CUSTOMERS’ BEHAVIOR TOWARDS E-COMMERCE IN BANGLADESH: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON SOME SELECTED B2C E-COMMERCE SITES

Abstract

This study aims at identifying salient attributes of e-commerce sites in Bangladesh. The study tries to assess the perception of customers about the performance of major-e-commerce sites on those attributes. Eighteen potential attributes are preliminarily selected, and after conducting a pre-test on 50 sample respondents eleven salient attributes are selected for the study.Finally 108 respondents are taken as the study sample. Mertin Fishbein?s multi-attribute attitude models adopted to measure the customers? attitude. Respondents were asked their belief and evaluation towards some B2C ecommerce sites. The benchmark of positive belief is hypothesized as 4 in a 5 point scale. The significance of the difference between observed mean of customers? belief and the predetermined benchmark is measured by left tailed Z statistic. It is found that the sample respondents believe that the performance of the B2C e-commerce sites in Bangladesh is up to the benchmark in teams of only two attributes among the eleven. The findings of this study may be used by the existing B2C e-commerce companies as well asby the future e-commerce entrepreneurs in Bangladesh to establish a quality and customer driven B2C e-commerce industry. Even the customers will be benefitting if the industry considers the findings of the study.