Abstract
Orientation: The advances in technology have resulted in an increasing number of people choosing to shop online, globally. Despite the growing number of those shopping online and online retailers, most customers continue to avoid shopping online. This could be because of risks inherent in online shopping that have resulted in some consumers opting not to shop online.Research purpose: The main aim of the research study is to identify the risks influencing consumers’ attitude towards online purchases.Motivation for the study: The study was driven by the need to determine the risks associated with online shopping that influence whether consumers will shop online or not.Research design, approach and method: A survey, using the non-probability convenience sampling method, was used to reach respondents (207 consumers in South Africa who visited two shopping malls) in Gauteng, South Africa. Data were collected from consumers at the two shopping malls from March 2019 to April 2019. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual model for the study.Main findings: The results showed that product risk and privacy risk influence consumer attitude in online shopping positively and that delivery risk does not to have a great influence on attitude towards online shopping. The attitude towards online shopping was also found to positively influence their intention to shop online.Practical/managerial implications: The practical implications for this study would be that retail owners and marketers would understand and manage product and privacy as risks that inhibit consumers from shopping online. Retailers should formulate appropriate marketing and retail strategies that address these risks to change consumers’ perceptions about online shopping and reduce the level of risks related to online shopping.Contribution/value-add: Marketing and retail strategies should include strategies on how product risk and privacy risks will be managed and reduced to ensure they do not influence consumer’s attitude against online shopping.
Highlights
Online shopping has been an increasing trend worldwide, especially in countries with a welldeveloped infrastructure for online marketing activities
This is supported by Yang, Sarathy and Lee (2016:75), who stated that future research should take a more consumer-centric approach and try to understand better the impact of online shopping risk factors on consumers’ purchasing behaviour
Over 90% of the respondents (n = 188) completed Grade 12 and more than half (56.6%, n = 117) of the respondents have some tertiary qualification
Summary
Online shopping has been an increasing trend worldwide, especially in countries with a welldeveloped infrastructure for online marketing activities. The advent of online shopping has evoked some concerns for consumers, including product quality assurance, insufficient information disclosure, security of payment methods and private information vulnerability (Ariff et al 2014:309) These challenges have evolved because of online retailers’ lack of understanding of the main risk factors influencing consumers’ attitude and online shopping behaviour in South Africa. Limited research was performed regarding the perceived risk factors influencing consumers’ attitudes and the effect of attitude on consumers’ online shopping intention Investigating this is important, as it will help marketing practitioners and online retailers to understand better how they can improve their online sales. To determine the effect of online shoppers’ attitude towards their intention to shop online in South Africa
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