Theory of Reasoned Action

Discuss about the Consumer Behavior for Theory of Reasoned Action.

The consumer behaviour article written by Dennis, et al. (2009), focuses on the ecommerce behaviour of consumers in the present day. It focuses on the areas related to the e-consumer behaviour which are still unexplored. The article followed the discursive approach in which the analysis is done of the e-consumer literature. The article starts with explaining the early e-shopping consumer behaviour. It says that earlier the consumers who used to be engaged with shopping were of higher economic class and status. They were more likely to be younger and male. It means that the e-shoppers were used to be different than the traditional shoppers. But soon many authors and reviewers found that the intentions of both the e-shoppers and traditional shoppers are same as social interaction takes place at both the platforms. The article focused on the concepts of e-consumer behaviour which actually derived from the traditional consumer behaviour.

The study of e-consumer behaviour is gaining importance because of increase in the trend of online shopping. The article focuses on the motivation for online shopping, risks and perceptions of consumer, demographics of e-shoppers and orientation of shopping for the same. Technology on the other hand, is also supporting the growth of online shopping. It includes interface, design, payments, intentions of purchaser and much more which helps online shopping to grow and develop.

The article focuses on both the viewpoints i.e. Technology and consumer. These viewpoints may contradict with each other or support each other to develop online shopping model framework. In the article, a model of e-consumer behaviour has been developed which has been done in two stages. Firstly, the existing literature has been drawn to present well known factors which influence the behaviour of consumer. Secondly, a framework has been produced to examine the interrelationship between the factors predicting e-consumer behaviour (Dennis, et al., 2009).

The article further discusses the factors which influences the behaviour of e-consumers. A theory is mentioned in the article Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) which is used to provide a simple basis to identify the target consumers for online shopping. As per the article, there are various components of e-retailing. The image of the store affects the buying decisions of the consumer. The traditional stores which has strong image in the market are able to run their business in long run. This has been explained with the help of an example of Tesco. The components which affect the consumer’s intention to purchase are learning, actual purchases done, past experiences, trust and attitude of the customers. It is evident that these components affect the intention of the e-shoppers. Like the trust of consumer in e-retailer will positively influence the intention of the consumer to shop from them. Similarly, learning about e-retailer will influence the consumer’s purchase intentions positively.

The extended model is explained further in the article which includes the social and experiential aspects of e-consumer behaviour. The enhanced model discusses some of the factors like Social factors, situational factors, consumer’s traits and more which explains the attitudes of the consumers. This framework introduces two factors i.e. the attitude toward the behaviour and the subjective norms. Subjective norms are those social factors which influence the purchase intentions of people. Some of the authors believed that social interactions are the important motivator for e-shopping along with some of the situational factors like convenience and more. There are some social benefits from shopping which influence people positively to buy from online platform. Also usefulness and ease or convenience to use supports the social factors in influencing the consumer behaviour. The experiences of e-shopping also influence the consumers as they enjoy buying online.

An Integrated Framework

The article explains that shopping is not just buying the products but it is an experience for people. Salespersons and the consumers interact and enjoy the process. Interactivity takes place which is also one of the major determinants of consumer attitudes. It also influences the trust between the e-retailer and buyers. There are many studies in bricks-and-mortar states that the retail environment is the real influencer of the attitudes and intentions of the buyers.

It is the emotions, colours, aroma and approach which influence behaviour of the consumers. These influencers can also be applied to the online retailing with the help of putting graphics, videos, audio and presentation of the data.

Just like social factors affect the intentions of the consumers, situational factors also determine the perceptions of the consumers. Like convenience influences the behaviour of the consumer the most. For e.g. if the consumer finds it easy in approaching a particular site, it will be easy for him to shop from there. Like Amazon.com has provided an ease to the customers to shop and continue the process by ‘one click’. This makes it easy and attractive for the shoppers to purchase from Amazon.com. Also, it has allowed the customers to review the products, search for the information and ask any question which reduces their costs ad time to shop. It also provides satisfaction to them. Shopping frequency also affect the shopping intentions. Like the buyers which are more experienced with online shopping are likely to purchase more whereas the new users will hesitate in placing the orders. So these kind of situational factors influence the attitudes of products.

The article explains that there are four most common consumer traits which stimulate the customer’s intentions to buy more from e-retailers. These traits include gender of consumers, education, earning and age. It is evaluated that males are more interested in taking risks and they are more system oriented so they find it easier in comparison with women to use systems for shopping. Males tend to be the quick shoppers. They take less time in making decisions than Females. Women, in most of the cases, shop for fun. This summarises that the companies should segment their shopping websites as per men and women to satisfy e-consumers.

The article also focuses on the role of education in making e-shopping successful. It is argued that people who are highly educated are engaged more in information gathering and the people who are less educated make decisions on the basis of advises, reviews and their own shopping experiences.  Highly knowledgeable and educated people find it convenient in buying the products or services online. Just like education, age plays a main role. Older people are lesser interested in seeking information and on the other hand, younger generation always seek for more information. That is why; internet shopping is more famous and popular among younger generation. So this shows that various customer traits have different effects on the customer purchase intentions. The main expectations which are summarised in the articles includes that the relationship between social factors and the attitude of people towards online sellers are affected by the customer traits. Similarly, the relationship between emotions and attitude of buyers towards online sellers are also affected by customer’s traits.

Consumer Traits

Discussion and Conclusion

The articles finally discusses that there are many factors which influence e-shoppers. There is still the lack of understanding among people for online shopping. For them, traditional shops are the best way to shop and experience shopping but time has evolved many changes and now, online shopping is becoming popular year by year. This article tried to fill the gap of this understanding by explaining the models and frameworks.  A dynamic model of Theory of Reasoned Action has been discussed which shows that the behaviour of consumer is affected by the beliefs, intentions, attitudes and more. Attitude of people can lead to the actual purchases by the consumers. The model is further enhanced and explained that the decision making process of the consumer is influenced with the image of the retailers, trust, emotions, social interactions and more.  The situational factors like ease and convenience also affect these intentions of the consumer to purchase from e-retailer.

The article explored the integrated model of consumer behaviour in case of online shopping. E- Shopping is gaining popularity at a fast pace and traditional shopping is now facing lack of interest of people.  But for better understanding and for ensuring growth of online shopping, understanding consumer behaviour is must.

As the article suggests, e-consumer behaviour is affected by many factors. The article shows how online shopping has evolved over the years from traditional shopping. The development and impact of internet shopping on the e-consumer behaviour has been discussed in the article. The future development of e-business or internet shopping is also discussed. Internet has gained much popularity in the last two decades. The e-consumer research shows that after the boom in digital technologies, consumer’s interest has increased rapidly towards the online shopping. One of the main reason of this boom is that the consumer can shop from anywhere in the world without even walking out of his home (Oliver, 2014).  

There are many factors as discussed in the article which influence the behaviour of consumer in shopping online.  These factors may be external or internal. According to Warner’s theory, the external factors of influencing the e-consumer includes Demographics, social-economics, skill and community policy, principles and beliefs, orientation group, and promotion. The internal influencing factors are variability of psychological procedures, which includes various variable attitudes, learning abilities, inspiration, self-reputation, and Malcolm. Further researchers found that the consumers have two type of motive while they are shopping online, which is functional and non-practical. The functional motives usually related to the time, place of shopping and needs of the consumers. These motives can be like the environment of the place of shopping, the prices of products, time involved in shopping process, varieties of products and more (Xu-Priour, Truong & Klink, 2014). The motives which include social and ethnic values include brand name, personal goals and more. These two types of motives are like two parallel lines which are positively associated with the e-consumer behaviour (Xu-Priour, Truong & Klink, 2014).

Consumer behaviour is different in different markets as every country has different access to the technology and internet. In Europe and Australia, internet has become much active in past the past decade.

Discussion and Conclusion

In Australia, the consumers are usually engaged in e-commerce activities like 36% consumers use internet for buying travel reservations online, entertainment and books, 30% buy newspapers and magazines, 25% uses internet for buying accessories and  21% of the consumers use it for ordering food and beverages. The Australian market is a mature retail market with modest bricks and mortar retailers, so in few parts of Australia, the online transaction activity is yet to become regular (Thaichon, 2017). There are differences in the groups using internet. There is a digital divide in using internet. As per the research, 86% of the Australian households had internet access in 2014-2015 which also encourages online shopping. The use of internet depends on the income of households. It was observed in the research that 98% of the highest income households have internet connection in Australia while only 2/3^rd of the low income households have internet connection.

Education is another factor which affects the usage of internet. The highly educated people are more likely to use internet than those who are low educated or uneducated. Age is another factor which affects the internet usage. As per the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the below graph shows that the highest percentage of group which uses internet belongs to the age group of 15-17 years and the lowest belong to the age group of 65 years and above which clearly indicates that the young generation is more attracted and likely to use internet and related services.

Figure 3: Percentage of age group using Internet in 2014-2015

Source: (Ewing, 2016)

In European market, e-commerce is showing rapid growth. The new technology of internet offers the retailers to sell their products to the consumers across the globe through the online shopping websites. It shows that e-commerce websites are selling more products in many countries, and as a result they are becoming more profitable for the companies. The usage of internet in Europe has grown by  27% since 2000. Europe constitute one fourth of the total internet users worldwide.  In Europe, the online retail sale has grown up by 31% across the France, Germany, Italy, and Netherlands. It is the general perception of European retailers that selling the products and services through online shopping websites requires less investment and more profits than opening a traditional shop or supermarket. The statistics shows that more than four fifths of the Europeans used internet in 2016. The internet activities of different countries vary and different factors like age and education have significant impact on the use of internet. There is a digital divide across generations which show that the usage of internet also varies with the age group. It is seen that young population is more associated with internet rather than older generation (Eurostat, 2017).

E-commerce industry has evolved over the time and it is benefitting several other businesses. Nowadays e-commerce is becoming a significant option for many retailers as they can sell their products across the world by using the online platform. The increase in the demand for online shopping resulted in the shift of businesses from Bricks and Mortars to the e-stores.  Ecommerce has benefitted several other businesses as it brings ease in shopping. It is very easy to operate and handle and involves low cost. Ecommerce has helped even the small businesses. It provides them vast outreach of customer’s base around the globe. The collaborations can be done online with other businesses to incur higher returns and presence in the markets.  It involves no middlemen which directly cut down the costs and time of processes of buying and selling (Savitz, 2013). Online businesses are open 24*7 which provides convenience to the buyers to shop anytime they want. The other businesses which are benefitted from ecommerce include the telecommunication business as the internet connection is necessary to run online business. Software and Information technology companies also get benefit of it because they get the chance to handle the software’s of the commerce websites. They design, develop and maintain these websites for better operation of business. Internet requires a device through which people can access internet. So, mobile, laptop or tablet producing companies also gets benefitted from the evolution of ecommerce industry. Social networking companies also get benefit of ecommerce. They help business in delivering best content to the customers via social media channels like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (Savitz, 2013).

Consumers are directed towards a seller which provides the products and services at reasonable prices and at convenience. Customer buys the products and services from the retailer on which they trust. To build a good relationship with the customer, trust is an essential factor. Generally, the customers have trust issues with the online retailers and are more comfortable with the physical store retailers because they could interact face to face with the sellers who sell through physical stores (Oliver, 2014). The consumer is motivated through several factors for choosing ecommerce. These involve the internet environment, the communities, social networks and interactive environment on internet. The forms of marketing activities in the present modern business environment also motivate the consumer to shop online. It includes marketing on social networks and media, viral marketing, buzz marketing and interactive communication on the social networks. The value added activities make them interested in the online shopping. Online shopping also depends on what products are sold online, like electronics and books are sold in good numbers on online platforms. Standardized products motivate customers to buy them online. The main motives of online shopping are the low prices of products, easy reach and convenience in shopping, saving of time and buying exclusive goods with wide variety. Some other motives can be increasing trend of online shopping and changing lifestyle of consumers. These motivates also depend on the factors like social status, age, income. Demographics, etc. (Oliver, 2014).

Consumers behave differently when they are offered products online. It depends on their culture and confidence that how they choose products online. It is very important to understand the buyer decision for every retailer. The customers choose the payment mode while making payments online and it depends on the trust between the retailer and consumer and several other attitudes of the customer. Once they find that the site is trustworthy, they proceed further for the online transaction. After making the payments from their credit/debit cards, they get the product delivered at their given address. After the process of delivery, the buyer will check the product and will take the decision whether he has to accept the product or return it back to the seller (Cummins, et al., 2014). The product should match the demand of customers. The payment habits of the consumer depend on various factors like age, education, occupation etc. For example, online payment methods are more used by the ones who are educated and have knowledge of it. There are reasons behind the choices made for payment by the customers which depend on their attitudes for different payment methods (Cummins, et al., 2014).

World Wide Web has evolved and transformed the business all over the world. It plays an integral role in satisfying the customers. Customer satisfaction can be understood as the level of expectation and the extent to which the customers are happy with the products and services of the business. It can be seen and observed from the trends that satisfaction level of customers from ecommerce is increasing that is why teh ecommerce businesses are increasing day by day. It is because they are able to share their experiences, read reviews before making purchase and also save their time by shopping at home from all over the world. Thee commerce businesses are continually trying to improve the satisfaction level of the customers. It can be said that since ecommerce is on boom, it is because the customers are allowing these businesses to serve them. This shows the satisfaction level of the customers. Also, future holds a good result and numbers for ecommerce businesses (Sheikh & Basti, 2015).

References

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Cummins, S., W. Peltier, J., A. Schibrowsky, J., & Nill, A. (2014). Consumer behavior in the online context. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, 8(3), 169-202.

Dennis, C., Merrilees, B & Jayawardhena, C & Wright, L T (2009). E?consumer behaviour. European Journal of Marketing. Vol. 43 Issue: 9/10, pp.1121-1139, https:// doi.org/10.1108/03090560910976393.

Eurostat (2017). Internet access and use statistics – households and individuals. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Internet_access_and_use_statistics_-_households_and_individuals.

Ewing, S (2016). Australia’s digital divide is narrowing, but getting deeper. The Conversation.

Oliver, R. L. (2014). Satisfaction: A behavioral perspective on the consumer. Routledge.

Savitz, E (2013). The Future Of E-Commerce For Small Businesses, Forbes.

Sceulovs, D., & Gaile-Sarkane, E. (2010). Identification of factors affecting consumer habits in the environment. In The 6th International Scientific Conference Business and Management 2010 (pp. 965-970).

Sheikh, S. M., & Basti, M. (2015). Customer Satisfaction in Business to Consumer (B2C) E-commerce: A Comparative Study of Turkey and Pakistan. Eurasian Journal of Business and Economics, 8(16), 73-100.

Thaichon, P. (2017). Consumer socialization process: The role of age in children’s online shopping behavior. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 34, 38-47.

Xu-Priour, D. L., Truong, Y., & Klink, R. R. (2014). The effects of collectivism and polychronic time orientation on online social interaction and shopping behavior: A comparative study between China and France. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 88, 265-27