Influencing Factors For Consumer Behaviour For Purchasing Online Amazon - Co.uk

2013
Differentiating the factors that influenced consumer behaviour to purchase electronics through online: The case on Amazon UK
MD. MUHIBBUR RAHMAN SHUJON B0333RORO0412 7/19/2013
Declaration This report is submitted in part fulfilment of the BA (HONS) in Business Studies. I confirmed that, this dissertation is a product of my own work and is not the result of anything done in collaboration.
I agree that this dissertation may be available for referencing and photocopying, at the discretion of university.
Signature........................................ Name: MD. MUHIBBUR RAHMAN SHUJON Date: 19/07/2013
Md. Muhibbur Rahman Shujon
B0333RORO0412
University of Gloucestershire
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................................... 6 ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Company Background .................................................................................................................. 8 1.2 Research statement........................................................................................................................ 9 1.3 Reason for research this subject .................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Research Objectives .................................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................. 13 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 13 2.2. Consumer ................................................................................................................................... 14 2.11 Amazon and consumer relation................................................................................................. 23 2.12 The theory of Planned Behaviour [TPB] .................................................................................. 24 2.13 Technology acceptance model [TAM]...................................................................................... 25 2.14 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 26 CHAPTER 3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .................................................................................. 27 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 27 3.5 Research Design.......................................................................................................................... 29 3.6 Data collection ............................................................................................................................ 31 3.7 Data analysis ............................................................................................................................... 31 3.8 Research Ethics ........................................................................................................................... 32 3.9 Research Limitation .................................................................................................................... 32 3.10 Reliability and validity .............................................................................................................. 32 CHAPTER 4- DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS ............................................................... 33 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 33 4.2 Online Market ............................................................................................................................. 33 4.3 Amazon.co.uk ............................................................................................................................. 34 4.4 Online consumer in UK .............................................................................................................. 34 4.5 UK Electronics Market ............................................................................................................... 34 4.6 Buying Behaviour of UK consumers .......................................................................................... 36 Top online retailer UK ...................................................................................................................... 38 4.7 Questionnaire Analysis ............................................................................................................... 39 4.7.1 Gender:................................................................................................................................. 39 4.7.2 Age ....................................................................................................................................... 40
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4.7.3 Occupation: .......................................................................................................................... 41 4.7.4 Shopping Preference ............................................................................................................ 42 4.7.5 Frequency of online shopping .............................................................................................. 44 4.7.6 From Which Online Retailer do you Shop the Most? .......................................................... 45 4.7.7 Electronic Products .............................................................................................................. 46 4.7.8 Factors that are Influence while purchasing electronics online ........................................... 47 4.7.9 Purchase electronics from Amazon UK ............................................................................... 50 4.7.10 Why purchase electronics from Amazon UK .................................................................... 51 4.7.11 How would you rank Amazon UK compare to other major online retailer in some specific category (ranked from 1 to 3, 1 being very good)......................................................................... 52 4.7.12 Electronic purchase experience with Amazon UK ........................................................... 54 4.7.13 Will you buy electronics from the Amazon again? ........................................................... 54 4.8 Analysis of Interview, Online survey and Questionnaire Responses.......................................... 55 4.9 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 58 CHAPTER 5- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION.................................................................................... 58 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 58 5.2 Discussion ................................................................................................................................... 58 5.3 Alignment of Results and Objectives.......................................................................................... 60 5.4 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER 6- CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 63 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 63 6.2 Influence of the study.................................................................................................................. 63 6.3 Key Findings ............................................................................................................................... 63 6.4 Recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 64 6.5 Direction for Future Research ..................................................................................................... 65 6.6 Summary ..................................................................................................................................... 65 REFFERENCES & BIBILIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 66 APPENDIX- QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................ 70
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TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1 The consumer information processing model......................................................................... 21 Figure 2 Theory of planned behavior model ......................................................................................... 24 Figure 3 Techonology Acceptance Model ............................................................................................ 26 Figure 4 Major Category growth trends ................................................................................................ 35 Figure 5 Purchasing vs Browsing preferences ...................................................................................... 37 Figure 6 Uk internet users growth in 2012 ........................................................................................... 38 Figure 7 Top 10 E-commerce sites in UK ............................................................................................ 39 Figure 8 Gender percentage of respondents .......................................................................................... 40 Figure 9 The percentage of respondents age ....................................................................................... 41 Figure 10 Occupations of the respondents ............................................................................................ 42 Figure 11 Presentation of respondents shopping preference................................................................. 43 Figure 12 Rational for specific shopping preference. ........................................................................... 43 Figure 13 Shopping regularity of the respondents ................................................................................ 44 Figure 14 Online retailer preference of the respondents ....................................................................... 45 Figure 15 Online electronic purchase habit. ......................................................................................... 46 Figure 16 Types of electronics purchased by the respondents from online .......................................... 47 Figure 17 Important factor considered by the respondents while purchasing electronics online ......... 48 Figure 18 List of important factors (listed by rank) .............................................................................. 49 Figure 19 Percentage of respondents who purchases electronics from Amazon UK ........................... 50 Figure 20 Rationale for purchasing electronics from Amazon UK ...................................................... 51 Figure 21 Ranking of Amazon UK in comparison to other online retailer ........................................... 53 Figure 22 Rating Amazon UK by electronic purchase experience ....................................................... 54 Figure 23 Future intention of purchasing electronics from Amazon UK ............................................. 55 Figure 24 Identified Factors and Reasons ............................................................................................. 57
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all I would like to thank the Almighty Allah for giving me this opportunity to carry out this research. Moreover this dissertation has been once in a lifetime experience in my life which has taught me a lot new things of learning. . I would like to thank those who helped me to come out with many ideas that supported me to finish my research.
I would truly like to thank my honourable supervisor Mr. Stuart Francis for his effective guideline, supervision. Finally I would like to thank my family and friends who support me a lot during my studies.
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ABSTRACT
The main goal for conducting the research was to determine and to analyze the key market dynamic factors that have drastically influenced the behaviours of online consumers through online from Amazon UK. Here in the Uk, the research has been conducted and the findings throughout the research indicated that the majority of the respondents are internet users and most of them stated that they like to shop online rather going in the shopping mall physically. One of the main reasons was because of the ease of access and convenience. Throughout the research it was found out that a very big number of respondents do their electronic shopping through online Amazon uk. The reasons and factors which have been identified for their reason for purchasing from Amazon uk were about the product information, secure payment method, reviews and ratings from previous consumers , price comparison with other/similar products from other online shopping sites and lastly delivery options. It was also identified that consumers were mainly influenced to shop online were the choice of products, comparisons between similar products and nevertheless the trust and the ease of access. Moreover it can also be seen that in the research, the respondents do have a intention to consume electronics online and they are happy to shop from Amazon UK and satisfied to consume electronics again through online Amazon UK.
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CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION
The present research tries and aims to discover and to analyze the factors that have influenced consumers to buy electronics online through Amazon.co.uk. The market place for online consumers is a very large place for buying and selling products. A brief discussion on the background of the project has been presented in the first section of this chapter, it states about the shopping changes in pattern of consumers and the evolvement of the online market. Whereas in the second section the problem of the research will be presented, as and it will also be discussed for choosing this research topic. Moreover two other criterias will be included in the next section, which are the questions and the objectives of the research. Furthermore a very small description will be added concerning the format of the research with a different part in the research. Lastly the researcher will bring to an end of this chapter bearing in mind about the background and the objectives of the research of the present study. 1.1 Company Background The appearance of the internet has produced a huge shift in concept about the ways of people shopping normally. As a consumer is not restricted for their choice or for their time or place; they can shop at any time or at any place with the assistance of internet. Therefore the concept for shopping through online came from the creative business through the internet. Therefore in 1994 Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com. His multinational e-commerce business began with an idea for an online selling bookstore but after a short time it grew big and diversified in trading consumer goods and electronics. In recent years Amazon.com Inc is sometimes considered to be one of the largest and biggest online retailer in the world. The consumers are the main fact on which the online business is hugely depended. And in the recent years so many rivals like Ebay.com has emerged it has now become essential for them to be more concern on the behaviours of consumers. Some research stated that the products which are popular for example fashions wears, music and book increases the sales on online retailers; but the demand for purchasing electronics and technology through online is rising progressively (Grunert and Ramus, 2005; Kim and Forsythe, 2010). It has also been seen that 76% of consumers do research about a product online whether it is electronics or other goods but they go and buy the product physically from the shop(Cheung, 2006). Well in current time the figures of the previous percentages are declining and consumers are getting more involved in purchasing electronics through the internet. Therefore to find out the change in behaviours of the consumers, the factors which are responsible for it must be analyzed. So, to
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have an impact for the change of behaviour on consumers, Constantinides (2004), said that the first step is to identify certain influencing aspects when purchasing online, these can be regarded as factors. Therefore the present research tries to investigate the bottom of the problem and examine the factors that have influenced consumers for purchasing online by the end of the research.
1.2 Research statement The main factor that keeps a business organization alive and its core to survive are the consumers. As this world today is all about globalization and time is flowing rapidly with it, everything is changing around the globe and the changes of tastes and cultures are creating a vast change of behavior of the consumers and their view towards an organization. For any business organization the change of behavior of the consumers might be sometimes positive or sometimes negative as well. A number of studies have revealed that the changes of consumer behaviors have conflicted impacts on business. Therefore a number of researches had been taken by different organizations to understand the factors that influence the consumers behavior. But the factors which influences the behaviors of consumers for online shopping is very irregular and unpredictable. So to have an advantage with the competition and to gain customer satisfaction, online retailers for example as Amazon.com have to be aware of those factors that influence consumers. Therefore the project tries to determine the influencing factors that have influenced consumer behavior to shop electronics online through Amazon.com. 1.3 Reason for research this subject As the world is globalized and technology has reached its peak in advancement; therefore it has now become a daily routine for a normal person to visit or surf the internet, sometimes for buying or collecting information. By the assistance of the internet more and more consumers are purchasing and shopping through the internet other than going physically to the shopping centers or malls. This is due to convenience and their choices from different online retailers. So it likely that, online business organizations are constantly dealing with the change in trends. And for this reasons market researchers are now finding it difficult to find potential good customers. As a result it has turn out to be difficult to find the motivational
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factors for consumers to consume products online. Therefore to understand and to establish the motivational factors about consumer behavior it has become important to do a research through collecting data and other process. Moreover, during the findings of the project it can also help to gain knowledge about consumer behaviors as well as in online marketing strategies. Furthermore it will provide me knowledge about online consumers and different online strategies in marketing. 1.4 Research Objectives The main goal of conducting this project is to understand and to find out the factors that an online consumer takes into account while purchasing electronics through the internet. Amazon.com will be focused specifically throughout the project. Below are the list of the objectives which are focused in the project : Inspecting and examine the factors that have influenced consumers behavior while purchasing online. Exploring and analyzing the reasons about consumers for purchasing electronics through Amazon.com Evaluating the factors that have influenced consumers purchasing behavior while buying electronic products through online. 1.5 Research Questions A number of questions have been developed to reach the aim of the project. The questions are given below: Which are the major factors for the consumers online purchasing behavior ? Up to which level are the factors influence consumers while purchasing electronics through online Amazon.com? Which are the main factors that are vital while consuming electronic products through online? How often to online consumers be likely to do shopping electronics again from the internet? Which are the reasons that influence a consumer to go for a particular brand or an organization while doing online purchases?
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1.6 Research Contribution Due to globalization and the technological advancement now companies are changing their business from traditional business to online business. In this way the companies have a huge advantage because the marketplace is vast and due to mass communication it also increases the success of the organization. It can also be seen that small business are doing business online and now being part of the competition with other online retailers. So big retailers are now getting more and more into online business. Now the need of analyzing the influencing factors of consumer is required, to create a strategic design for online retail organizations. As with the flow of time the behaviour of consumers keeps changing, the results of the study will show about the strategic changes and the factors that Amazon have used to cope with the changes in consumer behaviour. Well other online retailers can gain advantage from the results and can rectify their lacking and be in the competitive business environment. The researcher will have understood the various patterns and qualities of online consumers at the end of the project and will have gain knowledge that will help in the future to predict the changing behaviours of consumers online. 1.7 Overview of the research: The structure of the research will be as follows:
Chapter 2- Literature Review In this chapter various theories about consumer behaviour will be presented. Therefore to find out the influencing factors, a discussion about behaviour of consumer and online consumer behaviour will be included in this chapter. So to identify the heart of the factors which have influenced consumers, a lot of different characteristics on consumer behaviour online will be also be discussed.
Chapter 3- Research Methodology In this chapter the methods which are used during the research will be illustrated and the methodological theories will be presented which have been used in the study.
Chapter 4- Data presentation and analysis In this chapter all the datas which have been collected from various relevant sources will be presented. An analysis will be done from the research data which has been collected during
Md. Muhibbur Rahman Shujon B0333RORO0412 University of Gloucestershire
the research. During the analysis, the factors which have influenced consumer behaviour to purchase online through Amazon.com will be recognized.
Chapter 5- Research findings and discussion This chapter is all about the outcomes of the research and its findings. Basically in this chapter will reflect the findings of the research, how it might affect the business and what are the steps needs to be taken for solving those problems will be discussed.
Chapter 6- Conclusion and recommendation Well in this chapter, at the end of the analysis, a recommendation as well as understandings will be included by the researcher. The researcher will include the implications about the research and might include more research possibility. So at the end a conclusion will be stated about the findings during the research. .
1.8 Summary As the progression of the internet and technology has created a huge impact on normal human life, people are now getting more and more involved in shopping through the internet. And in day to day life electronic products have now become a very important part, so consumers are now purchasing more electronic products than before. Therefore to survive in this huge competition, online retailers should understand the consumer needs and should know what are the factors that influence them to purchase products from online. And this is what the research is trying to achieve from the research.
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CHAPTER 2- LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter the theories which are related to the online consumer behaviour is represented. Moreover the researcher will discuss about the consumers psychological aspects when choosing products or a particular brand, as well as the influences which makes the consumer to take a decision on choosing their brand. 2.1. Introduction The main goal of this project is to determine the factors which are responsible for influencing consumers to purchase electronics through online Amazon.com. By going through theories and literature which are related to consumer behaviour online and their way of purchasing intention, present study will try to focus and find the factors that are responsible for influencing consumers to purchase electronics online from particular websites. The internet is an accessible globalized mixture of individual networks which works with other to broadcast information by using its standard Internet Protocol(Bodden, 2008). It is not something secret talk about. The internet has changed the face of the world with its accessibility worldwide and turned the world much more competitive and fast. When the internet was invented of about 40 years ago, at that time it was used by only academics, researchers, scientists and sometimes students. Though now the circumstances has changed as businesses throughout the world are now using internet as part of their advertising campaign, where they can promote their offers on purchases(Jobber & Fahy, 2012). Therefore for business exchanges and informations, the internet has turned out to be a place of worldwide access for business marketplace. When the internet was invented, the concept of E-commerce also came in mind. The concept was to do business transactions through the internet and electronic data facilities(Bill H, 2009). The era of E-commerce started at the beginning of the 21st century. Therefore in his study about E-commerce Bill H(2009) states that firms like E-bay and Amazon.com made E-commerce to its present position. In his argument he stated that due to e-commerce, the perceptions and ways of shopping has now changed of consumers because online purchasing is now the quickest and the most effective way. Due to the internet it has now been easier for organizations to advertise their services and products and this can be found globally on any device which is internet accessible and can attract potential consumers ( Vesterby and Chabert,2000). Through the medium of the internet, it can now be seen that a relation is created between the consumers and the companies. Therefore to attract the customers, it is very important to create a webpage which
has a very good presentation. Firms which dont have any physical existence should or must advertise themselves online as well as offline to let their consumers know about their brand name (Vesterby and Chabert, 2001). Therefore business organisations need to know the behaviours of consumers in order to achieve their goal and survive in the competitive business environment. So it is necessary for the business marketers to know about its customers, the way they make decisions when they purchase a products and how they make their choices (Hollensen, 2004). It is also necessary for the marketers to communicate with their consumers on how they choose their products and which are the factors they look and influences them to go for a product as the marketers has limited control on the advertising strategies and quality of the product. Therefore individuals perception and characteristics of the consumers are also depended on the influence(Kotler & Armstrong, 2007). According to Wayne Feng(2008) it has been described that online consumers are mostly wealthier customers who are young and have computer knowledge and literate peoples. On the other hand Allerd, Smith and Swinyard (2006) stated that online consumers are older people and have positive attitudes with less risk awareness and are not brand or price consciousness and wealthier as well. Well though most of the ideas are quite similar with each other but further research is required. One of the important reason for influencing consumer behaviour about online consumers are the type of product , which in result makes it hard to find the factors about their buying intentions(Christopher & Huarng, 2003). Well the above reason is not the only factor for purchasing specific items online, so the following research will try to determine the other factors for consuming electronics through Amazon.com.
2.2. Consumer The products or services which are consumed by a group or an individual is said to a consumer. Whereas Kotler and Armstrong(2007) gave their view by saying that A consumer is who purchases a product for their own personal consumption or use, without having an intention for reselling it. To understand the psychological patterns of influencing a consumer is a very time consuming process in which the company have to analyze the different kinds of social, cultural and moreover the psychological characteristics of a consumer.(Kumra,2007). Therefore global companies have a regular practise of researching
their online consumers, because the behaviours are constantly changing due to the change in trends and the environment. To demonstrate the necessity of analyzing and understanding behaviours of consumers, various researchers stated various reasons. Khan M(2007) stated that if the behaviour of consumers can be understood, it can build a good consumer psychology which can assist a consumer not to be confused while making a decision rather helping to make the right decision when purchasing products and it can improve that individuals shopping experience as well. While harmonizing to the fact Dr. Perner(2009) told in his research that more four applications are also included in consumer behaviour. He stated that the main significance for studying consumer behaviour is to gain advantage in strategy and the purpose of marketing strategy. The other three which was stated by him were the Innovation of new ideas, Legal policy making and lastly self improvisation.
2.3.Types of consumer To identify and to understand the depth of behaviour of consumers, it is therefore necessary to find out the various kinds of consumers in current market condition. Different studies have found out different kinds of consumers. Normally consumers can be classified in two common groups, online consumers and traditional consumers (Hollensen,2004). According to Dr.Perner(2009) in his research said that there are various ways in which consumers can be classified. Mainly the categorization is exaggerated by the kinds of products and different kinds of individual consumes. Moreover he also said that consumers are also influenced by the different kinds of lifestyle, as well as cultural, technological and demographical backgrounds of their life. In addition the behaviour of a consumer for a particular brand or for a product is also influenced by their specific needs, desires and requirements of the consumer. Well a number of other factors which also affects the influence of a consumers behaviours, which is further studied and examined in the next section of the research. 2.4. Consumer Behaviour As from the previous findings of the research it is reasonably understandable that the necessity to understand the consumer behaviour is helpful in the use of marketing strategies of a business. According to Dr.Perner (2009) consumer behaviour means about the way on how a consumer feels or thinks about a product; choose about a brand and a reason to select particular retailers. Moreover consumer behaviour is also said to be the collective study on
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the way on how an individual purchases a product, when, what and why they purchase (Pant, 2007). Therefore by understanding the consumer behaviours is a path to achieve success in the business and alongside with marketing strategies. But the marketing strategy will not create an impact if there is no value for the consumers needs and requirements (Kumar, 2007). Therefore Rogan(2007) demonstrated the bond among consumer behaviour and marketing strategies. While in his research he stated that strategy is all about rising the possibilities and frequencies of buyer behaviours and the things which is needed for succeeding this is to know and to understand the consumers requirements and needs. It can be said that all global companies around the world and online retailers drives their consumers attention towards their product through marketing strategies. Bill. H (2009) stated that the human requirements and motives are connected to each other that it is hard to determine their characteristics; it is unclear about consumers purchasing reasons. For an example when an individual purchases a Tablet PC, may be it will good for the consumer to be better connected with his/her friends but one of the main factors that has influenced the consumer to purchase that Tablet PC is to stay up to date with the technology. Therefore to know about the differences among consumer needs and motives, so the classification of characteristics of consumers is needed to be understood. Various studies have shown various kinds of characteristics of online consumers. Personal, Social, Cultural and Psychological characteristics can be said as the basic characteristics of online consumers. The characteristics are found out by several markets with the aim to understand the different types of consumer to gain an advantage in market strategies and be able to fragment them as per requirements of consumers. 2.5. Individual Characteristics of consumer Towards online shopping, one of the factors for influencing consumers is personal characteristics. Moreover income, knowledge, age and personal interest have an important part for influencing consumers to do online shopping Hasslinger, Hodzic and Opazo (2007). On the other hand, online consumers tend to have particular characteristics which make them different from other traditional consumers and the consumers have a particular age as well as wealth for shopping online (Fernie 2009). Whereas Smith and Rupp(2003) did an argument about the age saying that the age is the main factor that influences online consumes to make a decision while purchasing on the internet. In their research they found out that young
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generation people have more technological knowledge than older people; so young people have more intentions than older people as they are not frequent internet users. Another study also found out that people do not have internet access tend to have a lack interest about online purchasing. And often individuals who have less wealth and less knowledge shows very short about of interest (Horvat 2011). Lastly another researcher Punj (2011) stated that online consumers are influenced by their personal requirements or a product, but the motive of consumers while purchasing online products depends on the comfort and accessibilities on the internet. 2.6. Societal Characteristics From the combinations of influences from the social sectors affects the social characteristics of online consumers. Some research stated that some of the online consumers are influenced by their reference groups. Hyman (1942) was the first person to demonstrate about reference groups. Kumra(2007) stated that a reference group is when at least two may be more individuals with the same goal to achieve. Well in a society consumers tends to consume different kinds of products, but some products have similar types of consumers. To give an understanding on the impact of references groups about the online consumers Zhu and Zhand(2010) stated that the online consumers always purchase a product after knowing and getting information about the product, sometimes they get suggestions which is also known as product reviews, which can play a very vital part to influence consumers to buy a product. Well from the traditional reference groups, a lot of other new reference group have emerged recently for online consumers. On the web there are some virtual communities, some discussion groups and blogs which can be also a source of reference group were identified by Hasslinger, Hodzic and Opazo (2007). There were some other online reference group which were identified by Christopher and Huarng (2003) which provided the links to the products websites as well contact information to contact directly with the retailers. 2.7 Cultural and ethnic Characteristics The background of the consumer and social classes influences the cultural characteristics of the online consumers. The above statement was argued by Smith and Rupp(2003), their statement was that for every level of social class, has its distinctiveness from others in online purchasing behaviour. Hasslinger, Hodzic and Opazo (2007) agreed and supported with the argument by stating that consumers which belong from higher society or class will have
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more interest and intention to purchase products from online as they can access to the internet and they have more knowledge on the way to use the internet and the shopping process, while on the other hand the consumers from lower class or society might not have that proper knowledge to use the internet properly or does not have the access to the internet. In addition some commentators also included that consumers from a lower society or class have less knowledge about the operations of the computer and internet, moreover they might not know about online transactions, therefore result in less interest from consuming products online. Recently a research made by Punj(2011) stated that, as the technology has advanced a lot in the recent years, now almost everyone has access to the internet, so consumers from all levels can consume products through online. So in a result online purchasing are increasing and developing day by day as peoples perception are changing and are getting influenced by the technological development. 2.8 Psychological similarities Psychology of a consumer is to understand about the consumer why and how they get involved in the purchasing procedure, and the basis on choosing a particular brand or a medium (Jansson and Cathrine, 2010). Personality, attitude, motivation and perception as well as emotions were the reasons that were identified by Smith and Rupp (2003) for online shopping. In supporting with what Smith and Rupp(2009) stated in addition Jansson and Cathrine (2010) quoted that there is a difference between the way a traditional consumer take decision with the way an online consumer does. While a consumer takes a decision they can be motivated in various ways, may be through their needs, they might have some definite observation about the purchasing process and personality with their attitude also plays an important role in the decision making process. As the changes in technology and trend is vast, the need for further research about the consumer psychology is required and recommended by the researchers in the past years. Moreover if it is thought or seen from a marketing point of view, for a consumer to know about a brand or a product, it is important for the company to know on how the consumer will take into account about the product from the information which is given by the company. Therefore to find out the way to understand the consumers psychology, research is need in a huge scale (Nair, 2009). So to reach the goal of this present research more investigation on consumers decision making processes and psychological behaviour will be discussed in the following section. .
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2.9 Psychological Behaviour Well consumers psychology doesnt only states about the decision process of a consumers, but also states about the motivational and influential factors as well as from where they are purchasing the product, all this help them to take a decision on buying a product (Cherry 2011). When arguing on psychology about online consumer Jansson and Cathrine (2010) stated that, it is not so easy to find out the influencing factors because the consumers psychology is changing and emerging every day due to the change of technological environment and business structures. Therefore to examine the research more efficiently and effectively about the consumers psychological behaviour Smith and Rupp (2003) stated that a consumer asks themselves before purchasing online. So the questions which arise along with the factors are included in the following research.
2.9.1 Perception and personality Perception is about the consumers thinking and understanding about the specific website for shopping online. Some questions that come in the mind of a consumer is like the amount of security for shopping online and from where the consumer can get more information about their desire product. Personality is one the main important factor which influences the online consumer to purchase products. When purchasing a product online a consumer has many questions to themselves, they might question themselves that what kind of internet website is going to be best for them to find their desired products and how much can he/she buy for that particular product within their ability! 2.9.2 Motivation and Attitudes Essential needs and necessities are the factors that influence motivation for online consumers. Therefore consumers may question themselves : is it really necessary to purchase online or are there low-priced products in the market ? Will shopping through the internet is going to save their time or not and how far it is secured to do online payments ?
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Psychological behaviour consists of the consumers decision on purchasing methods and the will of purchasing the desired product from a specific website. The consumers choosing process actually demonstrates the way the consumer makes a decision while buying a product. The motivational factor should be considered while a consumer makes a choice when purchasing a product Dr. Perner (2009). In his research he stated that it is important to find out the problems at the beginning of the decision making process. Jansson and Cathrine (2010) agreed with the statement given by Dr. Perner (2009) and added in their research that before finding out the problem or the requirements of the consumer they begin to make their decision about purchasing a product, the time to make the decision is sometimes takes a long time or sometimes less which is based on the necessities of solving the problem. According to likes, dislikes, choices and preferences an online consumer purchases from online. Therefore before purchasing a lot of questions come in the mind of the consumer, as for example a consumer can think of the extra cost may be to shop online may be for deliveries or other charges, so they get confuse, it that really necessary for them to shop online or not ? Or are there any other options which they can choose as well?
2.10 Decision making process of online consumer Almost every single day a consumer has to face decision while purchasing a product. It is not necessary for the consumer that all the decisions have to be important. Researches indicated that some of the decisions which is taken by the consumers are much more complicated than others, so it needs more time and study to make a final verdict. Xu, J. & Schwarz, N. (2009) made a point that it is unlikely for consumers to carry out lenience while not having a better reason for justifying it. Moreover they also made a comment that consumers enjoy while making a purchase, having a good reason and lenience in mind about their choice. This suggests that the satisfaction that a consumer gets after making a decision creates a vast impact on their mind and in a result influences them to re-purchase the product. A number of researches showed that the decision making process of the consumers is a well structured model which mirrors the traditional purchasing process. The model is known as consumer information processing model (Dr. Perner, 2009).
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Figure 1 the consumer information processing model
From the above model it can be seen that a consumer has to go through five stages for making a decision: Problem recognition, Information search, Evaluation & Selection of alternatives, Decision Implementation, Post-purchase evaluation. The above five stages were agreed by a lot of researchers where they stated that the consumers tends to follow the above model step by step to have a proper decision for consuming good and services.
Problem Recognition To start a purchasing process an online consumer needs to recognize the problem or requirements for their specific desired product(Xu, J. &
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Schwarz, N., 2009). Here the consumers finds out the requirements for their particular product and moves forward to the next stage of their decision making process. Information Search Here the consumers explore and searches the information which they need to know about their product. It can be seen that different marketers tend to promote and advertise about the product through various mediums (Christ, 2009). Evaluation & Selection of alternatives Thirdly in this point of the decision making process, the consumers looks for more alternative sources for their choice of the product. As different consumer has their own individuality and choice, and comfort the search may differ from others (Matsuno, 2008). Decision Implementation In this part of the process, the consumers decision implementation process for purchasing the product is presented. Matsuno (2008) stated three criterias in which a consumer comes to a decision on purchasing a product .i) Outlets first, Item second ii) Items first, Outlet second iii) Simultaneously Post-purchase Evaluation lastly in this stage the consumer is therefore influenced by the way of the decision making process. Dr. Perner(2009) found two kinds of decision making process for purchasing. i) A consumer purchases a product due to their interest and curiosity which in results them not to purchase again. ii) A consumer after getting all the information about the product purchases a product regarding to their preferences and requirements and results in repeating purchasing process again and again. Xu, J. & Schwarz, N. (2009) stated that a consumer decides after using the product, moreover the consumer liked the product or not, or will they buy the same product again. Through various researchs it can be seen that the process for making the decisions differs depending on a number of variable due the enormous number of sources for influence. Kotler and Armstrong, (2007) found out that web based business and online market place are the two main factors that influences online consumers. To obtain the aim of the present research, a research on the biggest online business retailer will be discussed in the next part.
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2.11 Amazon and consumer relation In 1994 Amazon.com was founded by Jeff Bezos and started operating their business from July the 16th 1995. In online marketplace Amazon Inc brought a innovative change and has become the biggest online retailer in the world ( Amazon, Daily Star, The Independent, The Times and many other news reporting websites). The main reason for their success is because of their creativeness, business strategies and their innovation in technology (Webley, 2010). In a research Mudambi & Schuff(2010) found out that the strong point of their functional strategy was having the option to put customer review section in their companys website. They made a comment that by applying this strategy will help Amazon to create a tough consumer bond with the company as well as increasing the sales of the products. The way of communication with the consumers developed by Amazon Inc lead them with an advantage to be in the competitive environment and success (Marshall, 2011). In many studies it can be seen that Amazon made amazing changes in the US and now it is expanding very fast in the Europe. Webley(2010) gave a statement about Amazon, that Amazon wanted to be globally recognized business and wanted to be the best among online retailers from the first place. She found out about Amazons marketing strategies and the innovative approach to make a relationship with its consumers. It is known to everyone that Amazon started their company by trading books online. As in the current time, technology is twice as advanced it used to be than before. In the year 2007 Amazon revolutionized the trend of books to a new level, they introduced an electronic device named The Kindle to the market, which allowed
consumers to store and read millions of books. Jeffrey Blackburn (the senior VP of Amazon) gave a statement that The Kindle is the latest technological product that will amaze the customers and will open doors for the publishers. As with the current flow of development in technology, for being in the competition, Amazon began to sell a number of other consumer electronics and to reach their customer expectations (Zacks Investment Research, 5th Dec 2011). Therefore to find the influences which make a consumer interested to consume electronics online through Amazon.com will be further investigated by gathering data from appropriate consumer group.
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2.12 The theory of Planned Behaviour [TPB] So to know the consumers intention level towards purchasing online, present research plans to look back at 1985,when the theorist Icek Ajzen(1985) gave theories on Theory of planned behaviour which was an extended version of the theory given by Fishbein and Ajzen(1980) on Theory of reasoned action. Research showed that the Theory of planned behaviour was widely used to understand perceives behavioural control, subjective norm and personal attitude of a consumer. A study on the behaviour of online consumer conducted by Lee & Liqiang (2010) showed that the theory of planned behaviour explains and ascertains a major connection among behavioural observation and consequent behaviour of online consumers. Stols & Kriek (2011) also gave a statement that the theory of planned behaviour demonstrated the human actions and advises that a human action is followed by control beliefs, normative beliefs and behavioural beliefs. Icek Ajzen developed this belief which was influenced by the theory of planned behaviour.
Figure 2 :Theory of planned behavior model
To relate to the theory of planned behaviour and online consumer behaviour, Truong (2009) demonstrated in his study; about the three backgrounds from the model about the theory of
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planned behaviour explains about the behavioural intentions and the influences that result into giving the control over the consumers behaviour. While analysing online consumers, TBP demonstrates the main factor while taking a decision about consumers behavioural intentions. Researchs showed that the three variables of TPB has an important part in the decision making process as it fluencies the purchasing intentions of the consumers as well as provokes them to come to a final decision. On the other hand some research have disagreed that the three variables are not enough to forecast the behavioural intentions of the consumer and recommended for more variables to develop predictability(Lee & Nagoc, 2010). Well in relation with Amazon.com other researches indicated that the main reason for consumers to purchase from online through Amazon.com was their level of comfort and their secured online payment which Amazon.com provided to their consumers (Ahrholdt, 2011 & Voorveld, Neijens, and Smith, 2011).
2.13 Technology acceptance model [TAM] The Technology Acceptance Model is said to be one of main influential and researched extension of the Theory of Reasoned Action by Fishbein and Ajzens (1980). The technology acceptance model uses two technological acceptance methods to forecast the usage of the system by the consumers which were Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use (Irani, Dwivedi and Williams, 2009). Stols & Kriek (2011) said that TAM is widely used as a prime tool for examining the consumers acceptance of new technology.
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Figure 3:Techonology Acceptance Model
A number of research have showed that both the Perceived Usefulness and Perceived Ease of Use has a vital part in influencing the consumers attitudes and behavioural intentions for using certain technologies. Therefore this model might be in use for measuring the intentions of consumers for shopping electronics through online Amazon.com. Nevertheless, additional study is suggested for finding out the influencing factors.
2.14 Conclusion Though it found out that the Price, Trust, Security and Convenience are the main factors for influencing consumer behaviour online. In the present to fulfil the aim and objectives of the research, previous literature on consumer behaviour have been revised. The present research have found out that to get influence for an online consumer for purchasing online are the needs and trends of consumers. From the research made by Bill(2009) it was discovered that a consumers needs, requirements and the motives are very confusing. Therefore to differentiate between them, a review of the literature relating to consumers characteristics was undertaken in the present study. It can be seen from the previous discussions that the needs and motives of the consumers are very different from each other. So the factors which influence are very much different and rely upon the characteristics of the specific consumers. It was also discovered that the decision making process of the consumer have an influence to some extent for purchasing online. As for an example will be the continuity for purchasing
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online. When a consumer purchase a product from the internet, if they like the products and the procedure in which it is presented, delivered or the service has been good, there is always a possibility for that consumer to decide to shop again from the same website. Therefore this procedure can be used for Amazon.com to recognize, know and understand the behaviours of their consumers. If it is visualized about the process of decision making, it can be seen when a consumer purchases a product, there is chance they will like or dislike it. Therefore Amazon gave their consumers to share their experience and thoughts after using their products on their web page, this is called customer review. When a new consumer goes to the website of Amazon.com they can find their information and other consumers experience form the review section, therefore they are having the experience or test of the product before even buying it. This process shows the consumer relations management process of Amazon.com. Therefore on the contrary for understanding the driving forces and the influencing factors which influenced consumers to purchase electronic products online, the present research will seek help of practical research process. The present research also recommends that, an additional research is essential to determine the crucial factors which have influenced online consumer behaviours.
CHAPTER 3- RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction This chapter demonstrates the way in which the research has been conducted and the methods which have been used in the existing research. There are seven sections in this chapter which are the Research Philosophy, Research Approach, Research Design, The Data Collection Method, Data Analysis Method, Research Ethics and Limitations. Consistency and legality of the research are also argued and discussed in the current chapter. Some important research views like Positivism, Interpretivism and Realism have been included and explained in the present chapter. Moreover a brief investigation and analysis of the above views has been discussed with the main reasons for choosing this specific method has also been discussed. The Research Approaches which has been used in the current study are presented in the second section of this chapter. Some comments and views which has been adopted are utilized to validate the current research. To have a proper balance inside datas explation both the qualitative and quantitative research methods have also been included in the study. The methods which have been used to analyze the primary and the secondary data will be briefly
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discussed in the Data Analysis section. Nevertheless the problems and the ethical issues which were raised during the research process are included in the Research Ethics and Limitation section in the current chapter.
3.2 Research Method The main goal of the present project is to find out and to analyze the influential factors that have influenced consumers to shop electronics online. The main focus of the study will be on Amazon UK. To expand the knowledge and understandings of the research, reviews to the previous literature relating to the current topic is done. But the research in the literature review have only discussed about online shopping and consumer behaviour. Keeping the objectives in mind of the present study, it is decided that questionnaires will be made with suitable approach to the respondents for collecting data. Well the questionnaires were handed and distributed to peoples in various locations to obtain mix answers. Interviews were conducted by the researcher with a few numbers of online consumers. Surveys were also conducted through various online social platforms to get more response to help the research move forward. The research began as exploratory study but soon developed intro Descriptive research, the researchs main goal is to achieve knowledge on consumer behaviour from which that knowledge is used to determine the influencing factors about consumers.
3.3 Research Philosophy The Research Philosophy shows on the way how the knowledge was developed and tells about the nature of the knowledge. There are three kinds/types of philosophies approaches by the anecdotal evidences, which are: Positivisim, Interpretivism and Realism. The approach about Positivism is totally connected with objectivism. Here in this type of Philosophical approach, the researchers with the help of objectivity rather than subjectivity tend to express their views and thoughts to evaluate the subject of the research (Cooper and Schindler, 2006). In this approach the research gathers and collects data and general information from a wide number of people and tends to ignore about the main focusing details of the research. Well on the other hand the Interpretivism approach about the subject of the research is related with objectivity rather than subjectivity. Here the researcher focuses on the subject and highlights with the facts and collects data according to the related field of the research, rather from a huge population (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2007). Moreover
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the researcher uses less amount of data and evaluates them to have an understanding about the views from the huge population. However in the Realistic approach, the researcher only focuses on reality and responses from their independent mind. Here it imagines like a scientific approach to expand the knowledge as like as positive approach, it is believed in this approach that, the responses from the human intelligence are accurate (Kasi, 2009). As the human behaviour is unpredictable, the researcher will go deep and look closely at the related theories and statistical data to get to know about why the respondents gave the reasons for purchases their desired products online. Therefore it led the researcher to select the option of the Interpretivism approach to go on further with the present study. As most of the data for the research will be gathered and collected from a small number of people, the researcher believes that Interpretivism approach will be the best approach to calculate those datas to achieve the objectives of the research.
3.4 Research Approach There are two kinds of commonly used approaches which are used to analyse the qualitative datas, which are the deductive approach and the inductive approach. Theories have an important part in the empirical research, and as the present study is mostly based on empirical research, therefore it is essential for the present study to decide or to choose a correct research approach. In the deductive approach, the hypothesis depends on the previous theories. Consequently the theories are then inspected with the empirical datas (Cao and Mokhtarian, 2005). Whereas, in the Inductive approach, researcher tries to create a theory by utilizing the gathered or collected data. Since the empirical research and the theories are related within themselves and influences as a guide to theories in the empirical study. While using the inductive approach, here the research tries to crack a theory from the crucially calculated datas (Cao and Mokhtarian, 2005). Therefore for the present study the researcher chooses the inductive research approach, as it will help the research to lead to its objectives through the empirical data collection.
3.5 Research Design The current study is descriptive, therefore according to the current study, in regarding to the descriptive research both the qualitative and quantitative datas are collected from the associated fields and illustration of some specific actions is demonstrated which happened
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during the research (Mishra, 2008). The current descriptive study could be performed in two ways which are Longitudinal and Cross sectional studies. For the researcher to find the objectives of the present study Cross sectional study is adopted. Cross sectional study can be defines as, a method which is used in the research that involves observation on a whole representative population. The cross sectional research design is normally implemented to investigate differences among organizations, peoples, practices, cultures etc (Cao and Mokhtarian, 2005). Therefore in practise of cross sectional study, involvement of
questionnaires and structured views are used for collecting the data. Moreover various methods of sampling and scaling in implemented to standardise the qualitative and quantifiable data systematically. The researcher conducted both the qualitative and quantitative research in order to achieve the main aim of the research.
The respondents of the present research involved various online consumers from various groups. Because of the limitations on resources and time, it was not been possible for the researcher, to provide the sample of whole involved respondents. Therefore the requirement of sampling from the collected data was needed. Ghauri and Gronhaug (2005) stated that a research is undertaken through a process of sampling the groups, categories or the individual whom are involved. There are two kinds of sampling which are put into practise; they are the Probability sampling and the Non-probability sampling. In Probability sampling a random selection of the samples are involved where as in the Non-probability is the opposite. A long established way of approach for sampling is to conduct surveys and distribute questionnaires which are also known as random distribution (Cao and Mokhtarian, 2005). Well this way of approach could be very efficient if the research is on random objectives. However the random sampling approach is not appropriate for the present research for the reason that not all the respondents are used to the online market platform and not all the respondents have the accessibility to the computer or the internet. Alternatively Purposive sampling was also implemented for the present study which is a kind of Non-probability sampling. In this process of sampling the research thinks the respondents to be the best fit for response. This purposive sampling was efficient because the researcher made sure that all of the respondents who are participating are all purchase products online regularly. To calculate the attitudes of the participants Thurstone Scale was used for designing the questionnaires for getting the effective outcomes of the research.
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3.6 Data collection Well now as the research design has been made it is now important to talk out the components of the study which are primary data and secondary datas. Primary data are the datas that are totally new data, which hasnt been collected in the past whereas secondary date are those which is already there or datas that have been collected from the past. In the present study both the Primary and Secondary data are gathered in the shape of qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data are not numeric datas where as for the quantitative data represents all the numeric datas. In the present research both the kinds of data were implemented to show the participants views and responses by the shapes of graph, scale, charts and moreover in descriptive form. To collect the datas for both the types interviews, online surveys, questionnaires and data collection methods are used. It is believed by the researcher that the method for collecting the data for the present study is included in the philosophy of the research as the datas were collected from a tiny amount of people and which is used to represent for a mass number of people.
3.7 Data analysis
To create the legitimacy of the study and to reach the aim of the research, it is therefore very essential to analyze the datas which are collected throughout the research. The researcher aims to use a descriptive justification and logical comparison In order to analyze the qualitative datas. And on the other hand for analyzing the quantitative data graphs, average percentage, pie charts, statistical comparisons, and other analytic tools will be put into practise.
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3.8 Research Ethics

In the research ethics it is represented about the behavioural appropriateness of the researcher towards the research subjects and the respondents (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill, 2009). In an overall perspective for keeping the ethical value of the research; subject, data collection procedures and methods, respondents selection, the ease of access to information, recommendation as well as conclusion should be maintained and followed morally. Therefore in the present study it has been maintained strictly and followed properly while carrying out the research as well as during the data collection. Moreover the participants confidentiality and rights are kept secret and respected in the study.
3.9 Research Limitation One of the main disadvantages of descriptive study is that, it has very small amount of information about the causes and here in the present research, the researcher apprehends that it is not enough for all the explanations and demonstrations. Therefore in the present research only a small amount of theories was possible to explain. A brief overview of the consumer s e-shopping experience was achievable which may have an effect on the involvedness of the research. Moreover the time frame was a big challenge, so a little number of participants were taken rather than a huge number of people.
3.10 Reliability and validity For ensuring the consistency of the present study, the researcher has made the questionnaires easy and simple. Therefore to avoid errors and participants biasness along with observer errors the researcher has made the interview process easy and more effective by the time frame and the selection of the participants. The validity of the research relies on the faithfulness of the respondents. Every single course of action had been taken by the researcher for ensuring the validity of the study; although it is believed by the researcher that there are some possibilities of not attending the responses. Still the researcher believes that they interpreted straightforwardly and recommends for further study for better effectual results.
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CHAPTER 4- DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
4.1 Introduction The current chapter consists of the presentations of the datas collected from the related sources about the shopping of electronic products online Amazon.com. An analysis of the collected data and the estimation of the investigation for identifying the factors that have influenced consumers online buying behaviour are also included in the present chapter. The researcher gave a small overview on about online market in the first section of the chapter, moreover the current position of Amazon, along with its competitors, electronic products, online consumer, buying behaviour of the consumers and the reviews on the website page. The researcher has added all of the above issues in the chapter with the aim to create a connection with the gathered data and determining the factors that have influenced consumer behaviours online. During the empirical research the overviews data were collected. Where as in the second segment of the current chapter, shows all the data that has been collected from various sources. An impression will be made about the analysis in the last section of the current chapter. 4.2 Online Market As the technological development has grown in its peak in the last decades and a lot of growing features are now attracting businesses, therefore business marketers came up with the idea for building an online marketplace with the intention of adding the value of human lifestyle as well as saving time. A research conducted by Reese,(2011) stated that more than seven out of ten people who uses internet purchases regularly online. As the number of internet users are growing fast every single day, so it is influencing the online business retailers to be much more competitive, therefore the retailers have to offer a huge number of products available online for their consumers.
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As for the present research which has been conducted in the UK and the most of the data was gathered from the UKs online based consumers, moreover the researcher gave an overview about the operations of Amazon UK. 4.3 Amazon.co.uk Amazon wanted to grow worldwide, therefore to expand their products and services along to increase their market share, Amazon began to start their operations in the UK. So for UK consumers Amazon created an operating website and warehouse all over the UK. The researcher for the present study from the empirical research has identified that, Amazon break ups their consumers for different sectors and they implement various marketing strategies for influencing their consumers to purchase online. Through the questionnaire analysis discussions will be done throughout the chapter. The online market retailers promote their brands and products in various ways according to the consumers status and purchasing behaviours (Valos, Ewing and Powell, 2010). A number of researches have shown that marketing strategies do influence the consumers to purchase online. 4.4 Online consumer in UK The researcher searched information on Uks online consumers for making the report trustworthy and consistent. As most of the participants were UK residents and the data were collected inside the Uk, therefore the researcher thinks that the right step has been taken. It can be seen that eight out of ten internet users purchase online which was stated by a report of 2011 OFCOMs 6th Intl Communications Market. Moreover it was also said in the report that in the current time, the number of percentage of online consumers in the Uk are growing more rapidly than the European countries. 4.5 UK Electronics Market As the desire for new technologies are growing rapidly all around the world, so there is always a possibility of electronic market growing fast. As Uk produces and designs more than 40% of electronics for all the Europe countries, therefore the UKs electronic industry have a big contribution to its countrys economy. Unfortunately the credit crunch of 2008 has created a very affect for the electronic industry(BBC, 2009). Since 2009 a slow growth in the
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market started and online market industry contributed in the economy as well (FT.com, 2011). Due to the advancement of innovations and technology globally, it is obvious that the demand for electronics are increasing and consumers are now becoming more and more into purchasing online for their required products. It has been predicted by experts that the Uks market for consumer electronics will have growth rate of 24.2% in the upcoming years. And events like Olympics in the previous year has already boosted the electronic industry as consumers bought electronic products such as TV, Mobiles, Tablet PCs to watch the games or keep an update etc. It was also stated by other financial institution and technological medias that the growth rate might be much more than expected. With the new innovations in technology and developments, and it has been seen that consumers tend to accept a new technology very easily, a study stated the reason behind this is that when the new technology add value to the life of the consumer.
Figure 4 Major Category growth trends
From the above figure it can be seen the trends in growth of the electronic products in the Uk in the upcoming year. Therefore it can be predicted that the growth rate for adopting new technology seems to be increasing and can influence the rate of growth for online purchases made by consumers.
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4.6 Buying Behaviour of UK consumers As in the literature review of the current research showed the significances of consumers buying behaviour and the influences that it has put on the online shopping trends. As with the advancement in technological changes, and it has been noticed that new products are coming to the market every 3 months, therefore the consumers who wishes to be with the latest technology and enjoys innovative products might have to purchase expensive products as thought by various critics.(London.gov.uk, 2011). Studies in the recent times have showed that after the impact of recession, consumers have now turned more concerned about the price of the products; therefore the consumers have to think about their ability before purchasing something. Well alternatively in recent days it has now become a part of fashion and trend for Uk consumers to have an outstanding lifestyle and they enjoy shopping.The shopping experience has now become a vital issue for UK consumers and now part of their everyday life (London.gov.uk, 2011). A research stated that the Uks electronic market supplies their consumer the most wanted products within the financial budget of their consumers. However in UK the older age consumers have a lesser amount of interest for electronic products. Whereas the young generation has enormous interest on consuming electronics but the cost of the product turns to be a huge factor for the consumers (London.gov.uk). Therefore for UK retailers to keep up with the change in behaviour of consumers, they are now driving their attention on online retailing. Moreover the consumers before purchasing something have a tendency to have a look on any offers or sale from the internet (GI insight, 2011).
Figure 5: Purchasing vs. Browsing preferences.
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Figure 5 Purchasing vs Browsing preferences
Source: Lindsell Marketing, GI insight, 2011 (survey result from 2000 participants of UK)
It can be understood from the above figure that around 46% consumers shop in the internet, where as 47% of consumers purchase from the retail stores. Moreover it can also be seen that more than 72% of people surf the internet to gather information about products and other stuffs. It is also stated by the figure that though 72% browses the internet but only 46% of them do online shopping, which can also be an influencing factor for consumer behaviour. Studies also indicated that UK has the most active and educated peoples considering internet users. Moreover the nation is expected to be the largest single share holder in the online marketplace by 2012 (eMarketer, 2008).
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Figure 6 Uk internet users growth in 2012
From the data above it can be seen the rate of growth which is expected for online users in UK which is expected to enter the online market along with the structure. Therefore huge online businesses such as Amazon, Argos and Ebay are now forming new strategies in order to keep up with the competition amongst each others.
Top online retailer UK A report showed the top 10 E-commerce sites in the UK Table 1: List of the top 10 e-commerce sites in the UK
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Figure 7 Top 10 E-commerce sites in UK
Source: eMarketer (2012)
Though some of the e-commerce business do not operate their business as an online retailer, but still Amazon Uk comes top in the list, which states the consumers interest on purchase from Amazon.com Therefore to achieve the main goal of the present research, some of the datas has been gathered according to the media and related population. So in the following segment of the research, the researcher has analysed those datas to determine those factors which have influenced consumers to purchase electronics online from Amazon.com.
4.7 Questionnaire Analysis
4.7.1 Gender:
Chart 1: The gender percentage of the respondents.

Gender
70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Male
Figure 8 Gender percentage of respondents
Gender
Female
Source: Empirical Data In order to determine the factors that have influenced consumers to purchase electronics online from Amazon and to have a mixture of response 45 peoples were given the questionnaires. It can be seen from the above chart that 39% among 45 participants were females and 61% were males. The researcher has given out the questionnaires according to their online purchasing habits. This was done to have an effective response and validity of the responses. 4.7.2 Age According to the researcher thoughts, the age of the respondents was also an important factor, because different age group people have different views which in result can have an influence on the shopping behaviours of consumers through online Amazon.com.
Chart 2: The percentage of respondents age.
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Age
60.00% 50.00% Axis Title 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Age 18 to 29 53.50% 30 to 39 22% 40 to 50 17.70% 50 and above 6.60%
Figure 9 The percentage of respondents age
Source: Empirical Data
The researcher has distributed the questionnaires into four different kinds of participants. It can be seen from the graph that 53.5% of the participants had an age between 18-29 years whereas 22% were between the ages of 30-39 years and 17.7% of the participants aged between 40-50 years and lastly a tiny fraction of 6.6% were found to be aged 50 or above. The chart above indicated that the percentage of young people tend to much higher than other age groups. Therefore it is believed by the researcher that the young generation has more knowledge about technology and are more active in the internet. Although it was considered reasonably with the other age groups whilst the questionnaires were distributed.
4.7.3 Occupation: When the questionnaire were designed the researcher added the occupational part for getting mixed responses and know that the responses are coming from different people with having different kinds of occupations.
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Chart 3: Occupations of the respondents.
Occupation
Student Self-employed Professional Skilled worker Non-worker
10% 32%
19%
25% 14%
Figure 10 Occupations of the respondents
Source: Empirical Data.
According to the data collected from the questionnaires, it can be noticed from the above pie chart that majority of the participants were Professionals which was 32%, Students of 25%, Unemployed were 19%, Self- employed were 14% and lastly the skilled workers were found to be 10% only. Therefore the above pie chart shows that from the collections among the participants, a huge number of the responses could be found from Professionals and Students.
4.7.4 Shopping Preference In the questionnaire the participants were asked whether the prefer to purchase online or going physically to the retailers, along with the reasons they choose. Though the participants were all interested in shopping online but the researcher wanted to determine their likes and preferences in relating to the consumers purchasing behaviour and the factors which influenced their preferences.
Chart 4: Presentation of respondents shopping preference.
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Preference
60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00% online physical physical 22.40% both both 28.80%
Preference
online 48.80%
Figure 11Presentation of respondents shopping preference
Source: Empirical data. As it can be seen from the collected responses that most of the participants of about 48.8% prefers to purchase products online, while some of the other participants of 22.4% likes to do shopping physically. And whereas the rest participants 28.8% answered they liked both depending on the situation. They gave various reasons for their preferences on shopping. Table 2: Rational for specific shopping preference. 0
Figure 12 Rational for specific shopping preference.
Source: Empirical Data.
The participants who stated that they like to do purchase online had similar reasons for their choice. The reasons which they said was that by shopping online they can save money on their transportation; as well as they can save their time and can look on a wide range of
products. Moreover some very important factors were also came in front for example the confidentiality, comparisons between products, ease of access, the product reviews and they can shop 24/7. 17.2% of the participants indicated that they like shopping on the internet because of their confidentiality and approximately 23% gave the reason for product reviews. Whereas for shopping physically, it was about 22.4% by the participants who preferred to choose to do shopping physically. And among those participants who choose to shop physically 60% of them gave the reason that they like to touch and feel the product what they want to purchase as well as they like to have a communication with the seller, others also indicated that they dont like to shop online because of the delivery time it takes the product to reach them. It can be observed from the gathered data that consumers like to think about their flexibility and comfort before taking a decision in the way want to purchase. Moreover they like to do a comparison between the reviews and the products before concluding to a decision before purchasing online. 4.7.5 Frequency of online shopping To achieve the main objectives of the study, the researcher has included a question about the participants regularity on purchasing online. Chart 5: Shopping regularity of the respondents.
11.20% 22.10%
6.60%
20% 6.80%
33.40%
Once in a More than Once in a week once a week month
More than once in a month
Once in six month
More than once in six month
Shopping Regularity
Figure 13 Shopping regularity of the respondents
Source: Empirical Data From the datas which are collected it can be seen that , the participants are regular online shoppers. It can be seen that 11.20% of the participants shops online once a week where as 6.6% of the participants stated that go for shopping online more than once a week. Moreover 22.10% of the participants declared that they purchase online at least once a month. Whereas
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it can also be seen from the above bar chart 33.4% of the participants shops more than once in six months. Collectively in can be commented that the Uks consumer purchase online regularly. It can also be seen from the responses that consumers tend to purchase online for a longer period of time, which is an indication of consumers buying behaviour. Also other responses are shown above in the chart, in which the regularity of the consumers shopping online can be known. Well a small percentage of the participants are shopping online regularly, so it can be commented that people in Uk do have a regular tendency to purchase online. The collected datas were associated with the participants purchasing preferences, as they stated that the like to purchase online for confidentiality, comparison, flexibility, ease of access and reviews. All this criterias creates an impact on the Uks online consumers purchasing behaviour and influences them to purchase online.
4.7.6 From Which Online Retailer do you Shop the Most? In the questionnaire the researcher asked the participants form which online retailer they prefer to purchase the most. The main aim of the question was to find the level of interest of the online consumers. Chart 6: Online retailer preference of the respondents.
Preferences
80.00% 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00%
Preferences
Figure 14 Online retailer preference of the respondents
Source: Empirical Data The question was asked to the participants about the online retailers from which they consume the most. The participants were given five various options and four popular online retailers name were included in the question which were Argos, Amazon.co.uk, Ebay.co.uk
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and Play.com. Another option was also over there, in which the participants had the chance to express their views and can write the name of the online retailer which they have used, if they havent purchased from the retailers which were listed in the questionnaire. From the answers of the questions and from the chart above it can be seen clearly that Amazon.co.uk had the most number of participants with 60.2% have consumed products whereas Ebay.co.uk had a 17% of the participants as their online consumers. Argos had a number of 7.4% and Play 4.5% respectively. it was also seen that around 10.90% of the participants choose to buy products from other online retailers as example as ASDA, TESCO etc. Therefore from the bar chart above, it can be commended that in the Uk, most of the online consumers prefer to purchase products from Amazon and Ebay whereas other consumers tends to purchase from other online retailers. So it can also be said that Amazon.co.uk has a large number of consumers and from this it could be understood about the behaviours of consumer. 4.7.7 Electronic Products The respondents were also asked whether they buy electronic products on the internet or not? So some name of the electronic products was given to choose as well as a section if they dont purchase electronics online. Chart 7: Online electronic purchase habit.
Online electronic purchase habit

100.00% 50.00% 0.00% Yes No Online electronic purchase habit
Figure 15 Online electronic purchase habit.
Source: Empirical Data About 88.8% of the respondents(40) said they consume electronics online where as only 11% of the respondents (5) answered they dont shop electronics online. The one who said no
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gave an explanation that they want to see the products face to face and sometimes they dont have trust on the seller. Well the respondents who have said yes chose the products below. Chart 8: Types of electronics purchased by the respondents from online.
Other Camera and Digital Camcode DVD and Home theatre Computer and accessories Mobile phone and Accessories Home gadgets and Electronics Audio,Mp3 and headphones
7.60% 4.20% 7.70% 10.60% 21.80% 19.60% 28.50%
0.00% 5.00% 10.00%15.00%20.00%25.00%30.00% Electronic that are Purchased from the Internet
Figure 16 Types of electronics purchased by the respondents from online
Source: Empirical Data From the datas which are collected it can be easily seen that Audios, Mp3 and Headphones has the most number of purchase with 28.5%, and next to it is Mobiles phone and Accessories with a percentage of 21.8%, moreover Home gadgets comes in third position with a percentage of 19.6% and products like Computers, DVDs, Cameras with accessories can be seen from the chart as well. Lastly it can also be seen that the Other part had a percentage of 7.6% in which the respondents stated for TVs, Tablet Pc and other kitchen appliances which they have purchased online.
4.7.8 Factors that are Influence while purchasing electronics online Chart 9: Important factor considered by the respondents while purchasing electronics online.
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Factors that are Important while purchasing electronics online

Factors that are Important while purchasing electronics online 21.50% 23.30%
14.10% 11% 7.10% 4.30% 7.20% 7.20% 4.10%
Figure 17 Important factor considered by the respondents while purchasing electronics online
Source: Empirical Data According to the factors which are important while buying electronics online, the research asked the respondents to rank the options according to their importance. The options were as follows: a. Price & delivery charges, b. Information about the product, c. Delivery options, d. Product type, e. Customer service, f. Trustworthiness of the seller, g. Secure payment options, h. Warranty and i. Other. When the respondents ranked the factors that influenced them to purchase online the trustworthiness of the seller scored 23.3% and 21.5% was scored by the information about the product and 14.1% was by the secure payment options, delivery charges was 11.2%, therefore the four factors were given the most influential factors that is considered by the consumers while purchasing electronics online. Well as there a total
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of 9 factors that was established, it was ranked from top to bottom. Therefore it is listed below from the most important to the least.
Table 3: List of important factors (listed by rank)
Figure 18 List of important factors (listed by rank)
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4.7.9 Purchase electronics from Amazon UK Chart 10: The percentage of respondents who purchases electronics from Amazon UK.
Purchase electronics from Amazon.co.uk

Yes No
91% 9%
Figure 19 Percentage of respondents who purchases electronics from Amazon UK
When it was asked in the questionnaires, about 89% of the participants said that they purchase electronics from where as the other 11% of them they dont purchase from the internet. And of that 89% who purchases online, 91% of that 89% as a whole purchases from Amazon. And the rest 9% purchases from other online retailers. Where in the questionnaire there was an explanation section, there they have stated that sometimes for purchasing electronics they either buy from Argos or Ebay.co.uk. One of the reasons they gave for purchasing electronics from E-bay was they can win a bid and can buy for a very cheap price and they have a transactional secured media known as PayPal. Whereas on the other hand, as Argos is mainly focused on household products, most of the female participants showed their favour to Argos as for its delivery options and product line.
As from the responses, it can be seen that the participants did not buy or purchase electronics from Amazon, E-bay or Argos just for one single factor, moreover they bought products from Amazon for other factors.
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4.7.10 Why purchase electronics from Amazon UK According to the question that have raised above, the participants were asked to give a brief explanation on the reason they consume electronics online from Amazon Uk. Various answers were collected from the participants; most of them had similar reasons. Chart 11: Rationale for purchasing electronics from Amazon UK.
Why purchase electronics from Amazon UK

25.00% 20.00% 15.00% 10.00% 5.00% 0.00% Axis Title
Wide Range Of Produ cts
Inform Ease Offers Produ Produ Delive ations of and ct ct ry and about Access Low Comp Comm Securit the Price arison unicati y Produ on ct
Why purchase electronics from 7.50% 23.30% 7.20% 14.60% 11.40% 16.40% 19.60% Amazon UK
Figure 20 Rationale for purchasing electronics from Amazon UK
Source: Empirical Data From the above chart and data, it is very transparent that most of the participants (23.3%) purchase electronics from Amazon Uk due the information of the product they are provided. Moreover it can also be seen that 11.40% of the participants purchase electronics from Amazon because they can contrast and compare the products with others. It is assumed that the customer reviews of other previous purchases that have used the product from Amazon Uk helps the consumers to take decision for choosing the accurate product. When a new
product is introduced to the market, Amazon communicates with their customers through various Medias( text, email, vouchers, newsletter, magazines etc.) and this influences the consumers to purchase electronics from Amazon which can be seen that around 16.4% of the participants agreed with the products communication statement. And nevertheless 19.6% of the respondents made a point about the safe payment options along with the free delivery options around the UK had influenced them to purchase from Amazon UK. Whereas other participants 14.6% go to shop electronics on Amazon UK due to the offers, sales, clearances and discounts on products for previous or new consumers. Lastly around 7.5% of the participants stated about the wide varieties of the products and around 7.2% of the
participants gave the reason for ease of access that influences them to purchase electronic products through online Amazon UK. Therefore it can be commended that while making a decision the consumer has to think a number of factors before choosing a product which are the information about the product, comparison, price, safe payment, deliveries and offers etc. Some participant did mention about warranties as well leads them to purchase electronics from Amazon UK.
4.7.11 How would you rank Amazon UK compare to other major online retailer in some specific category (ranked from 1 to 3, 1 being very good). The researcher asked the participants to rate Amazon UK and to compare with other online retailers such as E-Bay Uk and Argos as both this retailer sale online electronic products in mass scales. Therefore the participants had a choice among three categories: a) Delivery and price b) Secure payment c) Mass product line d) Information e) Customer service f) Communication The participants were asked to rank them from 1 to 3 according to their services.
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Chart 12: Ranking of Amazon UK in comparison to other online retailer.
Ranking in Terms of Service

60.00% 50.00% Axis Title 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Deliveryand Price Amazon E-Bay Argos 49.50% 35.50% 15% Security 30.96% 33.32% 35.72% Information 51.01% 20.45% 29.54% Mass Product Line 33.31% 35.73% 30.72% Customer Service 42.86% 23.79% 33.35% Communica tion 53.37% 26.21% 28.56%
Average 43.50% 29.17% 29%
Figure 21 Ranking of Amazon UK in comparison to other online retailer
Source: Empirical Data From the data which were collected, it could be seen that majority of the participant of 43.5 % has ranked Amazon Uk to be in the 1st place among the other two online retailers, E-Bay UK and Argos. Moreover, it can also be seen that there is a any huge difference between EBay or Argos with only .17% difference between them and gives E-Bay to hold the 2nd place and Argos 3rd place respectively. The researcher has made an average or statistical formula also known as mean for finding the rankings of the companies. From the above column list it can be observed that Amazon had the following services more than others to be in the 1st place between others : For delivery and price (49.5%), Security(30.96%), Information(51.01), Mass Product
Line(33.31%),Customer Service(42.86%) and Communication(53.3%) compared with E-Bay and Argos. On the other hand E-Bay was categorised no.1 in the Mass product line (35.73%) where was categorised no. 1 for their security (35.72%). Therefore the overall performances were averaged to rank the best among the three online retailers. So it can be commented that consumers have a good relation with Amazon Uk and this can also be the factors which influences them to purchase from Amazon and can have an impact on the consumers decisions to purchase electronics online.
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4.7.12 Electronic purchase experience with Amazon UK
Chart 13: Rating Amazon UK by electronic purchase experience.
Electronic Purchase Experience With Amazon Uk

7%
40% 53%
Very Good Marginal Not Answered
Figure 22 Rating Amazon UK by electronic purchase experience
Source: Empirical Data The researcher asked the participants to rank their experience from purchasing electronic products from Amazon Uk from a range of poor to very good. It can be observed from the above pie chart that around 53% of the participants which is the majority ranked their experience marginal where as a very good experience was experienced by 40% of the participants when they purchased products from Amazon UK. Although around 7% of the respondent havent answered, but still it can be commented that most of the participants have a good impression about Amazon UK which might influence them to purchase repeatedly electronic products online from Amazon UK.
4.7.13 Will you buy electronics from the Amazon again? The researcher also wanted to know the level of intentions of the participants for purchasing again from Amazon UK, therefore the participants were asked like to purchase again from Amazon or not .
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Chart 14: Future intention of purchasing electronics from Amazon UK.
Purchasing Electronics From Amazon UK Again
Purchasing Electronics From Amazon UK Again
Yes
No
Figure 23 Future intention of purchasing electronics from Amazon UK
Source: Empirical Data In reply to the questions that the participants have been asked who have purchased electronics in the past from Amazon UK and others who have purchased electronics from different online retailers showed a optimistic attitude as all of them replied they will purchase electronics from Amazon Uk in the future. Although 4 of the participants havent replied to the question as they havent purchased previously from the internet but they gave consent that in the future they will purchase electronics from Amazon UK. 4.8 Analysis of Interview, Online survey and Questionnaire Responses The researcher also conducted interviews among 10 participants as part of the empirical research, for collecting the datas which is needed to determine the factors that have influenced consumers to purchase electronic products from Amazon UK. the researcher has also kept certain that all the persons who have been interviewed are regular users of internet and they purchase online and they purchase their desired products regularly from Amazon UK. Through social medias, a few number of surveys has also been conducted. The main aim of the present research is to determine the factors which influence the consumer to purchase electronics from online Amazon Uk. Therefore regarding to the objective of the research, the questionnaires were made specifically according to the subject and so as in the interviews and surveys, for collecting the relevant data and information.
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In the first place the participants had been asked that do they purchase electronic products from Amazon or not. They gave reply, yes they all do purchase from Amazon for electronic products. Continuing with the interview the researcher has asked about their opinion, which are the factors they feel that influences them to shop electronics from Amazon. Well, the participants replied that the presentations and informations about the products which are given on the website of Amazon increases their interests and influences them to buy electronics from Amazon, in addition they also said that the review section is a big factor for them as they can know the experience of other customers who have used that specific products. From the views of the participants it is quite transparent that the quality and reliability of the product have a huge impact on the purchase decisions of the consumers. Some participants indicated that Amazons products prices are very competitive with other retailers and as Amazon also work with other third parties which in result increases the availability of the products. Amazon sells various kinds of products from various sellers consumers tend to purchase their desired products from Amazon. Moreover few participants told about the marketing strategies that Amazon uses to pursue their consumers. The participants said that they get influenced by the promotions for new products and offers which do have an impact on the consumers decision. It was stated by the participants that Amazons after sale services or their customer service is very good for their consumers. Evidence showed that a consumers always look forward of a product which have a better quality. And for an electronic product the consumers expectation is that as they cannot feel or see the product in front of them, they want warranties of the product, exchange options, refunds, secure online payments etc. were noted as an influential factor for the consumers buying behaviour. Therefore from the interviews and questionnaires, the responses were noted and collected, and helped to find out the main objectives of the research. .
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Table 4: Identified Factors and Reasons.
Figure 24 Identified Factors and Reasons
When the participants were asked for specifically choosing a brand or an organization for purchasing electronics from online, the replies from the participants came different and various reasons were stated by them which impacted the consumers buying behaviour. Few participants also gave replies that for purchasing electronic products from a specific organization, they need to be assured of the quality of the product. Whereas other stated that the reputation and the brand name of the organization also has an influence on their buying behaviour. From the above statements and findings it can be stated that most of the results and outcomes are related with each other. Most of the participants gave similar kind of factors for their choice of preferences for purchasing electronics online Amazon.UK, the research recommends that the factors which were found are the most important factors for influencing consumer behaviours while buying electronics online.
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4.9 Summary The current chapter represented the data analysis, therefore in the first section of the current chapter; to set up the relevancy of the present study for Uk consumers buying behaviour some general analysis were made. The following section of the present study shows some interviews, questionnaire and online surveys. The factors which have influence online consumers to purchase electronic products from Amazon were determined and moreover the factors for consumer buying behaviour are also addressed according to the conducted research of the present study. Additional analysis has been made in the next chapter.
CHAPTER 5- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Introduction
This chapter consists of the results analyzed from the gathered data and discussions, to get into heart of the outcomes of the research. The results of the present research have also been presented in the current chapter regarding with the main objective of the research. 5.2 Discussion From the discussions of the literature review section of the current study, the statements and the responses which were given by the respondents of the current study and captivating the discoveries that have been made through the research, a broad discussion can be carried out. As the main aim of the research was to find out or determine the factors that have influenced consumers to purchase electronics from Amazon UK and their purchasing behaviours towards Amazon UK, the reasons are interconnected with the theories that were discussed in the literature review. Pant(2009) gave a statement on consumer behaviour, it was stated consumer behaviour is the collective study on the way how a consumer purchase, what are the things they purchase, when they purchase and why they purchase. So from the findings of the present research, it can be commented that a consumer purchases a product online because of the influences of their requirements, needs and intentions. The purchases the products because of their necessities and chooses them to suit their interests. The behaviour of a consumer is a very important part of consumers decision making process.
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Dr.Perner(2009) stated that the psychology of the consumers make them to think, feel and choose between various alternatives for example products, retailers or brand. From the above collected and gathered data in can be observed that consumers shop electronics through Amazon UK for various reasons, mostly because of the services that Amazon provides, as well as the price and the presentation of their products on the web. Moreover it can also be seen from the answers given by the respondents that their behaviour to purchase from Amazon UK depends on the price and the delivery charges, the trust that has created between the consumer and Amazon. Other factors also have an effect on the consumers for their buying behaviour of Amazon which were the amount of information provided about a product, comparison with other products, availability of the product as Amazon also works as a third party for other retailers and lastly the safe and secure transaction process by Amazon UK. When the researcher asked the participants what influences them to purchase from Amazon Uk, they stated that the information which is provided about the product in the web page of the Amazon UK, secure transaction process, communication with the consumers, delivery options etc. In the literature review chapter of the current study, it was revealed that the psychological behaviour of the consumer influences and motivates the decision making process and was included for which reason and from where the consumers purchases a product (Cherry,2011). It can also be observed from the analysis of the answers given by the participants that their psychological behaviour do have an influential factor, and the factors were their Personality, Perception, Motivation and Attitudes. The responses which were collected also give a view that occupational and social statuses also have an influence for the participants online purchasing behaviour, as it is transparent from the datas which were presented, that young generations and better financial status consumers purchases more from online than the others. Furthermore, different types of consumers have different kinds of influences while purchasing online, as said in the literature review, relating to the fact and findings of the present research, it can be seen that female consumers prefers to purchase more household products, gadgets and electronics whereas students and young age consumers like to purchase electronic products for example as Mp3 devices, DVDs, Computer accessories, Tablet PCs, Mobile Phones etc. Therefore it can be commented that the psychological behaviours of the consumers influences the decisions for purchase, choice of the products, retails and brands. It has been mentioned in the literature review section that the technology acceptance can also be an influence for the consumers buying behaviour. As it
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can be noticed from the respondent answers that most of them purchase electronics online from Amazon Uk because of the communication which is maintained between the consumer and Amazon for example as letting the consumers know about any new products or offers to their consumers. This creates a huge impact on the consumers way to purchase products online. According to the reasons of consumers for shopping online from Amazon Uk; it can be seen from the participants collected data that, the products information along with the reviews of customers about the products, affordable prices and offers, with secure online transaction options and delivery choices influences and motivates consumers to purchase electronic products from Amazon UK. Some of the respondents did stated in their answers that they dont buy electronic products from Amazon, rather they prefer to purchase from other retailers like E-Bay, Argos and other online retailers. They reason which they gave for E-Bay was they can bid and can buy with a much cheaper price and where as for Argos they stated because of the huge range and product line they offer to their consumers. For indentifying the reasons behind consumers purchasing again from the same online retailers, it can be commended from the collected data that consumers like to shop again from the same retailer because of trust between the consumer and retailer which is involved and the service, quality along with security is given by the online retailer. Well most of the participants showed their interest to shop electronics again from Amazon UK because of their security, quality and after sales services which are offered by the web seller. And it could be indentified from the present research that consumers tend to purchase online products from a specific brand or retailers due to the reputation and the trust that the online retailer creates with its consumer and the services which are offered. Moreover it is also said about the communication between the retailer and consumer through various media. As Amazon provided all the above factors, therefore the participants showed their interest to consume electronics online from Amazon in the future. 5.3 Alignment of Results and Objectives The outcomes of the interviews, surveys and the questionnaires stated that majority of the respondents were regular internet users. It could be also indentified that most of the respondents preferred to purchase online these days, the reason they said was the 24/7
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accessibility, with a wide range of products, saving their time, with comparisons with other products and with competitive affordable prices. Some respondents did not that much of interest for online purchasing because of the security problems, the physical communication with the seller and the feel of touch of the product. It was asked to the respondents while keeping the focus on the aim of the research that, which is the most liked online retailer of the respondents. Though most of the participants stated they preferred Amazon for shopping but some showed their preference to other online retailers such as E-Bay Uk and Argos. As the main aim of the research in on Amazon Uk and the purchase of its electronic products, so it was asked to the participants to give a brief explanation on the main factors they look for while purchasing electronic products online. The factors which came up were the information of the product, prices, securities, after purchase service and delivery options. It could be found from the empirical research that consumers tries to find more and more details about the electronic product, they wishes to purchase online. As online products cannot be touched or felt before bought, factors like the quality of the product and durability of the product becomes a matter of concern for the consumers. Relating to answers of the participants through the interview, it can be understood that the web presentation of Amazon is very much straightforward, informative and helpful. Moreover to make the consumers interest more on the products Amazon on their web have added a customer review section, which states the experience of the customers who have used the products and they can share their thoughts about the product, therefore a potential consumer can have the experience of the product before purchasing it and becomes more interested on the product. As for consumer electronics, the participants of the present research stated that it is very important to know about the quality of the electronic product, its features as well as guarantees and warranties and it can only be possible from the customer review section, because in that section others experiences of the products are shared or presented, therefore the purchasing behaviours are also influenced by this reason. Well the other reason which was stated by the participants were the after sale service which will be provided to the consumers by online retailers. The participants of the research stated that they purchase electronics from Amazon due to communication, security, delivery options and warranties which are provided by the online retailer. This gives a reason that consumers thinks before purchasing a product about the services they will get after the purchase. Therefore online retailer offers various after purchase services to their consumers in order to create a trust
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between them and the consumer which might influence the consumer to revisit and to repurchase from the same site. Price and delivery of the products are a very common factor that is looked by the consumers mostly while purchasing a product online. While purchasing from Amazon UK the participants did mention about the price and delivery of the electronic product, which is also an influencing factor according to the participants. As Amazon works as a third party with other suppliers as well as their own products, so they can offer their consumers with a wide range of products with competitive prices. Therefore participants stated Amazons price offers assists them to make a decision from where to buy their specific desired electronic products. It can also be seen that the products which are bought the most are the portable devices. Therefore the consumer explores from a wide range of electronic products and Amazon has that capability to fulfil the needs and requirements of their consumers as stated by the participants. As online retailers dont have to invest a lot of money on marketing physically they tend to spend those money on marketing online through various ways. Amazon way of marketing with its consumers is through communication. And as by the answers of the participants it can be seen that they get influenced by those communications because Amazon sends offers, or when a new product has been launched they let their consumers know or prizes through online media etc.
5.4 Summary In this chapter a discussion of the outcomes of the research questions and objectives were made and the findings were analyzed by the researcher. Thus in the next section is the final chapter of the research which will give a summary and impression for the whole research.
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CHAPTER 6- CONCLUSION 6.1 Introduction The current chapter aims to give a summary of the entire research. It will consist of the key findings of the research. And according to the outcomes of the research a number of recommendations will be made and presented. In addition, direction for upcoming study will be set along with the overview. 6.2 Influence of the study Every single day thousands and thousands of people purchase electronics through the internet. With the advancement and changes in technology it has become extremely tough for the online retailers to keep a record of the influences for consumers purchase. The main objective of the research was to determine and analyze the factors which are influencing consumers to purchase electronics from online Amazon UK. 6.3 Key Findings Key findings of the research has been given below Consumers purchases online because its open all the time 24/7, ease of accessibility, saves valuable time, wide range of products to make choices, price be likely to be cheaper, product comparison, confidentiality of customers. Consumers shops electronic products from Amazon UK because of the web presentation which is very informative, reviews of customers, offers as well as prices, options for delivery, after sales services as well as communications Trustworthiness, Purchase Price, Conveniences, Secure payment options as well as Serve are the main key influences of the consumers buying behavior. Once the trust is established between the consumer and the onlineretailer, the consumers purchase from the same online retailer again.
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6.4 Recommendations Taking into consideration from the findings of the research, few recommendations can be made for Amazon for its possible and non-possible customers as they are now more active on online purchasing due to the technological developments. It was found in the present research that consumers tend to shop electronics from online Amazon because of their informative webpage, price, communications and after sale services provided by them, well Amazon should increase their range of products as in the research it was found out that Amazons rival like E-Bay, Play.com and Argos had much better range of products with better prices. It is also known that Argos gives their consumers to buy a product with an option to pay later whereas Amazon doesnt have this kind of options. Well to attract more consumers, Amazon can give an offer to their consumers for like buying now and paying later, or like giving products to consumers with a monthly basis payment option. With proper marketing strategies and promotions along with corporate strategies there is always a possibility for Amazon to overcome its challenges. Alternatively Amazon should make their website more simplified and informative so that consumers can find their desired products very easily. When consumer wants to buy electronic products from online, they look for better information about the product, the secure payment process so that no fraudulent occurs, and wants to choose from a wide range of products and looks for after sales services. Therefore Amazon should put their attention on the wide range of products, make their webpage more informative and secure from hackers so that no customer becomes a victim of fraud, moreover they should improve their after sales services for the satisfaction of consumers because all these factors influences a consumer considers when making a decision while purchasing electronics online. The confidentially and security of the consumers should be maintained by Amazon and if needed they can strengthen their IT department for this purpose. Well Amazon can also do segments on their webpage according to the demands of the consumer as the consumer feels irritated while searching their desired products. This can be done when a consumer goes for a similar kind of product most of the time, so when they go on again they can see a different page for their favourite products. To make the consumer visit their website again and influence the consumer to purchase again from their website Amazon can increase the level of communication with their consumers, by regularly contacting the customer through emails, mails, texts and keeping the customers
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confidentiality in mind. Moreover they post adds and promotions is various social pages for example as Face book, My Space, Twitter and other sites where people spend their time. Proper implementation of the above factors will have a influence to consumers to shop online, so if Amazon follows the above factors, it is possible for Amazon to get the attention of the consumers. In this way they will able to keep their current customer active and updated about their products and services which in return will increase their sales. Gradually new challenges will come and Amazon will be able to face them with new strategies. The outcomes, results and findings of the research can be implemented to other online retailers like Argos, EBay, Play.com to increase their sales and services to possible consumers and catch the attention of new customers who wants to purchase electronic products online. 6.5 Direction for Future Research Here in the current research only the factors which have influenced consumers to purchase electronics online from Amazon have been analyzed. For research in the future various product forms can used, there can be a research between two big brand online retailers where the customers preference for choosing specific brands can be analyzed. Because of the changes in trends and fashion, a research can also be done about the desired products of online consumers. Moreover the measurement of the needs, requirements and intentions which is behind purchasing online can be used in the future researches. 6.6 Summary From the whole research the factors which have influenced the purchase of electronics from Amazon, the consumers reasons and influences on shopping online along with the factors are determined. A number of recommendations have been made for Amazon to overcome their challenges and the ways to improve their lacking from other online retailers. The researcher assumes that additional research could have contributed more understandings and knowledge about the changes in requirements of an online retailer and behaviours of consumer.
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APPENDIX- QUESTIONNAIRE
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Influencing Factors For Consumer Behaviour For Purchasing Online Amazon - Co.uk

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MD. MUHIBBUR RAHMAN SHUJON B0333RORO0412 7/19/2013

Signature........................................ Name: MD. MUHIBBUR RAHMAN SHUJON Date: 19/07/2013

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Figure 1 the consumer information processing model

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Figure 2 :Theory of planned behavior model

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Figure 3:Techonology Acceptance Model

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3.7 Data analysis

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3.8 Research Ethics

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CHAPTER 4- DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS

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Figure 4 Major Category growth trends

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Figure 5: Purchasing vs. Browsing preferences.

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Figure 5 Purchasing vs Browsing preferences

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Figure 6 Uk internet users growth in 2012

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Figure 7 Top 10 E-commerce sites in UK

Source: eMarketer (2012)

4.7 Questionnaire Analysis

Chart 1: The gender percentage of the respondents.

Chart 2: The percentage of respondents age.

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Figure 9 The percentage of respondents age

Source: Empirical Data

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Chart 3: Occupations of the respondents.

Figure 10 Occupations of the respondents

Source: Empirical Data.

Chart 4: Presentation of respondents shopping preference.

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Figure 11Presentation of respondents shopping preference

Figure 12 Rational for specific shopping preference.