Perceived Benefits of Online Shopping and Attitude Formation of Women Shoppers in Urban Ghana

Abstract

The extent of globalization and technological revolution has rendered online retail business very competitive, complex and difficult to plan and predict effectively. Online retailers in Ghana are constantly exploring and exploiting ways to attract, engage and help consumers choose their brands over other competing brands. To understand these issues better from the context of online retailers and women shoppers in Accra, this study formulated three research objectives to assess how perceived benefits of online shopping influence attitudes of women shoppers. Literature revealed three key perceived benefits of online shopping, namely: perceived convenience, perceived price and perceived variety and product selection as influencing consumer attitude. The purposive sampling techniques and quantitative survey research method were used to select 100 women shoppers in Accra and collect the data for the study. Descriptive and hierarchical multiple regressions were used to analyze the data collected with questionnaires. The study found that there is a significant relationship between perceived benefits of online shopping and shoppers‟ attitudes. A one percent change in perceived benefits of online shopping increases the chance of positive shopping attitudes by 8.84 percent. The study also found perceived convenience, perceived price and perceived variety and product selection significantly influence women shoppers‟ attitude. However, perceived convenience was the most significant predictor of attitude of online shoppers. The study recommends that online retailers should improve their online technological infrastructure to offer more variety, efficient, flexibility convenience online retail services and also improve their security feature