Determinants of purchase intention towards online retailing an empirical investigation of apparel industry

Abstract

After the growth and advancement in e-commerce, online shopping has gained significance. According to recent scenario, it is noted that various antecedents has major impact upon online purchase intentions of customers. Thus, the specific study has been conducted to know the impact of determinants upon online purchase intentions with regard to apparel industry. The antecedents taken were electronic-trust, electronic -loyalty, electronic -satisfaction, interpersonal influences, online service quality, online hedonic experiences, influence of social media and demographic variables and impact of these factors has been studied with regard to online purchase of apparel products. This study also defines the difference in the preferences between males and females followed by their shopping motives. Data was collected through obtaining 500 desirable questionnaires from the states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Rajasthan and the union territories Chandigarh and Delhi. For the inferential factor analysis was done to measure the variance between the variables.KMO Bartlett test was applied to test the adequacy of the data whereas Principal Component Analysis determined the significance of independent variables upon the dependant variable. For confirmatory analysis structural equation modeling technique was applied to know the relationship between the independent variables. Result revealed that above antecedents had a positive impact upon online customer purchase intention of apparel products. In the gender differentiation study it was also noted that female buyers were more fashion conscious whereas male buyers were comfort seekers. Therefore, results of the study will help the e-retailers and website holders to focus on these determinants to maximize their apparel sales. These determinants will also help in shifting the buying preferences of people from traditional mode of shopping to online mode. E-retailers need to work upon building trust and confidence level among the buyers to increase the sales of apparel products.