Online Consumer Behaviour Case Study

Hasslinger, Hodzic, Opazo (2007) believed that in order to comprehend or the online purchase behaviour of the consumers, specific identifica- tions of the online consumer need to be made. Some key characteristics are identified in regard to the online purchase behaviour. These charac- teristics were identified in order to segregate the online consumers.

Cultural Online Characteristics

This characteristics usually throw light on the fact that difference in so- cial class creates a difference in online purchasing behaviour as stated by Smith and Rupp (2003). Consumers belonging to a higher social class are said to have higher intention of purchasing online because it is more likely that they possess a computer and have greater access to the

Virtual communities, consisting of discussion groups on a web site were identified for the on- line consumer as new Reference Groups.The consumer can read about other people’s experiences and opinions which have shown to have the effect of Reference Groups according to (Christopher & Huarng, 2003). Other Reference Groups, which are identified by Christopher and Huarng (2003), are links to product related web sites, which encourages product selection and contact information.

Personal Online characteristics

Monsuwé, Dellaert and Ruyter (2004) claimed that income plays an im- portant role for online purchasing behaviour. They have pointed out that consumer with higher household incomes tend to develop a more posi- tive attitude towards online shopping. This conclusion was explained by the fact that households with higher income would have a positive corre- lation with the possession of a computer, Internet access, and higher

However, its often that a crucial aspect of e-commerce gets lost among all this information - customers online behaviour. It is mostly due to the fact that it is assumed that the customers will visit the website, find the required product and providing the price is right, and shipping is within the reason, the customer makes the purchase. Unfortunately, this is not exactly the case.There is much more to the user buying process than the 4 stages framework commonly discussed:

1) Need recognition

2) Search for solution

3) Evaluation of alternatives

4) Purchase Underlying processes take place during each of theses stages. In order to start an online store or set up an E-business, it becomes important to gain knowledge about them.

The FFF Model of Online Consumer Behavior

In 2012, two management professors Ujwala Dange and Vinay Kumar from Priyadarshini Engineering College and S. B. Patil Institute of Man- agement respectively proposed a model for online customer behaviour.

The FFF model outlines the internal and external facts which affects the online consumer buying behaviour. After outlining the internal and ex- ternal factors, it further proceeds to identify various filtering elements that customer apply while selecting the online store to purchase from and revised filtered buying behaviour based on their final