Which consumer attributes influence South African consumers to shop online

Technology advances such as Internet have changed consumers shopping behaviour and increased South Africa consumers online shopping in the last few years. The purpose of this research paper was to determine the consumer attributes that influence online shopping behaviour of South African consumers. The paper determines whether consumer attributes influencing online shopping differ across consumer demographic factors and frequency of purchase. Online shopping has been a topic of interest for many researchers in SA and globally. As online shopping gain momentum among consumers, it is important for online retailers to understand what influence consumers to shop online. This is more important for developing countries such as SA. The population for the study was SA consumers who have internet access. A convenience sampling method was used to reach 104 respondents in SA. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 24. Various statistical analysis such as descriptive statistics, factor analysis and Anova were used. The findings of the study revealed that consumers attributes: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and security have an influence on their online shopping behaviour. The conducted research also established that age of consumers, significantly influence on online shopping while gender, income and education level have no significant influence towards online shopping consumer behaviour. The attributes differ across the frequency of purchase with those frequently buying attaching more value to perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of online shopping. Corresponding author: Khathutshelo Makhitha Email addresses for the corresponding author: makhikm@unisa.ac.za First submission received: 23rd October 2018 Revised submission received: 18th February 2019 Accepted: 22nd April 2019 Introduction Since its introduction in the early 1990s, the concept of online shopping has revolutionized how consumers shop (Rudansky-Kloppers, 2016) and therefore there is a need to understand how online consumer behave (Fayad & Peper, 2015). Globally consumers differ; as a result, their behaviour towards online shopping similarly varies. Furthermore, KPMG (2017:1) suggested that the frequency of online purchases varies from one country to another. Particularly developed countries such as UK, USA and China who are considered the leaders of online shopping (Mpinganjira, 2017:1). Although the use of internet technology in Africa is on the rise (Mpinganjira, 2017:1), the challenge remains that online shopping in developed worlds has advanced in contrast to developing countries like South Africa (SA) and much of the African continent (KPMG, 2017:1). Much of this lag in online shopping is attributed, among other factors, to a lack of internet access (Kempen & Kasambala, Toerien, 2015). However, although internet penetration in SA has risen remarkably (StatsSA, 2013; StatsSA, 2017), this has not translated into online shopping. This is further emphasised by Mpinganjira (2017:1) who stated that not everyone with internet access is a potential customer for online retailers. Although internet is considered Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 4 July 2019 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 313 the driving force behind online purchasing (Mcallum, 2017:1), there is still a need to get South Africans to shop online (Kempen & Kasambala, Toerien, 2015).it is therefore the purpose of this study to determine which consumer attributes influence consumers online shopping. Consumers’ exhibit different behaviour when shopping in a brick-and-mortar store compared to when shopping online. An understanding of consumer buyer behavior when shopping online will enable online retailers to formulate appropriate marketing strategies targeted at these consumers. This would require that markets determine the attributes that consumers consider when deciding whether to shop online or not. Online shopping in SA lag behind those of other countries due to slow adoption of online shopping. There are more than 2 000 shopping centres in South Africa (Busitech, 2015) which create competitive pressures for online retailers since consumers have to choose whether buying online or from the brick n mortar stores located in shopping centre. Online retailers need to understand the attributes that consumers use to evaluate online retailers to ensure that they offer products and services that match the requirements of online consumers and to lure them away from brick and mortar stores. Many scholars from have investigated online shopping across the globe. However, few research papers focus on South African online consumer. South Africa is a developing country with people of diverse backgrounds in terms of ethnic groups and other demographic factors that requires research focusing on the country since online shopping adoption has been on the increase in the country. Existing research in online shopping in SA focused on online banking (Brown, Cajee & Strobel, 2003), job seeking (Brown, 2010), online shopping framework (Dlodlo, 2014), online buying satisfaction (RudanskyKloppers, 2014) and online shopping interactivity (Mpinganjira, 2014) and consumer attitude towards online shopping (Mpinganjira, 2016). There is a need for more research on online shopping for marketers to understand what influence consumers to shop online and specially attributes that influence consumers to shop online. The main objective of this research is to determine the attributes online shoppers use to evaluate whether to shop online. Furthermore, the research will also investigate whether attributes differ across demographic factors and frequency of online purchases. Literature review Consumer online shopping in South Africa Globally, consumer online shopping continues to grow rapidly centred around advances in internet technology. In South Africa, the general household survey (GHS) indicated that the percentage of internet connectivity rose significantly between the years 2013 and 2016, growing from 40.9% to 59.3% respectively (StatsSA, 2014, StatsSA, 2017). Furthermore, a reported 21 million South Africans used the internet in 2016 with this number expected to grow to 22.5 million in 2017 (Worldwide worx, 2017). With the rising increase in internet use, online shopping in South Africa has similarly increased in recent years (KPMG, 2013). In 2015 a reported 3.225 million South Africans shopped online (Worldwide Worx, 2016), which was an increase from at R2.26 billion in 2012. South African consumers who shop online have reported high levels of satisfaction with their purchases. In contrast, 87% of consumers who reported to be satisfied with their purchases in 2012 to increase to 97% in 2017 (MasterCard, 2013). Online sales increased from R2.26 billion in 2012 (Pillay et al., 2012) to R37 billion in 2017 and is estimated R53 billion in 2018 due to increasing numbers of consumers who are shopping online (Fin24, 2017). There are channels available to make online purchases. There are various devices used to make online shopping, for SA top three devices are the desktop, which dominates most of online purchases at 60%, while mobile phones and tablets are at 55% and 38% respectively (Eshopworld, 2017:1). 55% of South African online shoppers use mobile phones while 38% opted to make online purchases through tablets. Due to the high rates of mobile penetration in South Africa, online shoppers are increasingly opting to make purchases on their mobile devices, which resulted in an estimated 65% growth in online spend via mobile devices (smartphone or tablet) between 2015 and 2016 (Moneyweb, 2017). The trend in South Africa is that majority of consumers browse online and then make their purchases in the store (SACSC, 2016). This means that for most consumers, the search for information about a product begins on the retailer’s website while the actual purchase happens in-store. The conclusion was that in the search for information, consumers value the internet as an information source Journal of Business and Retail Management Research (JBRMR), Vol. 13 Issue 4 July 2019 www.jbrmr.com A Journal of the Academy of Business and Retail Management (ABRM) 314 but not a place to transact; as a result, the physical store remains an important element for consumers when making the purchase. For electronic products, 47% of consumer’s research about them online but only 60% purchase the products ins-tore (PWC, 2017; Begg, 2017). Other items frequently purchased online range from travel bookings, ticket for events (movies) through to fashion items and books (Gernon, 2017; PWC, 2017). The most purchased online products in SA is clothing, followed by books, electronics, DVDs, electrical appliances, homeware and the least bought was groceries (SACSC, 2016). Although the range of products purchased online is diverse, a significant number (57%) of South African consumers did not purchase their groceries online (PWC, 2017).Although there are over 200 online retailers in SA, the top 5 leading retailers in 2013 were, in order most visited sites, Kalahari.com, amazon.com, bidorbuy.co.za, groupon.co.za and takealot.com (BusinessTech, 2014). However, Takealot is the largest online shop in SA in terms of market share. This is due its wide selection of products across several categories, as well as its range of delivery options (Mybroadband, 2017). Brick and mortar retailers such as Pick n Pay, Woolworths, and, Edcon Holdings, the operator of retailers such as Edgars, Jet, Jet Mart and CNA, are among the apparel and grocery retailers to have taken up e-commerce seriously (Mahlaka, 2016). Online shopping consumer attributes Consumers who seek convenience, value and a variety of choice characterize the online shopping space in South Africa (Begg, 2017). The top three reasons for which consumers shop online are considered to be convenience shopping, the ability to c