Megan Hunter

N9154507

Jeremy Tan
Friday 12 1pm

Word Count:
1924

UNDERSTANDING
AUSTRALIAN
CONSUMERS' ONLINE
RETAIL SHOPPING
BEHAVIOUR
WHAT INFLUENCES AUSTRALIAN CONSUMERS' ONLINE SHOPPING
BEHAVIOUR?
 Megan Hunter | n9154507

Table of Contents
Participation Reflection................................................................................3

Executive Summary....................................................................................4

1.0 Introduction and Background................................................................5

1.1 Importance of the Research...............................................................5

1.2 Scope of the Report............................................................................5

1.3 Research Problem/Question...............................................................5

1.4 Aims and Objectives...........................................................................6

2.0 Method..................................................................................................7

2.1 Methodological considerations and assumptions...............................7

2.2 Sample considerations.......................................................................7

2.3 Data collection and framework, and analytical considerations..........7

3.0 Ethical Considerations...........................................................................8

4.0 Analysis.................................................................................................9

4.1 Description of analysis undertaken....................................................9

5.0 Discussion and Recommendations......................................................11

5.1 Interpretation of the data based on the analysis you have

undertaken.............................................................................................11

5.1.1 To explore perceptions of online retail shopping........................11

5.1.2 To examine motivations for engaging in online retail shopping. 11

5.1.3 To understand the types of people who shop online..................11

5.2 Implications......................................................................................12

6.0 Limitations...........................................................................................12

6.1 Factors that affect the confidence that you have in your findings that
impact your recommendations..............................................................12

References.................................................................................................14

Appendices................................................................................................17

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Participation Reflection
I took part in a survey regarding Health Topics and Social Media Forums. I
selected this project because I'm interested in social media and preferred
to do an online research project rather than a lab study. The survey was
conducted online in two parts, taking approximately 15 minutes each,
answering short response questions along with questions on a scale of
agreement relating to visual examples. I feel that online surveys in
general are a quick and easy form of research to conduct and would be a
good way to collect data if the study is time sensitive. However, from my
experience I learned that online questionnaires can be difficult in the
sense that if you want to ask questions or require an explanation, you
can't. You may have the opportunity to email the researcher for
clarification which may take time; or if not, then answers given may be
misinformed and could possibly affect the research data. In addition, its
very hard not to think about your own personal experiences and be
unbiased. If a researcher was looking for impartial answers I dont think an
online survey would be the best form of data collection as it is instinctual
to recall back to past experiences and answer accordingly, especially if it's
a topic you're more familiar with. Furthermore, I found that if the topic is
not something of interest to you it can get quite boring. I don't have a
particular interest in health topics so the survey became quite dull, even
though it involved social media which I do have an interest in. Similarly,
repetitiveness can also be an issue with online surveys. I found myself not
as involved and not giving too much thought to questions, as well as
finding myself picking almost the same answers for different topics.
Because of this I didnt particularly feel valuable in this study as my
answers all seemed very similar and I wasnt sure if I was answering them
correctly. I think that to improve online surveys the questions need to be
more varied; especially with a qualitative research project, there should be
more opportunities to write sentenced answers than clicking boxes.
Questions need to be easy to understand and be clear as to what they're
asking so participants don't need clarification. In my own research I would
make sure that the participant understands the questions being asked; I

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will expand on and clarify any confusion they have with any part of the
interview; and will attempt to keep them engaged and interested and
keep them thinking. I think it's definitely valuable for researchers to take
part in other research as a participant as it helps to give you an
understanding of the sorts of things that go through a participant's mind,
so you can then cater to that and alter your research accordingly to
ensure you can the best and most accurate data.

Executive Summary
An exploratory research study was conducted to answer the question of
What influences Australian consumers online shopping behaviour.
Semi-structured depth interviews were used to collect data in response to
the research objectives regarding perceptions of online retail shopping,
motivations for shopping online and the kinds of people who shop online.
Thematic analysis was used to identify prevalent themes and patterns
between each of the sampled interview transcripts. The research findings
indicate that the factors which influence online shopping behaviour relate
first and foremost to price, security, reliability and the physical aspects of
products online, with purchasers being the younger generations who are
familiar with technology.

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1.0 Introduction and Background

1.1 Importance of the Research
It is important to conduct market research as it helps answer decision
problems or questions (Hair, Lukas, Roberts & Lee-Lukas, 2014). By being
able to answer these questions, business decision-makers can make more
informed decisions to create strategies and long-term performance
objectives to help increase sales, bring in new customers or improve their
business image (Al-Debei, Akroush & Ashouri, 2015).

The online retail industry in Australian has seen significant growth in the
past few years with an estimate of $19.1 billion spent just in 2015 (NAB,
2016). As this industry grows and becomes more mainstream, it is
important for both business decision-makers and marketers to understand
online shopping behaviours and motives in order to identify concerns and
cater to customer needs to better promote their business, attract new
shoppers and therefore make more informed and appropriate decisions
(Al-Debei et al., 2015; Entertainment Close-Up, 2012; Liu, Burns & Hou,
2013; Newstex, 2014).

1.2 Scope of the Report

The research conducted for this project is exploratory in nature and uses
the qualitative research method of depth interviews to collect data and
provide information regarding online shopping and related factors. It will
also include the analysis of four transcripts of both males and females
mostly aged around 19, with the exception of one aged 49. However, the
project does not include research on the purchasing of non-physical goods
or services.

1.3 Research Problem/Question

A research problem arises when a business decision-maker or other
individual discovers an area of concern which they believe is important to
resolve (Hair et al., 2014). A research question is then formed in order to
direct market research and ultimately attempt to solve the problem.

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Retail sales are increasing at more than twice the rate of traditional sales
per year (NAB, 2016) which poses the problem to businesses and
marketers in that to attract and cater to this market, knowledge on these
shoppers and their activities is needed. In an attempt to solve this
problem to assist with online retailers and marketers decision-making, the
following research question was formed:

What influences Australian consumers online shopping behaviour?

1.4 Aims and Objectives

Research objectives allow researchers to define clearly what a project will
attempt to achieve and becomes a guide as to how research is to be
conducted and what information is required to solve or answer the
research question (Hair et al., 2014).

The objectives that were formed for this project are a breakdown of key
points required to sufficiently answer the research question. This can be
seen in Table 1 which outlines what we expect to find in order to create an
overall assumption that can be used to answer the research question.

TABLE 1. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND THEIR AIMS 76

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE WHAT THEY AIM TO ACHIEVE
To understand the already present
To explore perceptions of
views that people have of
online retail shopping
shopping online
To determine the key variables
To examine motivations for
and factors which influence people
engaging in online retail
to choose online shopping instead
shopping
of in-store
To determine which demographics,
To understand the types of age groups, genders and other
people who shop online traits of people who purchase
online

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2.0 Method
2.1 Methodological considerations and
assumptions
This project is an exploratory study which uses qualitative research
techniques. Exploratory research is conducted in order to gather
information and insight about a topic and is not necessarily required to
reach a conclusion (Stebbins, 2008). This form of research was used as
the research question is quite ambiguous and therefore requires research
objectives to collect an array of responses about the topic. Furthermore,
due to the nature of exploratory research, qualitative methods are
generally used as they emphasise descriptive responses as opposed to
the quantification of data (Hammersley & Campbell, 2012). These
methods are suitable as they allow an understanding of views and
opinions to be collected, gaining insight about a particular topic such as
online retail shopping. However, due to the nature of qualitative research
methods, the data can be very objective and difficult to represent or
quantify (Hair et al., 2014). Therefore, it may be difficult to use the
collected data to generalise the views and opinions of a larger segment of
the public.

2.2 Sample considerations

In this study, the technique used to select participants is known as
convenience sampling. Convenience sampling is a non-probability
sampling technique in which participants are picked in a way which is
most convenient to the researcher, i.e. someone close by (Hair et al.,
2014). The specifications for this projects sample were that individuals
had to be English speaking Australians over the age of 18. This was
appropriate for our study as the research question requires an
understanding of any individual who buys online which does not have a
specific demographic in mind. The broad sampling allows for a greater
variety of responses in the early stages of research which can then be
used to target specific groups in future research.

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2.3 Data collection and framework, and analytical

considerations
There are several kinds of data collection techniques for qualitative
research, such as focus groups, case studies, interviews and surveys. The
technique used in this project was semi-structured depth interviews. This
technique was used as depth interviews allow for a natural flow of detailed
discussions which may reveal underlying attitudes and emotions (Danesi,
2014;). Semi-structured interviews keep the researcher on topic, with set
questions ensuring that research objectives are being fulfilled while there
is still an opportunity to elaborate impromptu and probing questions (Hair
et al., 2014). These methods are appropriate for this study as being
exploratory in nature, the identification and discovery of new ideas helps
to give greater insight into the topic of online retail shopping.

To extract data from the interviews, thematic analysis was used to

categorise groups of information relating to the research objectives.
Thematic analysis involves the identification of themes or patterns in
groups of data and classifying them in these themes to find any
relationships or similarities (Mills, Durepos & Wiebe, 2010). This form of
analysis is appropriate for this research as it draws out the most important
and relevant information which can determine a more definitive
understanding of the topic to answer the research question.

3.0 Ethical Considerations

Ethics is important in terms of marketing research as it ensures all
research collected is purely for knowledges sake and not a ploy to
promote, advertise or influence behaviours of participants (Hair et al.,
2014). It also reduces any negative effects on data quality that could
come from unwilling participation or lack of anonymity, and ensures the
continuation of cooperating participants (Hair et al., 2014).

The Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS) has

developed a Code of Professional Behaviour with which marketing
researchers must adhere to, to ensure professional standards and ethics

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are administered (AMSRS, 2014; Hair et al., 2014). The Association of

Market and Social Research Organisation has also developed a Privacy
Code with similar standards for members pertaining to their organisation
(AMSRO, 2014).

These codes have strict policies on a participants privacy, cooperation

and knowledge of the study which must be followed at all times. Table 2
below indicates policies within the Code and how they were followed
regarding the depth interviews in this project.

TABLE 2. CODE OF PROFESSIONAL B EHAVIOUR AND ADHERENCE IN THE

PROJECT (AMSRS, 2014)
CODE
Participants cooperation is
voluntary and must be based on
adequate, and not misleading,
information about the general
purpose and nature of the project
when their agreement to
participate is being obtained and
all such statements must be
honoured.
The rights of participants as
private individuals must be
respected by researchers and they
must not be harmed or adversely
affected as a result of cooperating
in a research project.
Researchers must ensure that
projects and activities are
designed, carried out, reported
and documented accurately,
transparently and objectively.
HOW IT WAS ADHERED TO
A consent form and thorough
explanation of the study was
given to each participant
before the interview outlining
what was required and the
topic of research.
The only information gathered
from each participant was
their age and gender. All other
personal information was not
collection and their name was
kept anonymous.
Each interview was recorded
and then transcribed word for
word.

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Participants must be informed At the beginning of each

before observation techniques or
recording equipment are used for
research purposes, except where
these are openly used in a public
place and no identifiable research
information is collected.
interview the researcher asked
the participants permission to
record their responses before
continuing.

4.0 Analysis
4.1 Description of analysis undertaken
Thematic analysis of the chosen transcripts was undergone through the
use of inductive coding. Inductive coding was used as the analysis was
conducted without any predetermined codes or categories (Thomas,
2006). Each transcript was read multiple times to deduce any key
statements or major points of information about the generalised themes
which would help fulfil the research objectives. These statements and
themes were slowly narrowed down into their appropriate codes until they
could form an overall view of each theme. Table 3 identifies each code
used, a description of the kinds of comments in each transcript which
relate to that code, and the theme they pertain to.

TABLE 3. CODING MARK-UP OF TRANSCRIPTS

THEME CODE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLES
PERCEPTI This code relates to the Never give your pin
ONS concerns and perceptions of number, or safety numbers
Security online safety, security and on the back of your card to
policies online anybody (Appendix B,
1.13)
Time This code relates to the Cuts your time you can
want to save time and be have more time to enjoy
efficient (Appendix B, 1.12)

10

This code relates to the
need for a store or shopping you're buying is what you're
Reliabilit
online in general to be
y
reliable, trustworthy or
legitimate
This code relates to the
Convenie
need for online purchasing
nce
to be easy and convenient
This code relates to the
Price want to save money
This code relates to the
ways in which people look
Research
for and decide on items to
purchase
MOTIVATI
This code relates to the
ONS
senses and other physical
Physical
features customers want
Aspects
when purchasing
This code relates to the
Items need for items to be
exclusive or varied
PEOPLE Personali This code relates to traits or
ty habits of people
This code relates to the
things people do online or
Actions
how they do them
Age This code relates to the
generation of people who
either do or dont shop
online
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Megan Hunter | n9154507
You can't guarantee what
actually looking for
(Appendix C, 1.6)
really easy and
convenient way of
shopping (Appendix D, 1.6)
So I bought it online to get
the deal, so I saved like
$30 (Appendix C, 2.9)
I tend to do a lot of
research before making a
purchase (Appendix D,
2.12)
never buy clothing
online, because I have to
try it on and make sure it
fits and looks proper
(Appendix B, 2.6)
there's so much more of a
variety online (Appendix C,
2.6)
Im always on [the
internet] (Appendix B, 3.1)
[purchases] Mainly around
birthday times, and
Christmas (Appendix B,
3.3)
The younger generation is
more likely to uh, to buy
online than an older
generation (Appendix A,
3.6)
 Megan Hunter | n9154507

This code relates to a arent as savvy to do

Familiarit
persons understanding and [shopping] on the
y with
ability to use technology computer (Appendix B,
Tech
3.5)

5.0 Discussion and Recommendations

5.1 Interpretation of the data based on the
analysis you have undertaken
5.1.1 To explore perceptions of online retail shopping
Perceptions that consumers have of online shopping are that although it is
more convenient than traditional stores and saves time, unless the
security and reliability of these e-stores, and the safety of their
information is of a high standard, they are less likely to shop online. This
coincides with studies that have shown online security being of the utmost
importance to shoppers, with 73% choosing not to shop online due to
security breaches (Chakraborty et al., 2016). Furthermore, research by
Childers, Carr, Peck and Carson (2001) identified that shopping online
reduces in-store frustrations as it is convenient and saves time parking,
waiting in line, etc. making consumers want to shop online, which
supports this reports research.

5.1.2 To examine motivations for engaging in online retail shopping

The key aspects which motivate consumers to purchase goods online are
lower prices, variety and exclusivity of items online. However, they are
less likely to purchase items which require the examination of physical
aspects such as touch, taste, smell or measurements. Research conducted
by Lo, Chou and Teng (2013) identified that price is the main criteria that
consumers use when considering purchasing goods online. Additionally,
Peck and Childers (2000) research identifies that customers are less
confident and therefore less likely to purchase products that would be
better inspected in-store, such as clothes, which also coincides with this
reports findings.

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5.1.3 To understand the types of people who shop online

The types of people who shop online have been identified as those who
are familiar with using technology, use it regularly and are mostly of the
younger generation. Research conducted by Wan, Nakayama and Sutcliffe
(2010) support these findings, identifying that younger people are more
web-literate and are the most active when it comes to online shopping.
They also state that familiarity or experience regarding a particular
product will determine if they will buy it online. Celik (2011) similarly
states that those who are scared or unsure of technology are less likely to
use it.

5.2 Implications
From these research objectives we can state that the factors which
influence Australian consumers shopping behaviours are price, security,
reliability and physical aspects of products online, with consumers being
mostly younger generations who are familiar with the technology.

Based on this information, to be successful in running an online retail

store you should adhere to these factors. An online store must ensure the
security of its customers personal information. In comparison to
conventional stores, online prices must be competitive and managers
should be willing to price match accordingly. It may be beneficial to avoid
selling clothing items unless significant detail is given on sizes or there are
refund policies in place. Managers may wish to target the younger
generation of buyers, or to avoid flooding the market, identify and cater to
older, tech-savvy consumers.

While exploratory research is used to explore certain characteristics or

features of a sample, descriptive research describes these features and is
therefore appropriate to use to continue this research through future
studies using the themes and codes found (Hair et al., 2014).

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6.0 Limitations
6.1 Factors that affect the confidence that you
have in your findings that impact your
recommendations
There are several limitations of qualitative research which can cause a
lack of validity and reliability in research data. The research conducted in
this project lacks the ability to generalise findings as only four transcripts
were analysed which cannot be used to make a definitive consensus of a
wider sample (Stokes & Bergin, 2006).

Furthermore, depth interviews may be misinterpreted and subjective

depending on the researcher, which can lead to a biased opinion.
Interviewers have their own views which may subconsciously sway a
participants response (Kapoulas & Mitic, 2012); for example, Appendix A
above comment 1.5, the interviewer asks a more direct question which
focusses the respondent on that particular topic instead of letting them
come up with their own example or response.

Convenience sampling can also have a negative impact on data

confidence. As the researchers in this project acquired their participants
from those most convenient to them instead of a target demographic, it
does not accurately represent a general target population (Hair et al.,
2014).

These limitations may cause the results to be unreliable and unsuitable to

use as a credible answer to the research question. If future studies were to
be conducted, the samples should be more defined and specifically
chosen; interviewers should be well-trained and have excellent
communication and listening skills; and a larger pool of data should be
analysed to ensure that the results are valid and more reliable (Hair et al.,
2014; Stokes & Bergin, 2006).

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