Website features, lifestyle compatibility, online shopping attitudes and purchase intentions amongst South African consumers
Date
2020
Authors
Cuna, Erica
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Abstract
The rapid growth and adoption of the internet over the last two decades has led to the boom in online businesses, as well as to the internet being used as a way of communication and connectivity. The convenience and relative affordability of accessing the internet has created unprecedented opportunities for organisations to expand their offerings to a wider, global audience. The introduction of e-commerce has provided opportunity for many individuals and organisations to operate solely online. Online stores enjoy a lot of exposure amongst those people with access to the internet, while concurrently being exposed to many competitors too.
Websites have evolved from complex coded networks that took weeks to create, to simplistic programs and templates that any individual can create in a matter of minutes. The relationship between websites, website design and online shopping, was examined in this research. The study looked at what were classified for the purposes of this study as systematic and behavioural factors associated with online shopping. The systematic factors are website system qualities and playfulness of the website, and behavioural factors are attitudes towards online shopping, lifestyle compatibility, order fulfilment and perceived usefulness of an e-commerce website. The study draws from the consumer behaviour framework, and focuses specifically on the influencing factors of website design on purchase intentions. It uses previous studies across developed and developing countries, which examined website features, customer satisfaction, and what motivates and influences consumers to purchase online.
The methodology of the study employed a cross-sectional survey design, by means of a selfadministered questionnaire, distributed online. The questionnaire was adapted from previous studies, which dealt with online platforms. The results of the study prove that consumers in South Africa found the system quality of a website to be important, as well as playfulness, attitude towards shopping online, lifestyle compatibility, perceived usefulness and order fulfilment, all to be contributing factors affecting their online purchase intentions. However, playfulness in relation to perceived usefulness was not supported in the study, as well as lifestyle compatibility as a direct influencer of purchase intention.
The study provides useful insights into the booming online shopping environments in South Africa specifically, regarding how the design and use of a website does in fact affect a consumers desire to purchase. It shows exactly which systematic and behavioural factors are
important to consumers, and provides theoretical as well as practical recommendations to marketers and business owners on how to better prioritise their investment into websites, and how to improve their user journeys to encourage purchases.
Description
A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Strategic Marketing (MMSM) to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020
Keywords
Online shopping, E-commerce, Website feature, Purchase intention, Playfulness, Lifestyle compatibility