Insight of Online Shopping Trend: An Empirical Study with Relevance to Bahrain

Abstract

Online Shopping is growing globally. However, there may be notable differences in the way people engage the online marketplace based on such factors as age, gender, and educational background (among others). This research focuses on the expanding trend of electronic retail (e in Bahrain. It examines various factors such as availability, knowledge, awareness, security and customer service which are expected to have an impact on online shopping popularity among different age groups and their educational background. The study challenges the growth of e tail in Bahrain's heterogeneous market and highlights that the main dependencies that affect it can be either related to technology availability or lifestyle perspective of Internet users. The study hypothesizes that the highest online shopping activity is not sustained within a specific age group. The research also discusses the advancement of online shopping in a country like Bahrain and how the business trend can be transforming from r to e-tail. In conclusion it attempts to forecast the move towards e-tail and highlights the underlying factors such as product variety, cost, security and customer service. Another area that is moderately explored is online banking usage which is an that is closely related to e-tail as it requires similar mechanisms.