Why Purchase Online? An Empirical Study of Australian Internet Shoppers

Abstract

The reach of the Internet as a shopping medium has provided shoppers with significant benefits over traditional storefront shopping in terms of time saving, cheaper products, and product selection. This creates a need for a greater understanding of online shoppers and their purchasing behaviour, which could improve marketing strategy formulation. This study suggests the motivational factors of convenience, price, and product selection leading to online purchase are affected by the demographic characteristics of Internet shoppers (in terms of gender, age, income, and location) and shopping behaviour (in terms of shopping frequency, expenditure patterns and product types purchased).