FACTORS WHICH AFFECTS THE ONLINE SHOPPERS ATTITUDES TOWARDS ONLINE

SHOPPING
1. Introduction:
This research is about what are the factors which influence shoppers to shop online the online .The
variables which are selected for this purpose are Search engines, Auction web sites, online shopping
malls, convenience, prices ,brands, refund ,promotion ,and security.
E-commerce is buying and selling goods on the internet. Online shopping is a form of e-commerce
where people buy goods and services from different suppliers. There are many shops like E store, E
shops, E malls over the internet form where people can easily buy goods. On these shops the pictures of
goods are available and details about the goods are also given. To do the shopping over the internet
customers just need an internet access and debit/credit card. E commerce is gaining popularity day by
day. E commerce is very beneficial for the organizations. E-commerce allows companies to increase
their sales in domestic and foreign operations and also provides less costly opportunities to locate
operations strategically. E-commerce not only reduces communication costs, but also increases
flexibility in locating activities. Research point indicates that internet technology has led to an increase
in international trade (Freund and Weinhold, 2002, 2004).
Consumer attitudes are a composite of a consumers (1) beliefs about, (2) feelings about, (3) and
behavioral intentions toward some object--within the context of marketing, usually a brand or retail
store.
E commerce provides many benefits to customers. The customers can easily choose different products
from one site as it saves the time of customers because they dont walk here and there to find different
products. E-commerce also provides less costly products to its customers. Online shopping allows
consumers to buy faster, more alternatives and can order products and services with comparative lowest
price (Cuneyt & Gautam, 2004).
.2 Trend of E-commerce and consumer attitude in Pakistan:
The idea of e-commerce isnt new. However, keeping our countrys current position in mind, it is a
developing concept. We are still using the same old way of buying things - going to the market, visiting
shops, bargaining, and coming home with the product. This trend is rapidly changing; customers and
businesses are switching to e-commerce, because it provides a brand new experience of buying and
selling
The main reason that why e commerce is not flourishing in Pakistan is that only 28% of the population
has the access of internet. Similarly the people are not literate they dont know how to do shopping
online.
1.3 Problem statement:
This study would go for opted preferring factors related to online shoppers attitude because that there is
need of convenience to add value to our lives .As observed that online shopper do alienate himself with
the use of digital media. This proposed research goes on to evaluate the factors which would affect the

online shoppers attitude. The variables like Search engines, Auction web sites, online shopping malls,
convince, prices, brands, refund, promotion, and security do have an important role to play in shaping
up the shoppers attitude towards online shopping. As it is often deemed as that would not prefer online
shopping.
Purpose of the research:
The main purpose of this study is:

To understand the factors that may influence consumers attitude and behaviors towards online
shopping.
To search the impact of online shopping
To search what are the benefits of online shopping.
To give proper recommendations that how consumers get satisfaction.

2. Research Questions:

What would be the impact of search engine in shaping up shoppers attitude towards online
shopping?

Does the online shopping malls influence shoppers attitude to shop online?

Would adding a convenience factor would provide the ultimate ease to online shoppers?

What kind of role Price is to pay while getting the online shoppers to shop?

Does the security factor have its impact on shopper attitude to get shopper to buy online?

Would having more brand sites be a good booster for the online shoppers to shop online?

Would fair refund policy be a remedy to the shoppers in shaping their attitudes to shop online?

Does the use of Auction websites providing cheap things are going to influence the online
shopper attitude?
3. Literature review:
ECommerce generally refers to the use of the internet for buying and selling activities including
advertising. Through e-commerce cost of goods sold can be saved and similarly the relationship
between customers and sellers also enhances.
As it is stated E-commerce is a tool for reducing administrative costs and cycle time, streaming
business processes, and improving relationships with both business partners and customers (Charles,
1998).The competition among the companies is also increasing day by day due to the advancement in
technology, more innovated products and the services that the companies are providing to consumers.
Due to this healthier competition the customers are shifting towards the online shopping because they
can easily find and get the desired goods.

There has been a marked increase in the number of consumers who purchase over the Internet, as well
as an increase in sales worldwide conducted via electronic commerce. Innovation and electronic
commerce relationships have resulted in tremendous changes in market competition among various
industries (Blosch, 2000; Hamid & Kassim, 2004)
The online shopping attitude depends on how quickly and easily a customer can get his product.it also
depends on the perception of the customer that how he chooses his products.
Attitudes are reflected to customers steadily favorable or unfavorable assessments, feelings, and
inclinations towards object or idea (Kotler & Armstrong, 1997) .
Factors which affects the online shoppers attitudes:
There are many factors which affects the online shoppers attitudes towards the online shopping. The
main 9 factors are given below:
3.1 Search engines:
It is one of the main factors that affect consumer attitude towards online shopping. Search engine is the
software that is used to find information on the World Wide Web. The better the search engine the
better the information a customer can get. So the retailers should make those kind websites which
supports the best search engines.
As it is stated electronic retailers should make sure Website quality can satisfy and serve the particular
search engines demands (Haig, 2001).
3.2 Auction websites:
Another factor that affect the online consumer attitude is auction website. These are the sites where
people bid to get different products. At these sites people can get products at very low price.
Generally auction websites provide cheap price to appeal to consumers (Haig, 2001). Lui, Wang and
Fei (2003) stated that auction websites persuade and attract the interested shoppers together to evaluate
product value.
3.3 Online Shopping Malls:
The third factor which affects the online consumer attitude is online shopping mall These are just like
physical shopping malls where people can find many products at one place. These are not for just
specific products. Customers can get the desired goods without physically visiting the malls. These
shopping malls also provide marketing opportunities to many retailers as well.
Online shopping malls provided an unprecedented chance for e-retailers to reach a global customer
base and selling various kinds of consumer products (Frendo, 1999). The online shopping malls and
Websites were sponsors by many e-retailers that utilized information generated in order to explore more
marketing opportunities (Dignum, 2002).
3.4 Conviences:

Convence is another main factor which affect the online consumers attitudes towards online shopping
because now people dont have the time to visit the Markets physically. Now a days people want to buy
goods from their homes. Internet is providing this facility to people.
The main reason that motivated consumers to shop online was conveniences (Swaminathan et al.,
1999). Convenient access to product information could facilitate and help shoppers making an online
purchases decision (Loshe & Spiller, 1999). Convenience and saved time were offered by online
shopping which were two motivating factors for online purchases (Lee, 2002).
3.5 Price:
The most important factor in this research is price. People always prefer to buy goods
from that
place where they find goods at low price. Price is the most important factor that determines the sales
and purchase of a good. However, Li et al. (1999) argued that often online shoppers were not pricesensitive, cause of these consumers price comparisons among different e-retailers on each product was
time consuming and the price difference was very small. But now a days price is the most important
factor.Price was a critical factor for customer on online shopping (Heim and Sinha, 2001).
3.6 Brands:
Brand can be defined as the name, design, quality or symbol related to one product. It is another
important factor which affects the consumers attitude towards online shopping. People are greatly
attached with their brands. Most of the customers dont have the access to the brand shop because it
either located at different city or different country. So through internet people now have the access to
buy their favorite brands product? Often, brand was referred to the sellers reputation and consumer
loyalty in associated with the seller (Haig, 2001). E-retailers should strengthen shopper trust and
believe by buying famous Website such as google.com to promote the online purchase rate (Wu,2002).
3.7 Refund
Refund is to pay back the money or exchange the good of the buyer if the buyer has bought a faulty
product. This is another important factor. By providing this facility the e-retailers can attract many
customers.
E-retailers should have refund policies to convince online consumers that they easily return products
and get refunds if they are not satisfied, or exchange products for free within a reasonable timeframe
(Bishop, 1998).
Online consumers demanded that e-retailers should provide an unconditional refund policy if the online
costumer were not satisfied with the product (Lee, 2002).
3.8Promotion:
E-retailers might use promotions with time limits to encourage consumers to shop on Website (Haig,
2001).Promotion is an important factor which affects the attitude of customers. Promotions can
encourage people to buy different products. When people see the advertisement of products at different
sites this creates a strong intention among the people to buy different products. Thats why e-retailers

should design AIDA (attractive .interest, desire and action) advertisement to increase their sales. In the
past there was not much room for e.retailers to promote their products but now days they can easily
promote their products online.Promotional activates for online products or services were not successful
for e-retailers because there was not effective ways to inform consumers of promotional activities
(Lohse & Spiller, 1999).
3.9 Security:
Security is the last but not the least factor that affect the customers attitude towards the online
shopping. Most of the customers dont buy goods online because of the security risk. People personal
information can easily be hacked by the hackers.
The primary reason indicated of the most buyers who didnt shop online cause of afraid to reveal
personal credit card information to retailers or over the internet (Rao, 2000).
E retailers should provide secure acces to online shoppers to buy goods otherewise they will start
loosing their customers.
Retail e-commerce would fail if Internet users feel on lacking a great degree of confidence (Kesh et al.,
2002)
4. Hypothesis:
H1: If Security factor is to be secured, there would be possible change in the behavior of online
shoppers to shop online.
H2: If fair Refund is going to be adopted, then it would seemingly leave a positive impact while to act
as an online shopper.
H3: If price gets decreased, there would be bit flexibility in the attitudes of shoppers.
H4: The number of increasing auctions sites would play a positive impact on shoppers.
H5: The use of search engine for online shopping is positive linked with the shoppers attitude.
H6: The number of electronic malls on internet is going to leave positive impacts on shoppers

5. Methodology: