Online Shopping Behavior and Trends

This assignment delves into the evolving landscape of online shopping, examining key factors driving consumer behavior. It explores how social media platforms influence purchasing decisions, alongside the impact of price competitiveness, product variety, and the convenience offered by online transactions. The research reveals the significant role social media plays in shaping consumer perceptions and purchase intentions, ultimately demonstrating the enduring popularity and convenience of online shopping.

Running Head: Consumer behavior
Consumer behavior
Survey analysis

Consumer behavior 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Online shopping is here to stay........................................................................................................1
Amazon is leading the charts...........................................................................................................2
Secure payments..............................................................................................................................2
Social media influence.....................................................................................................................2
Efficiency of online shopping..........................................................................................................3
Shopping motivation........................................................................................................................3
Selecting a retailer...........................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5
Appendices......................................................................................................................................6
Appendices 1................................................................................................................................6
Appendices 2................................................................................................................................6
Appendices 3................................................................................................................................7
Appendices 4................................................................................................................................7
Appendices 5................................................................................................................................8
Appendices 6................................................................................................................................8
Appendices 7................................................................................................................................9

Consumer behavior 2
Introduction
Consumer behavior is the study of how consumers of various products behave. It analyses what
motivates consumers to buy products and what are the factors that most deeply affect their
purchase. It is important by marketers to understand this behavior of consumers, identify patterns
and mold their offerings according to the same (Solomon, 2014). This helps brands in identifying
their products that are most liked and products that are not entirely well received by the
audience. Studying consumer behavior also helps brands analyze why are consumers buying
their products and what are the aspects of their products, channels or delivery that can be
modified to suit the public at large (Claiborne & Sirgy, 2015).
This report throws light on various aspects of the behaviors of an online shopping consumer. The
reason for selecting online shopper is to depict an increasing advent of this platform for
shopping. Secondly, this report aims to help marketers understand why people shop online, what
motivates them and how brands work upon improving their services. In order to enable this
research, a survey was conducted of participants who have recently indulged in online shopping.
They were all asked to answer 10 questions related to their shopping experience (Appendices 1).
At present a group of 23 people have filled the survey. It has been ensured that the people filling
out the survey come from varied backgrounds, age groups and gender. The answers given by
them and the patterns in the answers depicted the following:
Online shopping is here to stay
The survey conducted clearly evidenced that the interest of people in online shopping is here to
stay. 88.96% of the people preferred online shopping over offline shopping. There are various
reasons why people prefer online shopping. Most of the people use online shopping to buy
clothes and their daily grocery needs (Wu, Chen & Cheng, 2014). However some people also use
online shopping to buy furniture, shoes, books and bags. With the increasing speed and changing
lifestyles of people, online shopping is definitely the need of the hour (Lian & Yen, 2014). The
convenience of online shopping is much higher than offline shopping and the switch in this trend
is very clearly visible.

Consumer behavior 3
Amazon is leading the charts
One of the questions in the survey asked people about their most frequently used online retailers.
Over 60% of the people mentioned that Amazon.com was the retailer that they go to most often.
This could also be because of the large variety of stuff offered by the retailer. Most of the people
are truly satisfied with their online shopping experience with amazon. Amazon’s delivery is
timely and the sundry range of products offered add the desired cherry on the cake (Li, Zheng,
Wang, Sun & Fang, 2017).
Secure payments
Over 90% of the people feel completely secure while making online payments for their
shopping. The variety of options to pay online like debit or credit cards, netbanking, wallets and
cash on delivery also make it easier and more convenient for people to shop online. Even when
people wish to return the products they bought online, the refund for the same gets sent to the
users account within 3-15 business days. In this changing lifestyle, it is anyway difficult for
people to carry large amounts of cash and hence they prefer paying online for their shopping
needs (Roy & Venkateswaran, 2014). Thus this option of paying online comes handy and people
do not have to worry about having sufficient amount of cash at the time of delivery.
Social media influence
Out of the many factors that motivate people to shop online, the influence of social media is
particularly high (Hajli, 2014). Social media has been used by various marketers as a tool to
communicate with customers as well as market their products. Social media has become an
integral part of people’s lives. It is hence very important that the role played by social media is
used efficiently by marketers to ensure a higher sales of products.
Social media advertising is the recent advent in the marketing world. It has a major influence on
people and hence brands prefer to display their ads on various social media platforms like
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even Snapchat (Agnihotri, Dingus, Hu & Krush, 2016). The
relevancy of the ads on social media platforms are very high as the system uses the cookies
stored in the mobile or computer of the user and shows them the ads of the products they actually
need.

Consumer behavior 4
The power of social media is so immense that if a user has a particular complaint against a
particular brand or a shopping experience, they can resort to social media in order to express
their views. Due to the high reach of social media, brands are urged to take an action hence
leading to better customer service (Kaur, 2016). This influence of social media on people’s
shopping choices is rather intense and the marketers today are consistently doing their bit in
leveraging on this influence and marketing their products through these social media platforms
(Ashley & Tuten, 2015).
Efficiency of online shopping
Most of the user are entirely happy with their online shopping experience. They truly believe that
the platforms upon which users shop online are extremely efficient. Leading brands like
Amazon, Walmart, and Flipkart etc. offer a wide variety of products at much lesser prices as
compared to shopping offline. This is what makes the experience of shopping online really
efficient (Shahzad, 2015). The process of searching for desired goods, shortlisting their needs,
adding the shortlisted products to their shopping cart and placing an order is a simple to
understand and very convenient process.
Brands offer to save the address of the user in order to establish efficiency for future orders. The
online platforms also provide the user with an option to save their payment details which would
make the process of future shopping even easier. Online shopping comes with the convenience
of the product getting delivered at the doorstep of the user and also saves them the time of going
from shop to shop looking for the product they like (Nagra & Gopal, 2013).
Shopping motivation
There are many factors that influence people’s buying patterns and their shopping needs. These
factors may include lower prices, time saving ability, better variety and door step delivery. 60%
of the people feel that they prefer online shopping due to its high convenience and lower prices
offered by the brands. Over 86.96% of the people agreed that the offers and discounts available
online have a major role to play in influencing their shopping needs and patterns. People also
believe that shopping online saves a lot of time and in this fast paced world, such a convenient
shopping option motivates people to fulfill their shopping needs through online portals.

Consumer behavior 5
Selecting a retailer
In the process of shopping online as well, most people have their favorite retailers. They select
this retailers after considering various factors. These factors comprise of the brand name, the
prices offered by the retailer, the variety of products offered by the retailers, average customer
reviews for that particular retailer as well as the past record of timely delivery from the brand.
Over 52% of the people trust the brand name over and above everything else while selecting a
retailer to shop from. Which is why most users are loyal to retailers and once they have had a
good experience of shopping with a particular retailer, they prefer to shop from the same in the
future. Retailers also put efforts in retaining customers by offering customers customized offers,
deals and discounts. They target users on their social media profiles with products that they may
need at the moment. This is how retailers tend to build long term relationship with their
customers.
Conclusion
People’s shopping behavior and pattern has shifted to online platforms over the recent year. This
shift in their shopping habit has been dynamic and massive. A survey was conducted to
understand people’s shopping behavior. The survey consisted of 10 questions and a wide variety
of audience from different income groups and gender were asked to fill the survey. Their opinion
were then recorded and analyzed. The results of the survey clearly proved that online shopping is
here to stay. Most people have preferred Amazon as their most favorite website to shop from.
Their shopping patterns and needs are largely influenced by the social media which is why
marketers are now using that as a platform to publicize their products.
People’s shopping behavior is largely determined by the prices and the variety offered by various
brands. Most people feel secure making online payments. In fact they find the idea of shopping
online much more convenient than visiting various shops and then making a physical purchase.
Online shopping has provided people with immense amount of convenience and surely the idea
is here to stay.

Consumer behavior 6
References
Agnihotri, R., Dingus, R., Hu, M.Y. and Krush, M.T., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer
satisfaction in B2B sales. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, pp.172-180.
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Claiborne, C.B. and Sirgy, M.J., 2015. Self-image congruence as a model of consumer attitude
formation and behavior: A conceptual review and guide for future research. In Proceedings of
the 1990 academy of marketing science (AMS) annual conference (pp. 1-7). Springer, Cham.
Hajli, M.N., 2014. A study of the impact of social media on consumers. International Journal of
Market Research, 56(3), pp.387-404.
Kaur, G., 2016. Social Media Marketing. Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 4(7).
Li, Y., Zheng, N., Wang, H., Sun, K. and Fang, H., 2017, May. A measurement study on
Amazon wishlist and its privacy exposure. In Communications (ICC), 2017 IEEE International
Conference on (pp. 1-7). IEEE.
Lian, J.W. and Yen, D.C., 2014. Online shopping drivers and barriers for older adults: Age and
gender differences. Computers in Human Behavior, 37, pp.133-143.
Nagra, G. and Gopal, R., 2013. A study of Factors Affecting on Online Shopping Behavior of
Consumers. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 3(6), pp.1-4.
Roy, S. and Venkateswaran, P., 2014, March. Online payment system using steganography and
visual cryptography. In Electrical, Electronics and Computer Science (SCEECS), 2014 IEEE
Students' Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Shahzad, H., 2015. Online Shopping Behavior.

Consumer behavior 7
Solomon, M.R., 2014. Consumer behaviour: Buying, having, and being (Vol. 10). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Consumer behavior 8
Appendices
Appendices 1
Appendices 2

Consumer behavior 9
Appendices 3
Appendices 4

Consumer behavior 10
Appendices 5
Appendices 6

Consumer behavior 11
Appendices 7