Abstract
The internet has enabled businesses to make a wide range of products available for consumers to shop online, conveniently, anytime from anywhere in the world. While online shopping has shown tremendous growth over the recent past, literature indicates that consumers do cite some serious risks in transacting through the internet, and show reluctance in engaging in such activities. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to identify positive and negative antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping in an emerging economy, South Africa. Primary data through a survey method was collected from a sample of 215 consumers in Gauteng, South Africa, in early 2018. The study utilized descriptive, correlation and multivariate regression analysis to achieve its stated objective. The study identifies convenience, better deals/competitive pricing, a wider selection of products and online atmospherics as positive antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping, while trust/reliability issues, financial risk, product risk, non-delivery risk and return policy issues are identified as negative antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping. Online retailers are therefore encouraged to building on the positive antecedents by offering value for money (i.e. competitive pricing), offering a wide range of goods and services in their web pages, providing valuable information to customers, and designing visually appealing websites. Similarly, online retailers should try as much as possible to reduce the real and/or perceived risks related to financial risk and product risk by building trust with their customers.
Highlights
Significant interest has been devoted to online retailing, and as a result it has shown enormous growth over the recent past, primarily because it offers benefits to buyers and sellers alike (Hunter & Mukerji, 2011)
The study has identified and classified the antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping, viz., convenience, better deals/competitive pricing, a wider selection of products and online atmospherics classified as positive antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping
Trust/reliability issues, financial risk, product risk, non-delivery risk and return policy issues are identified as negative antecedents of consumer attitudes towards online shopping
Summary
Significant interest has been devoted to online retailing, and as a result it has shown enormous growth over the recent past, primarily because it offers benefits to buyers and sellers alike (Hunter & Mukerji, 2011). The success of online trading and shopping is attributed to the success of the internet and its ability to connect people and businesses alike. The internet has enabled businesses to make a wide range of products available for consumers to shop online, conveniently, anytime from anywhere in the world. A similar trend is observed in South Africa. Mitchley (2018) reports that e-commerce is exploding in South Africa, and it is estimated to amount to approximately R10bn (approximately $769m) during 2017, and this massive growth is driven by “high mobile phone penetration, rising consumer confidence in online transactions, and the expansion of brick and mortar retailers into the online sphere by adopting a multi-channel approach”. South Africa’s top online shopping sites include Yuppie Chef, Zando, H&M, ASOS, Woolworths, Amazon, Makro, MRP and Exclusive Books (Finder, 2018). Other popular online sites include Zana, Superbalist, Hello Pretty, Fortune, Mys Scattered Hear and Retail Box (Shesaid, 2016)
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