Risk Factors Discriminating Online Metropolitan Women Shoppers

Abstract

Online shopping has been really male - oriented as the product categories were limited to software, computers, music and computer accessories. As the product category expanded to clothing, food, home care and toys, women started to adopt online shopping. Nowadays there is a massive surge in online shopping particularly among metropolitan women, as they tend to purchase both necessary and discretionary products. According to the report by Associate Chamber of Trade and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), over 80% of the online shopping is done by metropolitan women shoppers.The present study investigates the prominent perceived risks of employed women in online shopping through a consumer survey and by applying multiple discriminant analysis .The results of the empirical analysis demonstrated that perceived physical risk and product risk were found vital in discriminating the respondents as intermediate or experts in online shopping .Whereas perceived psychological risk, quality risk, Information Security Risk, Time Risk, Delivery Risk, Social Risk, Source Risk and financial risk perception during online purchase adoption contributes comparatively lesser for discrimination. The findings elucidate how marketers can formulate and implement risk-reducing strategies during online purchasing.