INTRODUCTION

1.1 Online shopping The act of purchasing products or services over the Internet. Online shopping has grown in popularity over the years, mainly because people find it convenient and easy to bargain shop from the comfort of their home or office. One of the most enticing factor about online shopping, particularly during a holiday season, is it alleviates the need to wait in long lines or search from store to store for a particular item. A process in which images or listings of goods and services are viewed remotely via electronic means, e.g., a vendor's Web site, items are selected for purchase, and the transaction is completed electronically with a credit card or an established credit account. Various encryption schemes may be, and usually are, used to reduce the risks of sending sensitive information, such as credit-card numbers, over the Internet or other telecommunications facility. The term "online shopping" refers to when people purchase things by using an online interface instead of visiting a market. For example, use the link below in Internet browser. We can search for and purchase products from almost anywhere if the vendor makes his products available through the Internet. We have to pay for purchases by using a credit card, perhaps. Other vendors may allow making payment by electronically transferring the money from bank. The good thing is that purchasing things online is very easy. We also can more easily find the place that offers product at the lowest cost. However, if we're buying a product we're not familiar with, it might be a little hard to judge the quality. All forms of gifts, books, electronics, jewellery, clothes and art are the most sought after products purchased by customers online. Electronic commerce has revolutionized the Indian shopping scene. People can send gifts to any Indian city sitting anywhere in the world in the comfort of their home or office. Online shopping is always on its peek on every Indian occasion on Diwali, Holi, Mothers day, Valentines day, New years eve and every occasion which is celebrated in india. To help online shopping portals gain maximum exposure in all forms of internet marketing for their products many agencies are coming into the Indian online scene offering SEO ( Search Engine Optimization), website development and affiliate marketing phase of online portals. In spite of this emerging trend there are people who find it difficult to use their credit cards to do online shopping and are afraid of online frauds and the truth is these happen everywhere in the world every now and then, but mostly these happen due to lack of knowledge about the service providers. To counter this, online shopping companies have adopted other forms of
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payments such as cash on delivery, cheques, demand drafts etc. However, online frauds can be minimized if people choose the right service providers who are well established and prominent in Indian online shopping scenes to shop online in india. People are enjoying every bit of this trend very much in india and many big players from all over the world are taking deep interest in online shopping in india. This is just the beginning for online shopping in india and it is here to stay and we will see morte progressive and professional form of shopping and online marketing in india. The Internet has revolutionised the way the world shops. For millions of shoppers, the Internet offers opportunities for making purchases easily and simply. The Internet also enables consumers to gather information on products and services in order to make a more informed purchase decision, either online or in a brick-and mortar shop. It is these decisions that are the focus of this study -- despite the phenomenal growth in Internet usage, barriers exist which prevent these Internet users from purchasing online. Additionally, online purchases continue to be dominated by a relatively small number of product categories which suggests that barriers vary across product groups. From a consumers perspective, it is suggested that the Internet lowers the costs of product search, but increases costs associated with product examination, payment and post-purchase care (Liang and Huang 1998). While ecommerce promises great potential through a reduction in transaction costs, the reality is that e-commerce has been influenced by a range of new inefficiencies including high abandonment rates of shopping carts, wariness about the identity of the seller and the security of the personal information including credit card details (Chatterjee and Datta 2008). Why then has e-commerce failed to convert a combination of lower-priced products and access to a broader product range into online sales? Why have some products succeeded to a greater extent than others? What can marketers do to overcome these perceived risks in order to succeed in an online environment? What Web site features do consumers value when shopping online? The purpose of this study is to investigate the different types of perceived risks associated with online shopping and to explore the relative importance of risk relievers which may help to overcome these barriers. From this purpose come these research questions: 1. What are the various sources of risk when considering purchasing online? Specifically, the sources of risk which are examined include the five original dimensions of perceived risk as suggested by Jacoby and Kaplan (1972) financial, physical, psychological, performance and social with the addition of time risk and security risk. This study also
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offers a comparative examination of perceived risk in different counties and across time. 21st Australasian Conference on Information Systems Risk and Risk Relievers in Online Shopping 1-3 Dec 2010, Brisbane Griffin & Viehland. 2. What risk relievers are more inclined to reduce the perceived risk associated with online shopping? As risk is thought to have a limiting effect on online shopping, it is critical that Web site owners design features into their Web sites which will help to eliminate or at least minimise perceived risk. This research assesses the relative importance of 18 risk relievers identified in earlier studies (e.g., Akaah and Korgaonkar 1988; Tan 1999; Cases 2002). This list includes items such as: payment security, money-back guarantees, possibility to exchange products, possibility of viewing the product and special offers. A contemporary perspective of risk relievers for online shoppers is presented and compared with previous research. As the following literature review suggests, these are not new questions but they have not been explored in recent research and not always in the same study with the same population. The study not only extends research in this area but also provides online shop owners with new and updated insight into factors Internet users associate with online shopping and strategies to reduce risk.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 1. To identify key factors influencing online shopping purchase behavior. 2. To identify problems and risk involved in online shopping 3. To consider customer perception towards the shopping done through online media.

REVIEWS OF LITERATURE

Lang , Peng , Kumar In this study the behavior of online shoppers. Information economics literature suggests that search cost in electronic markets has essentially been reduced to zero as consumers are able to use powerful search tools, free of charge, to easily find and compare product and shopping information on the Internet. Swatman , Chin They have found that Online shopping has thus far tended to be a niche business - highly successful in selling digital products such as shares, software and, increasingly, music and films, it has been less successful in persuading the purchasers of "traditional" goods such as cars, clothes, toiletries, or household appliances to forsake their physical retailers and move into cyberspace.

Hui In this study the consumer behaviour of Internet non-shoppers in Hong Kong have been lacking. This empirical study by focus group interview is an attempt to understand what can be done to facilitate local Internet shopping? Inducements for non-shoppers to purchase online include "increasing web traffic", "promotion of new mass loyalty", "on-line co-operative program" and "bricks and clicks". This study in Hong Kong indicates that more effort needs to be made to improve "trust", "delivery logistics" and "payment method". Findings of this study on Hong Kong Internet shopping consumer behavior will be benefical to multinational e-commerce operators when planning their move to Asia. Bauer, Maik ,Hammerschmidt In this study the existing e-service quality scales mainly focus on goal-oriented e-shopping behavior excluding hedonic quality aspects. As a consequence, these scales do not fully cover all aspects of consumer's quality evaluation

Jim Nehf This study shows that individuals are concerned about database privacy, yet they seldom make privacy a salient attribute when deciding among competing alternatives. Although privacy policies are present on many websites, web users rarely bother to read them. e Teresa Garn Muoz ,Teodosio Perez Amaral In this paper we model empirically how socio-demographic variables, attitudes and beliefs towards Internet shopping affect both the decision and usage of the online shopping channel. We use a sample of Internet users and differentiate three groups: those who purchase online (buyers), those who look for information online but purchase in stores (browsers), and those who do not shop online at all (non-Internet shoppers Murphy This study addresses the materiality of computer-mediated retailing. The paper uncovers the hidden geography of e-commerce, considering how the seemingly simple act of doorstep food delivery is explicated in urban form, and in transportation and communication infrastructures. The paper categorises electronic grocery shopping (EGS) enterprises into three types: bricks and clicks, pure-play and the infomediary, and examines how each type of operation has been materialised in the urban landscape, and the infrastructure upon which each draws. Ozturkcan , Kervenoael China, as a fast-growing emerging economy with a different shopping culture, different ideology, very large population, increasingly industrial and high-tech society (Gong et al. 2004; Li et al. 2004) forms an interesting case. By the year 2004, there were 94 million Internet users in Mainland China. In the most developed urban areas, such as Beijing and Shanghai, more than 25 per cent of the population are reported to be regular Internet users, a level almost equal to that of Spain or the Czech Republic. The China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) (2005) survey indicated that about 62 per cent of Chinese Internet users frequently or sometimes access online shopping websites and about 40 per cent of Chinese Internet users have purchased goods or services through online shopping websites.

Livingston, Scholten In this study price dispersion of firms charging different prices for the same product - is widely observed in both online and traditional offline markets. While most price dispersion is explained by stylized clearinghouse models such as Varian (1980), these models do not explain why prices in offline markets are lower on weekends than during the work week, and before Second, prices charged by firms, price dispersion, the number of firms posting prices, and the minimum price in the online markets for several products vary in ways that are all consistent with the predictions of clearinghouse models.