ONLINE SHOPPING

Online Shopping: Consumer Behavior in Chester

Abstract

This paper examines the shopping and buying behavior of younger and older online shoppers in Chester as mediated by their attitudes toward internet shopping. Over 300 students of Chester and staff from Chester university completed a survey regarding their online shopping and buying experiences for 17 products.The results show that, while older online shoppers search for significantly fewer products than their younger counterparts, they actually purchase as much as younger consumers. Attitudinal factors explained more variance in online searching behavior. Age explained more variance in purchasing behavior if the consumer had first searched for the product online. The limitations of the present research are threefold. First, the sample was restricted to university faculty, staff and students of Chester. Second, a better measure of the hedonic motivation construct is needed. Third, additional independent measures such as income should be included to understand the additional demographic factors related to online purchase. Retailing managers can make use of the results as describing multifaceted nature of online shopping and buying behavior. Age differences (in both directions) were seen for many product categories. In addition, results indicate that how one measures online shopping impacts on one understands of age effects on internet shopping. Age was negatively correlated with online pre-purchase search but was positively correlated with online purchasing when pre-purchase search behavior was taken into account. The present study advances knowledge of the nature of the relationships among age, attitudes, and online shopping and buying behavior.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction4

Background4

Online Shopping Attitudes And Behavior in Chester4

Research Questions7

Rationale7

Chapter Two: Literature Review11

Online store attributes11

Consumer relational behavior in online shopping context13

Who will buy online?14

Extending TAM18

Beliefs about online shopping: Trust18

Beliefs about online shopping: Enjoyment19

Antecedents of beliefs: e-shopping quality21

E-shopping quality and trust/enjoyment24

Conceptual Foundation24

Product value25

Shopping value26

Critical differences between product value and shopping value29

The theory of planned behavior30

Attitude toward the traditional retailer31

Chapter Three: Methodology35

Research Method35

Sample35

Questionnaire design35

Chapter Four: Discussion38

Results39

Online shopping (both searching and purchase) by age39

Online shopping attitudes40

Online shopping attitudes and age as predictors of online shopping behavior41

Discussion42

Chapter Five: Conclusion47

Future Research49

Limitations of the Research50

References54

Chapter One: Introduction

Background

The internet has typically been described as a young man's medium in Chester. Young men have also been regarded as the typical profile of the early adopters of online shopping. However, as the internet has become more ubiquitous, the profile of the online shopper in Chester has come to resemble that of the general population (Stores, 2001). For example, in the year 2000 in Chester, women comprised almost 60 percent of the online shoppers. In a report by Jupiter Media Metrix, consumers age 50 and older now comprise 16 percent of new online shoppers in Chester and this number is expected to double by 2006 (Tedeschi, 2002).

The purpose of this research is to determine the relative impact of age and attitude towards shopping online in predicting the likelihood to shop and buy online. The first section of the introduction will present a review of the findings on shopping attitudes and motivations with particular focus on online ...