Online shopping preference of students in Taiwan
Yolanda Tsai
Literature review
Researches about online shopping have appeared since 2001. According to
forecasts by the Institute for Information Industry's Market Intelligence and
Consulting Institute (MIC), the online shopping market in Taiwan can be expected to
surpass NT$300 billion this year, an astonishing 31.6% increase in 2008
(http://www.taiwan-panorama.com/en/show_issue.php?id=200959805020e.txt&tab
le=3&cur_page=1&distype=text). Not only researchers did the researches about online
shopping, but also the government did a survey related to online shopping. According
to Research, Development and Evaluation Commission, Executive Yuan’s survey
pointed that 62.7% of population in Taiwan had experience of shopping online in
2011.
Online shopping is defined as the process whereby consumers directly buy goods
or services from a seller in real-time, without an intermediary service, over the
Internet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_shopping ). Moreover, online shopping
involves purchasing products or services over the Internet. Online shopping is done
through an online shop, e-shop, e-store, virtual store, web store, Internet shop or
online store. All the products in online stores are described through text, with photos
and with multimedia files. Many online stores will provide links for extra information
about their products. They often make available, safety procedures, instructions,
manufacture specification and demonstrations. Some will provide advice or how-to
guide. As you are already on the Internet, you can search for product reviews that
other consumers may have posted. Some online stores have place for these reviews
on their own sites. Many allow users to rate their products. Advice such as this from
other consumers, about a product would be unavailable in a conventional store
(http://www.streetdirectory.com/etoday/definition- of -online-shopping-jeljj.html).
In Kim’s (ibid) study observed differences among college students on Internet
shopping. In order to comprehend their previous Internet shopping experience, Kim
classified college students as non-web shoppers, web-store visitors, Internet browsers,
and Internet buyers. The theoretical factors grouped into the three categories of
consumer, marketing, and technology that influence the online shopping of these four
consumer groups. Significant demographic background differences about marital
status, number of credit cards held, hours of Internet use, and primary use of the
Internet were found among the four consumer groups. The key finding of the study
were that the consumer factor, comprised of privacy, security and trust, time saving,
ease of use, convenience, enjoyment provided by shopping, company reputation and
facility. There were most significant for who wanted to purchase online and who did
buy online.
According to Nirmala and Dewis’s (2011) study point that many fashion retailers
or marketers use Internet to advertise and sell their products. This research examined
the effects of consumers’ shopping preferences (brand/fashion consciousness,
shopping enjoyment, price consciousness, convenience/time consciousness, shopping
confidence, in-home shopping tendency), consumer innovativeness, online purchase
experience for fashion products, and gender on consumers’ intention to shop for
fashion products online. Furthermore, gender is marginally significant related to
consumers’ intention to shop for fashion products online. Surprisingly, women tend to
have lower intentions to shop for fashion products online compared to men.
After reading the related literature, the key points of the research were designed
according to these aspects as the definition of online shopping, the differences among
college students on Internet shopping and the effects of consumers’ shopping
preferences.