Socio Cultural Influences on Online Shopping Behaviour

Purpose: The study had been carried out with the aim to find out the influence of Customers;’ Socio Cultural Factors on their Online Shopping Behaviour. The findings of the study would be very fruitful to company owners who sell their products online by making them aware about customers’ online shopping behaviour in respect to their social and cultural factors. Methodology: The study is quantitative and descriptive in nature, based on primary data collected from the various people of Saudi Arabia and Non-Saudi nationals. A structured close ended questionnaire has been used in this study as research instrument based on 5-point Likert Scale from 5 to 1. Total 400 respondents had been participated in the present research work. Analysis has been made with the help of various statistical tools and techniques i.e. Factor Analysis, Mean and Standard Deviation. Findings: Present study concludes that Customers’ Socio-Cultural Factors has a significant influence on Online Shopping Behaviour. Total three factors captioned Social Factors, Cultural factors and Social Class with 4, 8 and 5 variables respectively had been extracted with a high degree of reliability. Among all these three factors Cultural Factors and Social Class with three variables each has a significant influence on online shopping behaviour of customers. Rest of the findings has been discussed in the research paper. Study Limitations: Present Study had been carried out in Saudi Arabia and the analysis results of this study could not be inferred in other parts of the world. Corresponding author: Zaid Ahmad Ansari Email addresses for corresponding author: drzaidansari@gmail.com First submission received: 2nd February 2018 Revised submission received: 14th May 2018 Accepted: 22nd May 2018 Introduction Internet influenced every aspects of life across the globe including the method of conducting business, communication, business relations. Ecommerce is one such result of internet and information technology development. The business transactions have gone from traditional mode of personal contacts to virtual mode where the two parties transact, negotiate over the internet and do not come in personal contact of each other. Gradually online shopping evolved rapidly giving birth to many e-retailers starting from developed countries followed by the developing countries such as India, China, and other middleeast countries including Saudi Arabia. Online shopping is on rise globally. Dawn of 21st century witnessed rampant and rapid development in the field of e-commerce and success was achieved by many enterprises in western countries. According to Wallis (2006) internet sales to households from the UK nonfinancial sector stood at pound 4billion which increased to £ 18 billion in 2004. The growth in internet sales between 2003 and 2004 was over 67%, a clear mandate that internet sales was there to stay. Information Data Center predicted that e-commerce spending will reach $496.7 billion in the United states and $1.3 trillion globally by the year 2009. The benefits of online shopping added new customers on continuous basis evident from growth in online retail sales and in 2017 it was estimated to be $2197 trillion and grow to $2489 trillion in 2018 (Invespro.com, 2018). Study carried out by Ansari & Alhazemi, 2016 demonstrated that the value of online transaction has grown exponentially to US$1471 billion in 2015 and is projected to grow to US$ 2365 billion in 2018. Online shopping is a growing business around the globe and approximately 41 percent of global internet users have purchased products online in 2013. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 2 December 2018 www.jbrmr. com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 256 In current business environment online shopping is tremendously in boom in the field of EBusiness and is definitely going to be the future shopping method in the world. Large number of retailers started their online portals to sell their products/services on-line and few others are selling products through some common online shopping website known as e-retailers. Researches show, ecommerce is a huge market and it is getting bigger day by day (Muthumani & Rajayogan, 2017). The current business environment is very dynamic. Online business is growing fast everywhere in the world. Competition in the industry is increasing also the customer demands. The reasons for fast growth in online shopping due to its benefits as a research demonstrated that online shopping is better than conventional shopping due to convenience and ease of use (Nazir, Tayyab, Sajid, Rashid and Javed, 2012). For private consumers around the globe the most well-known form of e-commerce falls into the business to consumer (B2C) category, also known as online retail or online shopping. The growth of interest in the internet as a shopping and purchasing medium fascinated practitioners and researchers alike. Its rapid growth posed intriguing questions for academic research (Yin-Fah, & Hooi-Choo, 2010). The researchers got interested in finding what type of customers purchase online, what factors such as income, age, education influence the online shopping, what the reasons for buying online and what could be the reasons for not buying online. These and many became the subject of online shopping. A research showed that online shopping depends upon the view of the consumers regarding the activities carried out on the internet as opposed to conventional shopping environments. A consumer who perceives online shopping as beneficial is more inclined to make online purchases (Soopramanien & Robertson, 2007). The online shopping is done by human beings and there are factors involved in online shopping behaviour of a particular individual. Researchers in this field have identified many factors that influence a consumer’s purchases decision and online buying behavior (Goldsmith, Bridges, and Freden, 2001; Vellido, Lisboa, and Meehan, 2000). Adnan (2014) established that there are some psychological factors that had a positive impact on consumer attitudes and buying behaviour. A study revealed that some of the reasons for adoption of online shopping include time saving, easy comparison of alternative products, fairer prices of online goods, expert/user review of products and access to a market without borders (Ngugi, 2014). Some demographic factors i.e. social factor had a significant effect on the behaviour of online shoppers Nazir et al. (2012). Some researchers proposed that the consumer’s own characteristics play an important role in his/her propensity to engage in internet transactions (Jarvenpaa and Grazioli, 1999). According to the findings of Ansari (2016), conducted in Saudi Arabia, Saudis were more interested in online shopping compared to non-Saudis living in Saudi Arabia, it further showed that gender difference also existed as females were comparatively more interested than the males in online shopping. The continuous growth and popularity of ecommerce promised huge potential for the business organizations and topic of research to the researchers. Since inception of e-commerce and online shopping, researchers have been investigating various aspect of ecommerce including trust in online shopping, benefits of online shopping, risks of online shopping, etc. The researcher in this paper attempted to study the influence of yet other important factors influencing consumer’s behaviour namely; social factors, cultural factors, and social class of the online buyers in online shopping. 2. Review of Previous Literature According to Elliot and Fowell (2009) online shopping is emerging fast and more and more consumers are shopping online compared to visiting the traditional shops. Some early studies on online shopping showed that initial online shoppers were more educated (Li et., 1999), had higher socioeconomic status (Tan, 1999), were younger than average and more likely to be male (Korgaonkar and Wolin, 1999). Some other studies investigated the differences in e-purchase decisions according to different demographic factors (Zheng, 2006; Rodgers & Harris, 2003; Slyke, Lou, Belanger, and Sridhar, 2002). In their study Bae & Lee (2011); Hui & Wang (2007); and Alsamadi (2002) found no difference between male and female in making e-purchase transactions. Seiders, Voss, Grewal and Gredfrey (2005) show in their study that age made a statistically significant difference in customer’ e-purchase behaviour. The study also demonstrated a statistically significant difference in customer’s e-purchase transactions due to income; the higher the income, the higher the e-purchase transactions. However, (Seiders et al, 2005) study found no significant differences in e-purchase transactions due to education. In their study Case, Burns, and Dick, (2001) revealed that majority of online purchaser are male candidates. According to Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 2 December 2018 www.jbrmr. com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 257 Hasslinger, Hadzic and Obazo, (2007) customers with higher educational degree with high income showed positive attitude and behaviour towards internet buying. Thus, demographic factors such as age, income and education of the customers substantially impact the online behaviour. Initially the online shoppers tended to differ from traditional shoppers. The innovator group of customers of online shopping tended to be more educated (Li. and Russel, 1999), higher socio-economic status (Tan, 1999), younger than average and more likely to be male (Korgaonar and Wolin, 1999). While there are many hurdles to the internationalization process an internet week survey found that one of the major obstacles for companies was understanding of the cultural differences between countries (Violino, 2001). Falode, Amubode, and Ogunduyile, (2016) revealed in their research that fema