Why do consumers NOT buy online?

From: Chris Aldred <chrisaldred53_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Fri 06 Aug 2004 09:36:00 -0500

Readers:

I am currently carrying out marketing research for my MSC Marketing at UMIST
School of Management, Manchester, England. My research is related to
examining the factors that inhibit consumers from purchasing online. Such
knowledge is, of course, extremely valuable as it would serve to provide
advice to online traders on how they can improve their bottom-line and
create a less forbidding environment which promotes online purchasing
(converts traffic to sales, turns motivated buying intention to actual
purchase etc.).

Presently, as you are probably aware, online sales are a meagre proportion
of total retail spending (estimates have been given of around 1% of total
retail sales). Given that in leading industrialised countries (UK, US,
Germany, Japan and France) around half the population are active Internet
users, this miniscule proportion of total retail sales that online sales
accounts for is quite pitiful. There are therefore factors that inhibit
consumers from purchasing online (despite the great benefits that Internet
shopping affords consumers in terms of savings in time and effort -
CONVENIENCE). My research aims to examine these deterrents to purchasing
online and to provide businesses with useful advice on how they can make
their business models (for many, alas, unprofitable) profitable. I also
take a cross-cultural perspective by researching Mainland Chinese consumers'
perceptions of Shopping on the Internet, the findings of which will aid
global marketers in penetrating the Chinese online market.

However, i have received an extremely low response rate to my on-line
questionnaire, which is worrying me alot as i need a big sample in order to
satisfactorily complete my dissertation, and, more importantly, to try and
get published in a major marketing journal. I am looking for professionals
(aged 20-35) of UK or Mainland Chinese nationality.

I have included the WWW LINK to my questionnaire below and would greatly
appreciate your time in completing it. It will take you about 15 minutes
(MAX.) to complete and, as i have outlined above, your responses and answers
would yield much-needed advice for e-retailers who, for the most part, are
under-performing in this new medium. To say THANK YOU, i have also arranged
to donate 10 pence for every completed questionnaire to the charity OXFAM.

[url]http://pjl.sm.umist.ac.uk/jlquest/chris/chrisEnglish.aspx[/url]

I will have my research findings (touch wood) in a couple of weeks and would
be delighted to share them with those interested. My e-mail address is
[email]chrisaldred53_at_hotmail.com[/email] if you wish to contact me to
request an executive summary of my findings.

Yours Kindly,

Christopher Aldred
MSC Student Marketing
School of Management,
UMIST.







Received on Fri Aug 06 2004 - 09:36:00 CDT