A Study on Factors Limiting Online Shopping Behaviour of Consumers

A study on factors limiting online
shopping behaviour of consumers
Bindia Daroch, Gitika Nagrath and Ashutosh Gupta
Department of Commerce and Business Management,
DAV University, Jalandhar, India
Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to investigate consumer behaviour towards online shopping, which further
examines various factors limiting consumers for online shopping behaviour. The purpose of the research was
to find out the problems that consumers face during their shopping through online stores.
Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative research method was adopted for this research in
which a survey was conducted among the users of online shopping sites.
Findings – As per the results total six factors came out from the study that restrains consumers to buy from
online sites – fear of bank transaction and faith, traditional shopping more convenient than online shopping,
reputation and services provided, experience, insecurity and insufficient product information and lack of
trust.
Research limitations/implications – This study is beneficial for e-tailers involved in e-commerce
activities that may be customer-to-customer or customer-to-the business. Managerial implications are
suggested for improving marketing strategies for generating consumer trust in online shopping.
Originality/value – In contrast to previous research, this study aims to focus on identifying those factors
that restrict consumers from online shopping.
Keywords Consumers, Factors, Online shopping
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Today, people are living in the digital environment. Earlier, internet was used as the source
for information sharing, but now life is somewhat impossible without it. Everything is
linked with the World Wide Web, whether it is business, social interaction or shopping.
Moreover, the changed lifestyle of individuals has changed their way of doing things from
traditional to the digital way in which shopping is also being shifted to online shopping.
Online shopping is the process of purchasing goods directly from a seller without any
intermediary, or it can be referred to as the activity of buying and selling goods over the
internet. Online shopping deals provide the customer with a variety of products and
services, wherein customers can compare them with deals of other intermediaries also and
choose one of the best deals for them (Sivanesan, 2017).
As per Statista-The Statistics Portal, the digital population worldwide as of April 2020 is
almost 4.57 billion people who are active internet users, and 3.81 billion are social media
© Bindia Daroch, Gitika Nagrath and Ashutosh Gupta. Published in Rajagiri Management Journal.
Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative
works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to
the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://
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Online
shopping
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39
Received 15 July 2020
Revised 27 October 2020
Accepted 25 November 2020
Rajagiri Management Journal
Vol. 15 No. 1, 2021
pp. 39-52
Emerald Publishing Limited
e-ISSN: 2633-0091
p-ISSN: 0972-9968
DOI 10.1108/RAMJ-07-2020-0038
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2633-0091.htm

users. In terms of internet usage, China, India and the USA are ahead of all other countries
(Clement, 2020).
The number of consumers buying online and the amount of time people spend online has
risen (Monsuwe et al., 2004). It has become more popular among customers to buy online, as it
is handier and time-saving (Huseynov and Yildirim, 2016; Mittal, 2013). Convenience, fun and
quickness are the prominent factors that have increased the consumer’s interest in online
shopping (Lennon et al., 2008). Moreover, busy lifestyles and long working hours also make
online shopping a convenient and time-saving solution over traditional shopping. Consumers
have the comfort of shopping from home, reduced traveling time and cost and easy payment
(Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015). Furthermore, price comparisons can be easily done while
shopping through online mode (Aziz and Wahid, 2018; Martin et al., 2015). According to
another study, the main influencing factors for online shopping are availability, low prices,
promotions, comparisons, customer service, user friendly, time and variety to choose from
(Jadhav and Khanna, 2016). Moreover, website design and features also encourage shoppers
to shop on a particular website that excite them to make the purchase.
Online retailers have started giving plenty of offers that have increased the online traffic
to much extent. Regularly online giants like Amazon, Flipkart, AliExpress, etc. are
advertising huge discounts and offers that are luring a large number of customers to shop
from their websites. Companies like Nykaa, MakeMyTrip, Snapdeal, Jabong, etc. are
offering attractive promotional deals that are enticing the customers.
Despite so many advantages, some customers may feel online shopping risky and not
trustworthy. The research proposed that there is a strong relationship between trust and
loyalty, and most often, customers trust brands far more than a retailer selling that brand
(Bilgihan, 2016; Chaturvedi et al., 2016). In the case of online shopping, there is no face-to-
face interaction between seller and buyer, which makes it non-socialize, and the buyer is
sometimes unable to develop the trust (George et al., 2015). Trust in the e-commerce retailer
is crucial to convert potential customer to actual customer. However, the internet provides
unlimited products and services, but along with those unlimited services, there is perceived
risk in digital shopping such as mobile application shopping, catalogue or mail order
(Tsiakis, 2012; Forsythe et al., 2006; Aziz and Wahid, 2018).
Literature review
A marketer has to look for different approaches to sell their products and in the current
scenario, e-commerce has become the popular way of selling the goods. Whether it is durable
or non-durable, everything is available from A to Z on websites. Some websites are
specifically designed for specific product categories only, and some are selling everything.
The prominent factors like detailed information, comfort and relaxed shopping, less time
consumption and easy price comparison influence consumers towards online shopping
(Agift et al., 2014). Furthermore, factors like variety, quick service and discounted prices,
feedback from previous customers make customers prefer online shopping over traditional
shopping (Jayasubramanian et al., 2015). It is more preferred by youth, as during festival
and holiday season online retailers give ample offers and discounts, which increases the
online traffic to a great extent (Karthikeyan, 2016). Moreover, services like free shipping,
cash on delivery, exchange and returns are also luring customers towards online purchases.
More and more people are preferring online shopping over traditional shopping because
of their ease and comfort. A customer may have both positive and negative experiences
while using an online medium for their purchase. Some of the past studies have shown that
although there are so many benefits still some customers do not prefer online as their basic
medium of shopping.
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While making online purchase, customers cannot see, touch, feel, smell or try the
products that they want to purchase (Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011; Al-Debei et al.,
2015), due to which product is difficult to examine, and it becomes hard for customers to
make purchase decision. In addition, some products are required to be tried like apparels
and shoes, but in case of online shopping, it is not possible to examine and feel the goods and
assess its quality before making a purchase due to which customers are hesitant to buy
(Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011; Comegys et al., 2009). Alam and Elaasi (2016) in their
study found product quality is the main factor, which worries consumer to make online
purchase. Moreover, some customers have reported fake products and imitated items in
their delivered orders (Jun and Jaafar, 2011). A low quality of merchandise never generates
consumer trust on online vendor. A consumer’s lack of trust on the online vendor is the most
common reason to avoid e-commerce transactions (Lee and Turban, 2001). Fear of online
theft and non-reliability is another reason to escape from online shopping (Karthikeyan,
2016). Likewise, there is a risk of incorrect information on the website, which may lead to a
wrong purchase, or in some cases, the information is incomplete for the customer to make a
purchase decision (Liu and Guo, 2008). Moreover, in some cases, the return and exchange
policies are also not clear on the website. According to Wei et al. (2010), the reliability and
credibility of e-retailer have direct impact on consumer decision with regards to online
shopping.
Limbu et al. (2011) revealed that when it comes to online retailers, some websites provide
very little information about their companies and sellers, due to which consumers feel
insecure to purchase from these sites. According to other research, consumers are hesitant,
due to scams and feel anxious to share their personal information with online vendors
(Miyazaki and Fernandez, 2001; Limbu et al., 2011). Online buyers expect websites to
provide secure payment and maintain privacy. Consumers avoid online purchases because
of the various risks involved with it and do not find internet shopping secured (Cheung and
Lee, 2003; George et al., 2015; Banerjee et al., 2010). Consumers perceive the internet as an
unsecured channel to share their personal information like emails, phone and mailing
address, debit card or credit card numbers, etc. because of the possibility of misuse of that
information by other vendors or any other person (Lim and Yazdanifard, 2014; Kumar, 2016;
Alam and Yasin, 2010; Nazir et al., 2012). Some sites make it vital and important to share
personal details of shoppers before shopping, due to which people abandon their shopping
carts (Yazdanifard and Godwin, 2011). About 75% of online shoppers leave their shopping
carts before they make their final decision to purchase or sometimes just before making the
payments (Cho et al., 2006; Gong et al., 2013).
Moreover, some of the customers who have used online shopping confronted with issues
like damaged products and fake deliveries, delivery problems or products not received
(Karthikeyan, 2016; Kuriachan, 2014). Sometimes consumers face problems while making
the return or exchange the product that they have purchased from online vendors (Liang
and Lai, 2002), as some sites gave an option of picking from where it was delivered, but
some online retailers do not give such services to consumer and consumer him/herself has to
courier the product for return or exchange, which becomes inopportune. Furthermore,
shoppers had also faced issues with unnecessary delays (Muthumani et al., 2017).
Sometimes, slow websites, improper navigations or fear of viruses may drop the customer’s
willingness to purchase from online stores (Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011). As per an
empirical study done by Liang and Lai (2002), design of the e-store or website navigation
has an impact on the purchase decision of the consumer. An online shopping experience that
a consumer may have and consumer skills that consumers may use while purchasing such
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as website knowledge, product knowledge or functioning of online shopping influences
consumer behaviour (Laudon and Traver, 2009).
From the various findings and viewpoints of the previous researchers, the present study
identifies the complications online shoppers face during online transactions, as shown in
Figure 1. Consumers do not have faith, and there is lack of confidence on online retailers due
to incomplete information on website related to product and service, which they wish to
purchase. Buyers are hesitant due to fear of online theft of their personal and financial
information, which makes them feel there will be insecure transaction and uncertain errors
may occur while making online payment. Some shoppers are reluctant due to the little
internet knowledge. Furthermore, as per the study done by Nikhashem et al. (2011),
consumers unwilling to use internet for their shopping prefer traditional mode of shopping,
as it gives roaming experience and involves outgoing activity.
Several studies have been conducted earlier that identify the factors influencing
consumer towards online shopping but few have concluded the factors that restricts the
consumers from online shopping. The current study is concerned with the factors that may
lead to hesitation by the customer to purchase from e-retailers. This knowledge will be
useful for online retailers to develop customer driven strategies and to add more value
product and services and further will change their ways of promoting and advertising the
goods and enhance services for customers.
Research methodology
This study aimed to find out the problems that are generally faced by a customer during
online purchase and the relevant factors due to which customers do not prefer online
shopping. Descriptive research design has been used for the study. Descriptive research
studies are those that are concerned with describing the characteristics of a particular
individual or group. This study targets the population drawn from customers who have
Figure 1.
Conceptual
framework of the
study
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