Examining the Motivations of Taiwanese University Students for Online Shopping

The reasons for shopping online

Studies by Wang and Yang (2007) investigated the reasons for shopping online of some students in a Taiwanese university. They looked into different factors such as personal traits, harmonious passion, obsessive passion, compulsive buying behaviour and online shopping dependency.

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They argued that those that shopped regularly are “passionate” about shopping. As cited in Wang and Yang (2007) Vallerand et al (2003) categories passion into two groups namely harmonious and obsessive (Passion for online shoppers, Social behaviour and Personality, 2008, 36, (5)693-706).

He labels passion as a tough preference for individuals to partake in a particular activity. He suggested that individual with passion dedicate their time and energy to shopping online. Nevertheless, there are major limitations to the study as all of them are student, this suggest that the student does not have a steady income unlike adults that are in employment. Secondly the study did not find any empirical differences among character qualities with regard to irrational buying behaviour and online shopping dependency.

As cited in Shergill and Chen (2005) Jarvenpaa et al (2000) looked into the consumer behaviour towards specific web- based store. The focus was on the store reputation and size if they would affect the customer trust about the retailer. He found that the risk attitude of the consumer plays a major role in shopping online and the trust that the customer has built overtime is a factor. He further argued that the observation of risk by the consumer in alliance with shopping online has an influential effect on its decision to purchase.

Risk perception

Risk perception he referred as being able to trust and believing in the product either it would be useful or not. Trust combines with risk as a result reduces the consumer view of risk connected with the behaviour of the seller. As Kim and Benbasat(2003) argued in Shergill and Chen(2005) suggested four related trust issues, personal information, product quality and price, customer service and store presence. Internet shopping is about risk and uncertainty especially when product cannot be checked physically and monitor the safety the use of payment.

Jarvenpaa and Todd, (1997) suggested an important factor that affects buying behaviour is consumer attitude. A representation of shopping attitudes towards the internet was proposed. The representation includes a different indicator that belongs to four main categories. The value of the product, the shopping experience, the risk perception of retail shopping and excellence of service rendered. Know and Lee (2003) looked into the fears of consumer about the use of online payment and their actual altitude and number of purchases made.

They noted a negative correlation about buying online and online payment. They argued that consumers with a positive attitude are not bothered about online payment. Most popular literature on the topic cited are of the opinion that easy shopping, low prices, convenience, improved customer service speedy-email service, low shipping cost are major reasons for the increase in online shopping. (Lorek, 2003; Magee, 2003; Maloy, 2003; Retail Merchandiser, 2003). . Most of these studies have all contributed to the understanding of online shopping.

The impact of appropriate factors on online attitudes

Nevertheless, there is a lack of consistent perceptive of the impact of appropriate factors on online attitudes and behaviour and conflicting discovery of appropriate autonomous and reliant variables. Hence, it is difficult to compare different studies, apply the findings of various researches and compile them together. Li and Zhang (2002) research on taxonomy of consumer online shopping attitudes and behaviour. They analysed a total of 35studies in which 29 of them used survey method. After the study a total of ten interrelated factors were identified and each of them was empirically related.

The ten factors are external environment, demographics, personal characteristics, vender/service/ product characteristics, attitude towards online shopping, intention to shop online, online shopping decision making, online purchasing, and consumer satisfaction. The five external factors which are demographics, personal characteristics, vendor/service /product characteristics and website quality are in general independent while the other five which are attitude toward online shopping, intention to shop online, decision making, online purchasing and customer satisfaction are dependent variables in the empirical literature.

Other research such as laboratory experiments and free simulation experiments are used occasionally. Every one of the studies focuses on an aspect of online shopping altitudes and behaviour. Their aim was to widen a categorization representing different aspect related to online shopping attitudes and behaviour. Bellman, Lohse and Johnson (1999) looked into the relationship among demographics, personal characteristic and altitudes towards online shopping. Their findings showed that people who are timed conscious and internet addicted prefer to buy online frequently.

Demographics, website quality, vender/service, product quality was measured by Bhatnagar, Misra, and Rao (2000) and they argued that all have influence on online buying behaviour. They conclude that the handiness the internet provides and the risk perceived by the consumers are related to two dependent variables positively and negatively which are the behaviour and altitudes of the buyers. Their argument was buttress with recent research by Noor and Hamid (2008) who looked into the roles of perceived and users experience in determining consumer’s adoption level.

Their findings indicate that perceive risk does not control the type of actions conducted on the internet. Nevertheless, it is the experience of the users that is important. They further argued that that consumer behaviour differs due to the level of education, age and experience level. The more the internet is being used by consumers, the more they learn the usefulness and the risk associated with the technology. (International Journal of communication issue 3 vol, 2, 2008)