600 million web users. The number of web users in India is increasing at very rapidly pace. The e- commerce has changed the way business is done in India. The Indian e-commerce market is expected to grow to US$ 200 billion by 2026 from US$ 38.5 billion as of 2017 as per the recent report of India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF).

This growth of the e-commerce industry has been triggered by increasing Internet and Smartphone penetration in India. The ongoing digital revolution in the country is expected to increase India’s total internet user base from 600 million as of December 2018 to 829 million by 2021. The Internet has entered the mainstream awareness over the past decade. This has happened mainly because the web has got a graphical interface and Internet services have moved from governmental control to private hands. Past few years e- business applications have received much attention for Online Shopping.

Shopping is still a popular pastime of customers but shopping in a traditional brick

& mortar retail formats become less popular. More & more Indians are giving preference to e-stores for online purchase through by using computer, mobile, tablets and other electronic devices within a fraction of minutes. There is a huge opportunity for e-marketers as the average annual growth of this market is estimated around 70% by Internet and Mobile Association of India. India is the second leading consumer market in the world after China.

The Indian consumer profile has been changed in age, education, income, gender, occupation, and reference groups. There is a shift in consumer brand preferences for daily need products to high end technologies with the explosion of technology. Consumer’s eagerness and preferences for adopting internet as their shopping medium is positively related to income, education, household size and innovativeness. Consumers all over the world are increasing shifting from crowded physical stores to the one click online shopping format.

However, in spite of the convenience offered online shopping has to take long time to replace the traditional form of shopping in India. Consumer’s today online shopping is shaping up. As we see that the youth is in majority among online shoppers. It is so because youth felt that online shopping is convenient and has an easily access to variety products

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and information available 24/7. Today youth has become smart shoppers and use common sense while shopping online and just go ahead and enjoy their online shopping experience.

Young customer‘s satisfaction depends perceived performance and delivering value to their expectations.

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE

According to Ms. K. Sangeetha (2016), “E-Marketing has evolved as one of probably the most innovative mediums for business houses to market their product and services. It may be the art of identifying and understanding customer needs and creating solutions that delivers satisfaction for the customers”.

Gupta and Khincha (2015), discovered that cash on delivery (COD) and time saving facilities are significant factors that influence the online shopping behavior of customers.

The other factors like offered price, website information, quality of product and trust should also be added into the websites since people consider these variables as facilitator for their decision.

Upasana Kanchan , Naveen Kumar and Abhishek Gupta (2015), revealed in their article “A Study of Online purchase behaviour of Customers in India” online shopping is getting popularity among people of young generation. Higher income families and educated people are purchasing more through online websites. It also expressed that people are reluctant in doing online shopping due to privacy and security concerns. At the same time people are also resistant to change themselves due to technological barrier in making online purchase. Companies involved in e-business should focus on building trustworthy relationship between producers and customers.

Agarwal (2014), explored the factors in “A study of factors affecting online shopping behavior of consumers in Mumbai region”, those play significant role in shopping like time saving, risk free transaction, money saving, easy to choose and compare with other products and delivery of product on time.

Haq (2014) stated that the attitude of online shoppers is independent of their age and gender but not independent of their qualification and income. Four key factors website quality, customer service, commitment factor and security of online shopping show significant relationships with their online buying plan.

Prashant Singh (2014) in his article “Consumer’s Buying Behaviour towards Online Shopping: A case study of Flipkart.Com user’s in Lucknow City” revealed that future of e- retailers in India is very bright. E-retailers give consumers the best way to save money and time through purchasing online within the range of budget.

Monsuwe, et al. (2004), found in their study that younger consumers are more fascinated towards internet in order to collect information. Older consumers have lesser knowledge about the new technology and internet so internet is mentioned as a risky tool for older customers. There is another factor which effect the purchase through Internet by older consumers is that they also insist to try products before purchasing.

Sultan and Henrichs (2000), concluded in their study that the consumer’s readiness and preference for adopting the Internet as his or her shopping medium was also positively related to income, size of family, and innovativeness.

As per an ASSOCHAM-Resurgent joint study (2018), stated that online shopping is expected to achieve annualized growth of 115 percent this year, this is supported by fast- increasing data consumption and improvement in distribution channel, along with a number of offers and discounted presented by e-commerce companies.

Na Li & Ping Zhang (2002), found that men are more adopting in online shopping, Female shoppers are found to prefer using catalogs to shop at home. It is found once female showed preference in online shopping, they will shop more frequently online than their male counterparts.

Dr. V Vijayalakshmi & Dr. R. Lakshmi (2018), described that mostly youth and new generation (19-30 age group) is very much involved in online shopping because they are comfortable and know how to use technology and doing e- shopping.

2.1 Research Objectives

The main purpose of the research is to analysis the behavior of consumers while shopping online and to assess the impact of various factors on online purchase behaviour of customers in Indore.

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Following are the objectives of the research:-

• To study the purchasing behaviour of online shoppers.

• To Identify and assess the impact of various demographic factors which influence an individual customer’s buying decisions in an online shopping context.

2.2 Research Hypotheses

On the basis of above objectives, following null hypotheses were formulated:

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between gender and the category of goods purchased online.

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between the education qualification and online purchase frequency.

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between the income and the online purchase frequency.

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research is exploratory in nature to reach new conclusions with the help of the materials of study. Research is defined as the creation of new idea and the use of previous knowledge in a new manner to develop new concepts and ideas. The study focuses on the consumers buying behaviour in particular region i.e. Indore who used the internet for different purposes. The respondents shall be 150 in number. The self administered questionnaire shall be prepared and presented to the respondents. The respondents shall be made aware about the importance of the study. The questions shall be explained to the respondents.

4. METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION

The present research will use both primary and secondary data. The primary data will be collected through a self administered questionnaire by survey method. Secondary data will be collected through research papers, books, journal, newspapers, websites and other related informative sources.

5. RESEARCH DESIGN

A survey was conducted with target population as the youth of Indore, MP with a structured questionnaire. A total of 150 responses were collected. Non probability Convenience sampling methods, has been used in this research because of ease of accessibility of the sample. Statistical tools such as percentage analysis and chi square test for independence has been conducted for data analysis. The collected data was analyzed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS23.0). Cross Tabulation is the main tool that was considered for data analysis.

• Questionnaire formation: The data was collected through a self administered structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into two parts. The variables were recognized with the help of the literature review. The first part of the questionnaire included questions about demographic feature of the respondents.

The second part of the questionnaire included variables that may affect online purchase behaviour of individuals. The questionnaire was pre-tested among a group of academicians and students. The suggestions received from them were incorporated and the revised questionnaire was then floated for data collection.

5.1 Scope Of The Study

The proposed study, related with e-Commerce and I will try to investigate the factors affecting the buying decision making process in youth. The scope of the proposed work will be confined to consumers between the ages of 15 to 44 years. The respondents will be requested to fill the questionnaire. The study is restricted to Indore city of Madhya Pradesh.

The limitations of this study include its size and the limited amount of time that can be spent on it. The study can only consider limited aspects and analyze them to a certain degree of depth in this research.

6. DATA INTERPRETATION AND RESULTS

• Demographic Features:- Table:1 shown below reveal the demographic features of the respondents considered for the study. It can be observed that majority of the respondents were males (57.3%) with age between 25-34 years (56.7%). As far as

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marital status was concerned, majority of the respondents were single. The income of majority of respondents was found to be between Rs. 20000 and 50000 i.e.

39.3%.

Table: 1 Demographic Feature Variables and Levels N

=150 Percentage Age (Years)

15-24 26 17.3%

25-34 85 56.7%

35-44 39 26.0%

Gender

Male 86 57.3%

Female 64 42.7%

Marital Status

Single 92 61.3%

Married 58 38.7%

Education Qualification

Higher Secondary 1 00.7%

Graduation 79 52.6%

Post Graduation 54 36.0%

Above PG 16 10.7%

Family Income (Rs)

0-20000 52 34.7%

20000-50000 59 39.3%

50000-70000 22 14.7%

Above 70000 17 11.3%

Source : Primary Data

• Online Shopping Behaviour:- Table 2 shows the online shopping behaviour of the respondents. It can be observed that majority of the respondents do online shopping. The mostly purchased category of goods online is ‘Electronic goods’

followed by ‘Clothing’. Majority of the people prefer online shopping because of convenience factors like Time saving, Home delivery etc. However, the method of payment preferred by majority of the respondents is Cash on Delivery.

Table: 2 Online Purchase Behaviour of the respondents Variables and Levels N

=150 Percentage Online Shopping Frequency

Never Purchased online 23 15.3%

Once in a Month 35 23.3%

Once in a quarter 27 18.0%

Once in 6 month 40 26.7%

Once in a year 25 16.7%

Category of Goods purchased

Electronics goods 60 40.0%

Clothing 48 32.0%

Grocery 24 16.0%

Others 18 12.0%

Motivator Factors for Online Shoppers Convenience (Home delivery, Time

Saving etc.) 68 45.3%

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Plenty Variety of Products 27 18.0%

Return & Refund facility 34 22.7%

24 hours Availability 21 14.0%

Available of payment options

Cash On Delivery 79 52.7%

UPI App 37 24.7%

Debit Card/Credit Card 22 14.7%

Internet Banking 12 08.0%

Source : Primary Data 7. RESULTS

Testing of Hypothesis 1:

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between gender and the category of goods purchased online.

Table: 3 Cross tabulation between Gender and Category of Goods Purchased

Category of Goods Purchased

Total Electronic

Goods Clothin

g Books Others Gende

r MALE 33 26 16 11 86

FEMALE 27 22 8 7 64

Total 60 48 24 18 150

Source: Primary data

Table: 4 Chi-Square Tests

Value df

Asymptotic Significance (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 1.290^a 3 .732

Likelihood Ratio 1.311 3 .726

Linear-by-Linear

Association .651 1 .420

Number of Valid Cases 150

a. 0 cells (0.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 7.68.

Now we can observe chi square Table 4, statistic value (x² = 1.290), our pre determined alpha level of significance (0.05), at degrees of freedom (df =3). Entering the Chi square distribution table with 3 degree of freedom and reading along the row we find the value of x²=7.815. The corresponding probability is greater than the conventionally accepted significance level of 0.05 or 5%, so the null hypothesis that the two distributions are the same is accepted. In other words, there is no significance relation between Gender and Category of Goods Purchased.

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between the education qualification and online purchase frequency.

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Table: 5 Cross tabulation between Education Qualification and Frequency of Purchase

Value df

Asymptotic Significance (2- sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 10.897^a 12 .538 Likelihood Ratio 9.314 12 .676 Linear-by-Linear

Association 2.819 1 .093

N of Valid Cases 150

a. 10 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is .15.

Now we can observe chi square Table 6, statistic value (x² = 10.897), our pre determined alpha level of significance (0.05), at degrees of freedom (df =12). Entering the Chi square distribution table with 12 degree of freedom and reading along the row we find the value of x²=21.026. The corresponding probability is greater than the conventionally accepted significance level of 0.05 or 5%, so the null hypothesis that the two distributions are the same is accepted. In other words, there is no significance relation between Education Qualification and Frequency of Purchase.

• H0: There is a no significant relationship between the income and the online purchase frequency.

Table: 7 Cross tabulation between Family Income and Frequency of Purchase Frequency of Purchase

Total Never

Purchase

d online Once in

Month Once in Quarter

Once in

a 6

Month Once in a Year Family

Income (in Rs)

0-20000 7 10 7 16 12 52

20000-50000 8 13 9 20 9 59

50000-70000 2 7 8 2 3 22

Above 70000 6 5 3 2 1 17

Total 23 35 27 40 25 150

Value df

Asymptotic Significance (2-sided) Pearson Chi-Square 19.657^a 12 .074

Likelihood Ratio 19.038 12 .088

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Linear-by-Linear

Association 8.066 1 .005

N of Valid Cases 150

a. 8 cells (40.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 2.61.

Now we can observe chi square Table 8, statistic value (x² = 19.657), our pre determined alpha level of significance (0.05), at degrees of freedom (df =12). Entering the Chi square distribution table with 12 degree of freedom and reading along the row we find the value of x²=21.026. The corresponding probability is greater than the conventionally accepted significance level of 0.05 or 5%, so the null hypothesis that the two distributions are the same is accepted. In other words, there is no significance relation between Family Income and Frequency of Purchase.

8. CONCLUSION

It can be concluded on the basis of study that online shopping is gaining popularity among people of young of Indore. Irrespective of Gender, Income and education level people are use to go e-commerce websites/apps and make purchase online. There are several factors such as Home delivery, Time saving, Varity of products, Refund and Return policy etc. which affect buying behaviour of online buyers. So the e-Commerce company must look after these factors to be successful and expand their business. Finding of the study is also shows that online shopping is growing in positive manner among youth of Indore.

REFERENCES

1. Ms. K. Sangeetha, (E-Marketing), Paripex-Indian Journal Of Research, Vol: 5, Issue : 1 January 2016 2. Gupta, D. K., & Khincha, P. K. (2015). Factors Influencing Online Shopping Behavior of Customers: An

Empirical Study. Common Wealth Journal of Commerce & Management Research, 2(7), pp. 39-50.

3. Upasan Kanchan(2015), A study of online purchase behavior of Consumers in India, ICTACT Journal of management Studies, ISSN 2395, Vol-01,Issue-03.

4. Aggarwal, (2014), “A study on growth of Online Shopping in India”, International Journal of in Multidisciplinary and Academic Research (SSIJMAR) Vol. 3, No. 4, August-September (ISSN 2278 – 5973).

5. Prashant Singh 2014. Consumers buying behavior towards online shopping, ABHINAV-National Journal of Research in Commerce and Management., ISSN-2277-1166,Vol –III

6. Monsuwe, P., T., Dellaert, C., G., B., Ruyter, K. (2004), 'What drives consumers to shop online? A literature review', International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 15(1), pp.102-121.

7. Sultan, F., Henrichs, R.B., "Consumer preferences for Internet services over time: initial explorations", The Journal of Consumer Marketing, 17(5), pp. 386-403, 2000.

8. Na li and ping zhang (2002) Syracuse university consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior: an assessment of research: an eighth Americas conference on information systems pp. 508-517, 2002.

9. Dr.V Vijayalakshmi & Dr.R.Lakshmi (2018), Recent Trends in Consumers Online Buying Behavior in Chennai. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics Volume 119 No. 7 2018, 12111216 ISSN: 1311-8080 (printed version); ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)

10. URL: http://www.ijpam.eu Special Issue