What Makes Consumers Shop From The Internet?

What Makes Consumers Shop From The Internet?

Introduction

Hoffman and Novak are said to be the pioneers to give out a proposal to develop a conceptual framework for the potential commercial development of the internet in 1996. It was them who analyzed that the interactive nature of the internet can give customers the access to a whole new world where their activities will intensify with time. Jarvenpaa and Todd in 1997 gave evidence based on empirical data that factors such the product and its personality perceived in terms of perception along with the online shopping experience, online customer service and perceived risk of consumers will have a huge impact on the decision making. Numerous researches have been conducted on buying behavior or the decision making process of the consumers later researchers moved on to conducting researches related to the innovative adoption process of consumers. They were also able to identify that the consumer's innovativeness is increasingly positively correlated to compatibility with needs, shopping experience along with credibility of financial transaction.

It was further analyzed that the consumer adoption of the internet as a medium occurs amidst their decision making process. At a certain point in the decision making process a consumer decides whether one should resort to the internet and whether it should be a partial source of shopping medium or full time. The universal consumer decision making process of any consumer be it those resorting to traditional mode or be it those resorting to online source consist of the following steps:

These steps mentioned above can be conducted via the internet as well. In the step associated with problem recognition the internet can be termed as an external stimulus to make them realize that there is a certain need that is unmet and the consumer becomes aware about it. It is via surfing the internet that the consumer comes across certain banners, advertisements or pop ups which have certain products that do not have a presence in the tangible retail stores.

Process of Online Buying Process

The concept of online shopping behavior which is also termed as the online buying behavior or Internet shopping constitutes the purchasing or buying of products or services through internet. The process of buying online is similar to the process of traditional buying behavior (Liang and Lai 2000). In the basic online shopping process, the consumers have an urge or identify a need with respect to a product or a service and then they log on to the internet and start searching for the need that is felt. Since the internet is said to be vast and deep there are a lot of options that pop up. The consumer evaluates each and every alternative and then filters out one that best suits their criteria and satisfies their felt need. Soon after which an online transaction takes place and after sales services are provided in varying degrees. The concept of online shopping attitude constitutes the state of consumer's psychology on the basis of purchases ...