Report

Introduction:
Electronic commerce has become one of the essential
characteristics in the Internet era. According to UCLA Centre for
Communication Policy (2001), online shopping has become the
third most popular Internet activity, immediately following e-
mail using/instant messaging and web browsing. It is even
more popular than seeking out entertainment information and
news, two commonly thought of activities when considering
what Internet users do when online. Of Internet users, 48.9
percent made online purchases in 2001, with three-quarters of
purchasers indicating that they make 1-10 purchases per year
(2001, p.38). When segmented into very versus less
experienced Internet users, the very experienced users
average 20 online purchases per year, as compared to four
annual purchases for new users (2001, p.38).
Online shopping behaviour (also called online buying behaviour
and Internet shopping/buying behaviour) refers to the process
of purchasing products or services via the Internet. The process
consists of five steps similar to those associated with traditional
shopping behaviour (Liang and Lai 2000). In the typical online
shopping process, when potential consumers recognize a need
for some merchandise or service, they go to the Internet and
search for need-related information. However, rather than
searching actively, at times potential consumers are attracted
by information about products or services associated with the
felt need. They then evaluate alternatives and choose the one
that best fits their criteria for meeting the felt need. Finally, a
transaction is conducted and post-sales services provided.
Online shopping attitude refers to consumers. Psychological
state in terms of making purchases on the Internet. There have
been intensive studies of online shopping attitudes and
behaviour in recent years. Most of them have attempted to
identify factors influencing or contributing to online shopping
attitudes and behaviour. The researchers seem to take
different perspectives and focus on different factors in different
ways. For example, Case, Burns, and Dick (2001, p.873)
suggest that internet knowledge, income, and education level
are especially powerful predictors of Internet purchases among
university students. According to an online survey of 425 U.S.
undergraduate and MBA students. Ho and Wu (1999) discover
that there are positive relationships between online shopping
behaviour and five categories of factors, which include e-
stores. Logistical support, product characteristics, websites.
Technological characteristics, information characteristics, and
homepage presentation. Schubert and Selz (1999) examine the
quality factors of electronic commerce sites in terms of
information, agreement, and settlement phases. They also
review those factors related to e-commerce community.
These studies have all made important contributions to our
understanding of the dynamics of online shopping field.
However, there is a lack of coherent understanding of the
impact of relevant factors on online attitudes and behaviour
and an inconsistent identification of relevant independent and
dependent variables. This makes comparisons of different
studies difficult, applications of research findings limited, and
the prospect of synthesizing and integrating the empirical
literature in this area elusive.

Literature review:
1. The comparative impact of age on online shopping has
been studied less frequently than motivational and
attitudinal factors (Source et al., 2005)
2. college students have been found to have greater access
to the Internet than most consumer groups (Jones, 2002),
and to spend more online than any demographic segment
in the US (ODonnell & Associates, LLC, 2004)
3. Young adult consumers grew up with computers
(CBSNews.com, 2004), and spend an average of 16.7 h a
week online compared with 13.5 h watching TV and 12 h
listening to radio (Greenspan, 2003)
4. online stores are important and sometimes highly visible
representatives of the new economy, yet despite this,
they do not enjoy much sound conceptual and empirical
research (Hoffman & Novak, 1996; Alba et al., 1997)
 5. Trust is a multidimensional concept that can be studied
from the viewpoint of many disciplines, including social
psychology, sociology, economics, and marketing. (Doney
& Cannon, 1997)
6. Concluded that demographic variables such as income,
education and age have only a modest impact on the
decision to purchase online. Bellman et al. (1999)

Objectives:
1. To find the number of people who prefer online shopping.
2. To find out which products are preferred while
shopping online.

Methodology:
This research study is limited to the study of consumer
behaviour, with the perspective of online shopping in
Visakhapatnam. The target customer includes the broad range
of the population, because almost every person is having
access to internet.

1. Sample Area:- 100% of data from Visakhapatnam

2. Sample Size:- 100
3. Sampling Technique:- Random sampling

Tables and interpretation:

TABLE 1:

Gender*How many times have you shopped online

 GENDER * HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU SHOP IN A YEAR? Cross tabulation
Count

HOW MANY TIMES DO YOU SHOP IN A YEAR? Total

1.0 2.0 5.0 10.0 12.0 13.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 55.0
0 0 0 8.00 0 11.00 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

GEN MALE 3 1 12 0 12 1 2 1 11 10 2 1 1 57
DER FEMALe 3 0 9 1 13 0 1 0 9 4 3 0 0 43
Total 6 1 21 1 25 1 3 1 20 14 5 1 1 100

TABLE 2:

Gender*How much money is spent on online shopping

GENDER * MAX AMOUNT SPENT IN YEAR Crosstabulation

Count

MAX AMOUNT SPENT IN YEAR

LESS THAN
1000 3000-5000 5000-10000 10000-20000 Total

GENDER MALE 6 15 19 17 57

FEMALe 2 13 24 4 43
Total 8 28 43 21 100

Conclusion:
This study tells us that many people prefer online shopping
because its quiet convenient to shop online and due to the
various facilities offered online.

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