Factors affecting consumers’ attitude towards online shopping

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to apply the technology acceptance model (TAM) to examine factors that may influence consumer attitude towards online shopping and in turn,consumer purchase intention. The uses and gratifications theory is also applied to provide a psychological perspective to the research. Data was collected from 350 online shoppers in Singapore through a self-administered questionnaire. The findings support the study’s hypotheses that factors such as trust, perceived risk, entertainment, perceived usefulness, informativeness and perceived ease of use were significantly correlated with attitude. In particular, entertainment, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were found to have the largest influence on consumer attitude. Although this research was limited by sample size and lack of detail in the questionnaire, it did produce some useful insights. The findings suggest that in order to increase their customer base, online retailers should focus on making the shopping experience at their websites an entertaining and “effortless” one. At the same time, it is important to take into account the preferences of different demographic groups when deciding on the positioning of their websites. Finally, this study opens the door for further research to be conducted in the context of other countries, as well as the practical applications of research to real-world websites.