Online Consumer’s Behaviour:

The boom of internet technologies and digital marketing has enabled several new and old businesses to develop their online presence and to sale products and services online. Though, a business may develop an excellent online store, it may not be successful if it is not aligned with their buyer’s preferences. An online business may be doing all necessary efforts to sell products and services online but it would eventually go out of business if it does not understand how its consumers act in web space. It is not so simple that an online buyer would come to business website, search a product, like the product, and eventually buy the product. It is not that simple. It is very important to understand online consumer’s behaviour to be a successful online seller.

Internet has changed the way buyers are purchasing products these days. With ever evolving internet commerce, consumers’ buying styles are also changing. With the development of newer technologies, consumers’ learning curve is also changing. Though volume of e-commerce is increasing every day with increasing online buying habits of more people, there are many consumers who are still reluctant to purchase through online channels. There are many factors which affect online consumer’s actions. These factors explain why some consumers prefer to buy online products and services while other consumers abstain from entering these relatively new avenues. Some of the factors that affect online buyer’s behaviour are as follows.

• Online channel characteristics/ knowledge
• Online shopping exposure
• Buyer’s Demographics
• Pricing Preferences

The three main characteristics which distinguish a marketing channel from another are communication, distribution, and accessibility. A marketing channel would perform better than other on the basis of these three main characteristics. Online consumers believe that internet provides better services in terms of said qualities to do transactions as compared to purchases through non-online channels. However, it should be noted that online purchasing requires a device that can be connected to internet as well as knowledge of internet to complete an online transaction. The consumers who have resources as well as knowledge and skills in web browsing would be more comfortable in purchasing online as compared to consumers who lack such skills and resources. It can be easily said that one who has more web channel knowledge and skills is more likely to do online purchases. Therefore, web channel knowledge and skills would impact the decision as well as frequency of purchasing on internet. Moreover, frequent online purchasers would be more comfortable and knowledgeable than occasional online purchasers. The following picture shows different factors which influence online consumer’s behavior.

Even before the convenience of online shopping, consumers were used to do shopping through printed catalogues and TV shopping channels. Convenience and recreation are two major aspects of non-store or home based buying. Young, recreational, economical, low-income, and adventurist are some characteristics of these kinds of buyers. These day similar shoppers are also attracted by online shopping. In addition, online shopping is also preferred by some web based buyers over in-store shopping because of the time savings and convenience it brings. One of the major arguments in-store buyers give that in stores and shopping malls they can see, feel, touch, and try the products they want to buy before they pay for the products. So, those shoppers who want to physically check the product before buying would be less likely to buy online since online buying does not provide physically touching the product experience on the internet. On the other hand, buyers who do not care for experiencing the product before buying and prefer convenience would be more inclined to purchase online. Similarly, buyers who make online purchases would become more convenient toward future online purchasing than those who do not purchase online.

These characteristics are consistent with existing situation of e-commerce. Internet has proved its power to spread different kinds of information. Today, online stores provide large amount of searchable information about products. Online consumers can find various characteristics of products such as size, color, and prices using search function. Even consumers are able to conduct search to compare products’ features available in different online stores. Though online buyers can also experience certain digital products online such as they can play a part of a music track or download a trial version of a software program, today's online stores still have a limited capacity for consumers to experience tangible products online.

It is evident that existing online stores have some limitations as compared to the conventional stores. For example, web based stores present the product information in a way that reduces the impact of brand quality. The display screen of device provides a list of brand names with features like flavors, sizes, and prices. Online buyers do not see the brand product packages. As a result brand awareness is lost. Moreover, most of online shopping stores allow buyers to go directly to specific product categories to make their selections which lacks buyer looking at other products on the way to buying any specific product. Due to this online space shoppers make relatively fewer purchases or only those products which they actually want to buy.

The demographics of online buyers are also related to their buying behaviour online.  Since education is highly correlated with a person’s income as well as predicts the internet knowledge and skills, it can be said that education is a major factor that affects a person’s online buying behavior. It is also not difficult to say that young internet users spend more time on the web as compared to the older users. Similarly, young users have more skills and knowledge about the newer web based technologies than the older users. Therefore, buyers who are more educated are more likely to purchase online as compared to the buyers who are less educated, and frequent online buyers are even better educated than less frequent online buyers.

Some studies have found out that male users of internet do more of online purchasing than female user of internet, and they are more frequent online buyers as compared to females. Moreover, online consumers have higher incomes as compared to in-store buyers and they buy more frequently than in-store buyers.

In summary, whether buyers purchase online and how frequently they buy online relates to some extent of their channel skill, knowledge, and views about channel utilities. Buyers’ online buying behavior is also influenced by shopping convenience as well as shopping experience. Online buying convenience preference would have a positive impact on their future online buying endeavours; however an experience preference would have a negative effect on future tries. Similarly, recreational and economic preferences would have minimal impact on consumers’ online buying behavior since generally recreational buyers spend more and are not money savers. Also, gender, income, and education would also predict and impact the level of web channel skills, knowledge, and indirectly influence online buying behavior.

References:

Birchall, C. (n.d.). Understanding online consumer behaviour – the different online shopper personality types. In Kerching retail. Retrieved November 28, 2015, from http://www.kerchingretail.com/understanding-online-consumer-behaviour-the-different-online-shopper-personality-types

Grabowski, P. (May 30, 2014). Key factors influencing online consumer behavior – backed by research. In Ecommerce insiders. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from http://ecommerceinsiders.com/key-factors-influencing-online-consumer-behaviour-backed-research-1981/

Li, J. (May 10, 2013). Study: Online shopping behavior in the digital era. In iAcquire. Retrieved November 29, 2015, from http://www.iacquire.com/blog/study-online-shopping-behavior-in-the-digital-era

Roberts, M.L., Zahay, D. (2013), Internet marketing: Integrating online and offline strategies (3rd ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

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Shazia Karrar