Report on Summary of Determinants of Consumers’ Preference for E-shopping in Saudi Arabia

In the chapter 1, the introduction chapter, study and background of the E-commerce is defined and why Ecommerce gained so much popularity among people. The present research work will explore the influential factors for the decision-making process and preference of customers for online shopping. The research provides a distinguished approach to the appropriate factors influencing the consumer behavior of product and purchasing decisions. Along with other factors, the positive findings of research and review after comparison of results suggest the important factors that alter the decision of customers.

The Rapid development of Technology has introduced the new consumption model that is Electronic Commerce. Electronic Commerce is becoming an emerging technique and getting more attention from the customers in the society. The development of the Internet and the infrastructure of communication increase the bandwidth of Telecommunication and provide the ability for customers to purchase products online. The customers are more attracted towards the Ecommerce technology due to the convenience this technology has provided to the people in the form that they can purchase things online without going to the market and without any inconvenience of surveying the market and buying the products with such struggle. E-commerce has given relaxation to the consumers and they can purchase anything at anytime and anywhere just by clicking a single button. The process of online shopping is relatively easier and enhances customer to business relations, trading models, the interaction of customers with the sellers directly, order and cancellation of the services, adjustment of quantity demanded, and home delivery services for the customers. Several organizations are also entered into the business and provide more choices to the customers about online shopping sites. Now most of the different business organization utilizes this technique to attract the customers so that they can buy their products and their company will have more profit. Also, there are some ways that companies attract their customers. The ways include some discounted offers that the companies provide if the customers purchase from their website. The analysis and understanding of consumer behavior in the d. Online shopping behavior can be defined as how people prefer to purchase online services through the internet decision-making process of the consumer for online stores can enhance online shopping services.

In Chapter two, the Literature review chapter, the background of the E-commerce and its utilization is defined according to the various researchers. According to different researchers, analyzation of consumer behavior for the different environments of online shopping. The model based on concepts was related to the exploratory potential and sense of meeting the decision of consumers. The holistic approach is considered in the research about the online shopping environment. Different researches have provided different reviews on the E-commerce and its utilization and use by different companies and different users. According to another researcher, e-commerce is providing a new platform for business and retail services. However, online buying decisions of consumers sometimes get influence from some factors which are a cost factor, product factor, seller factor, and convenience factor. External and internal factors motivate and discourage buyers from making decisions about e-shopping. Researchers studied a number of conceptual models and concluded results on the basis of comparative studies of secondary research material. Research findings present that highly developed technologies used in the websites and marketing of brands influence buying decisions in e-commerce. However, the most influential factors are income and culture. All the researchers define how, the E-commerce has gained this much importance in the global world among the organization and the consumers. Companies need to pay attention to three kinds of factors to promote business growth. Firstly, they need to provide useful information on websites regarding products. Secondly, companies need to focus on the simplicity of the website. Thirdly, retailers should have focus on brand name and website. Researchers claim that these three kinds of factors have a direct relationship with the buying decisions of consumers at online shopping platforms. E-commerce provides the opportunity to the buyers to get their desired products and services from various retailers all over the world revealed that e-commerce is referred to as the kind of the business that is conducted for the online environment meanwhile the behavior of the internet is considered as the unified platform, which is the reason for connecting the sellers and buyers. E-commerce is also considered as the range of the possible commercial transactions which is conducted online. Every website is able to generate income, and it can be easily included in this category .Another scholar revealed that e-commerce is referred to as the kind of the business that is conducted for the online environment meanwhile the behavior of the internet is considered as the unified platform, which is the reason for connecting the sellers and buyers. E-commerce is also considered as the range of the possible commercial transactions which is conducted online. Every website is able to generate income, and it can be easily included in this category

All these things defne the view of the reserachers about the E-commerce, as this defines the view and perspectives of each reaerrch scholar. This chapter is the most important chapter before dong any reserac because this chapter broaden your view about the previous resrahers cand what changes might be needed by the research scholar to be implemented in the future conducting researchers.

Third chapter is the methodlogy and the resrach chapter, different types of data is collected in order to attain the results and to give he ansers of the research questions and to fulfill the objecctives of the folowing research. The initial consideration of research is to define the influencing factors related to customer preferences. The study is empirical and based on the feedback of users for online shopping services. The primary methodology of the research is concentrated on the types of research approaches. Research approaches are both the qualitative and the quantitative. If a research has both, qualitative and the quantitative data then the research is more valid and valuable. The present research is quantitative research, and deductive way is employed to collect numerical data and calculate the results through an accurate statistical process. A model was developed about the relational behavior of consumers about purchasing products through online services. A hypothesis is generated to evaluate the services information; the satisfaction of consumers with the services, membership information, and production information, the present work adopted six components for the information quality. The questionnaire survey has been conducted with the buyer's intended aspect to examine the point of view of the purchaser.

 The users of online shopping system filled the questionnaire according to their own preferences about the services. The questions were designed with the perception of marketing, delivery options, quality of services, pricing of products and approach of research. The structure of the questionnaire used in the study includes questions about the vision and preferences of users. The questions were aggregated into 1-5 indexes to facilitate the quantification of numerable conduct and consumer attitudes. The research was based on the selection of samples and potential uses of the internet for considered as a group. In the group, individuals were internet users and online shopping consumers. The sampling was based on the people who are using the E-commerce services and reviews were taken from the people. SPSS software was used to analyze as well as interpret the data after collecting the data from interviewer-administered questionnaires. The software minimizes the chances of data manipulation. There are two kinds of the Statistical techniques that are employed in this study in order to attain the research objective.

These techniques are descriptive and inferential analysis. The two techniques were utilized for the statistical analysis of the data collected through the questionnaires and the surveys. Descriptive analysis leads towards the demographic profile of the respondents that are the age, gender, and education level and employment status of the respondents. The inferential analysis includes as which is conducted for the analyzing the reliability of the data as well as for analyzing the relationship of the variable with their effects either its negative or positive effect of the one variable on another variable. The chron Bach alpha, co-relation and the regression analysis is utilized in this research. The fourth chapter is the results and the analysis chapter. In this chapter all the data that is collected is utilized and further statistical analysis and different test are performed on the data to gain the required results.

The data was collected on age, gender, and education level and employment status of the respondents. And different statistical tests were applied on this data because all this data is necessary to find out the relationship between the E-commerce and its high demands. First factor is the age, through the factor of the age; we are able to identify which age groups are more interested in the online shopping. So that the companies using the E-commerce technology can easily target the age groups more. Second factor is gender, which gender uses this technology more and what items are purchasing and why are they more interested in the online shopping. Another chart is made on the gender basis shopping from the E-commerce. Third factor is education level; this defines which people are most interested in online shopping based on the educational level. And the last one is the employment status; the employment status defines that which category of the employees are more interested in the online shopping. All these things define the utilization of the E-commerce by different people.

A model is developed and these factors, E-shopping, Awareness and Perceived Usefulness, Promotion and Low Prices, Delivery Cost, Accessibility, Visual Marketing are tested through the statistical analysis. These factors are to be defined first in order to gain the required results and to see if the hypothesis is accepted or rejected. And after all the testing’s positive result is shown between the E-commerce shopping and al the dependent variables. In the results, descriptive statistics and regression analysis is applied on the variables that are developed through the model. Moreover, on every variable different statistical analysis and models are applied on the variables to see if the hypothesis is accepted or rejected. Applying the statistical analysis on each of the variables separately shows a full description of each and every variable. All these results generated from the analysis is then compared with each other to see if there is a positive relation between all the dependent and the independent variables. These relationships prove the hypothesis and there is a positive relation between the dependent variables.

1.1   Conclusion of Determinants of Consumers’ Preference for E-shopping in Saudi Arabia

In a nutshell, the research has been conducted to determine the factors that impact the online purchasing system. In order to reach the objective of research and analysis, the factors affecting the decision-making process of customers for online services are considered in the research. The research focuses on online shopping that is become a habit now. The users of internet services for online shopping consider trustworthiness and the positive effect of analysis on the decision of purchasing products online. The research explains the behavior of online customers and the way in which they preferred to purchase things from online services. The findings of the research have found a correlation between the previous literature and present experimental work along with other factors considered in this research as the independent variables. The analysis of the research has proposed and optimized condition to develop an online shopping assistant tool that can enhance the online shopping system for all the customers. The research is quantitative in nature and deductive way is employed to collect numerical data and calculate the results through an accurate statistical process.

Moreover, e-shopping is considered a dependent variable, while awareness and Perceived Usefulness, promotion and low prices, delivery cost, accessibility, and visual marketing are independent variables in the research. The research is based on questionnaire survey and the users of the online shopping system filled the questionnaire according to their own preferences about the services. The questions were aggregated into five Likert-scale to facilitate the quantification of numerable conduct and consumer attitudes. The questionnaire received concerns of users and then statistical analysis is carried out to measure the response of respondents through SPSS software. In order to estimate how awareness and perceived usefulness, promotion and low prices, delivery cost, accessibility, and visual marketing effects the e-shopping, descriptive and correlation analysis are applied. The analysis has shown that 72 respondents were males (54.5 percent of total respondents) and 60 respondents were females, most of the respondents belong to the age group between 26 and 35 i.e. 48 respondents, and most of the respondents belong to income group between 5,000 - 9,999 SAR i.e. 46 out of 132. The correlation of e-shopping with each and every dependent variable is positive and significant which means that all independent variables significantly and positively correlate with e-shopping and the correlation is significant at 1%. Last but not least, the highest correlation of accessibility with e-shopping is witnesses in the research.

1.2 Recommendations of Determinants of Consumers’ Preference for E-shopping in Saudi Arabia:

·         First of all, the website that thye consumers are using for the online shopping shouolde be accessible by the  cutomers easily, means it should lad more afstly and should have data that is less heavy.

·         A good picture of the product or the company should be ta the top with moest vibrant colors that attrct he cutomers. Because a good picture shows a thousand things of an organization and how the organization represents its products in front of te conumers.

·         The content in the websites houlkd be more precise and to the point and should be more attractve, all these things attract the consumers more towards the online shppping and they will frequntly visist the webiste on a daily basis to find new products.

·         A section for the customer review should be given on the website, so that the coutoers can shre their view when they have recived the product and in his way the company can know its strenths and weakness and can improve its weaknesses if there is any.

·         Provde discount and voucher to the cutsomer, in this way they will be more attrated and they can buy more products and the revenue generated by the company will increase.

·         Morever make the website, mobile friendly, it should also open on the mobile ophones because nowadays people prefer the use of mobile phones instead of the laptop because mobiles are easily carried everywhere and customer can buy the products from anywhere.

·         Morever a chat option for the customers shouldbe given on the website so that the customers can connect with the employees and can share any problem if there is regarding the product.

·         Then another attractive thing for the customers is that if the organization is offering free shipping to its customer. Free shipping is one of the most attractive feature of the online shopping because most of the times you have to pay more amaount for the shipping then you are paying for the product so free shipping is an attarctive feature of the online shopping.

·         Follow up the website regulalry to see how many customers have visted the website andgiven the reviews, in this way, the organization will come to know about the website and its daily usgae by the customers and average reviwes that the customer have provided.

·         Track the behaviours of the customers, by sending them messages from thye websites and taking their review about the website. Use a scale that shows the rankings that everytime a customer uses the website for the first time then take the review of the customer with the use of this ranking scale. In this way you can see the customer behavior and response about the website and if they are liking the website or not.