Consumer Perception and Level of Satisfaction regarding Online Shopping

Abstract

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks. Internet is the rapidest growing media during the past decade. Especially, online shopping is a rapidly growing e-commerce area. So, online shopping has become a trend where consumers are playing a crucial role. The increasing use of internet by the consumers in India provides an emerging prospect for online merchants. Although consumers continue to purchase from a physical store, consumers feel very convenient to shop online since it frees the customer from personally visiting the store. Internet shopping has its own advantages and it reduces the effort of travelling to a physical store. Decisions can be made from home at ease looking at various choices and prices can be easily compared with the competitor s products to arrive at a decision newlineThough there are many benefits of online shopping like time saving, access from everywhere, convenience, availability 24 hours a day, variety of products, various options available to compare products and brands. Beside the benefits of online shopping, there are various factors which if online retailers know, then they can further develop their marketing strategies to convert potential customers into active ones. newlineThe present study highlights the perception and attitude of consumers of three cities of Punjab viz. Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar towards online buying. Various demographic features like age, gender, marital status, annual income, education and occupation have been taken to study their impact on consumer perception and attitude. newlineRealizing the full potential of online shopping requires careful identification of the factors affecting online consumer behaviour. Keeping this in mind, the researcher studied various factors which motivate people to go for online buying and which factors stop them. newlineThe study compasses level of satisfaction of consumers towards online buying. newlineFor this, data is collected from 600 respondents using snowball sampling Various statistical tools were applied like Chi-Square test, T-Test, Factor analysis to analyze the data. newlineThe present study will enable the e-retailers to support their online customer better by developing suitable marketing strategy in order to attract and convert potential customer as an active customer by encouraging them in an efficient way to make a purchase decision. newline newline