Online Shopping for Electronic Products Essay

â€Å"The Internet has changed how information is communicated and processed. People use the Internet for different purposes, including communicating with friends, researching and monitoring online stock prices, trading stock, paying bills, banking, and shopping. Growing numbers of consumers purchase goods and services, gather product information, or just to browse online†(Demangeot & Broderick, 2007). People today are indeed bombarded with technology. Most people cannot get through the day without their laptops or smart phones, especially for today’s youth. Since today’s college students were raised in a technological age. â€Å"It is no surprise that internet usage among college respondents has seen a marked increase in recent years† (Budden et al, 2007). â€Å"Most college students surveyed enjoy shopping online† (Arnaudovska et al, 2010). Online shopping gradually appears in people’s lives, especially in college students’ life. â€Å"Online shopping is the process whereby consumers buy goods or services directly from a seller in real time over the Internet. Online shopping environments are, therefore, playing an increasing role in the relationship between marketers and their consumers† (Demangeot & Broderick, 2007). Therefore, internet is not only indeed playing an important role today, but also in the future. â€Å"In the city of the future, bricks-and-mortar retailers will be just as savvy as their online counterparts. In recent years, the convenience of purchasing almost anything via the Internet has driven the decline of numerous chains. Stores don’t have the data websites do, so they don’t understand their customers as well. However, they’re increasingly experimenting with new ways to lure you into their aisles, analyze your patterns and fine-tune their offering-just as the websites have done for years†(Castaldo, J. 2012). For sales of electronic products online, according to US Census’s E-Stats, 2009 E-commerce Multi-sector Report (2011), it increased from 5,848 million dollars in 2003 to 17,684 million dollars in 2009. The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced at November 16, 2012 that â€Å"the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the third quarter of 2012 was $57.0 billion, an increase of 3.7 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Total retail sales for the third quarter of 2012 were estimated at $1,092.2 billion, an increase of 1.4 percent from the second quarter of 2012. The third quarter 2012 e-commerce estimate increased 17.3 percent from the third quarter of 2011 while total retail sales increased 4.6 percent in the same period. E-commerce sales in the third quarter of 2012 accounted for 5.2 percent of total sales.† ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2012) According to the research by Yulihasri et al (2011), â€Å"Among all the proposed students differences factors, compatibility and usefulness have been found as the most significant to influence students’ attitude for shopping on Internet and attitude, normative-beliefs have been found as the most significant to influence students’ intention for shopping on Internet. The idea of salient beliefs including compatibility, ease of use, usefulness and security are highly relevant that influence students’ attitude towards on-line shopping, except privacy. However, attitude strongly associated to intention.† The purpose of this study is to investigate college students’ attitudes toward online shopping for electronic products by using Fishbein And Ajzen’s theory of reasoned action (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). As well as what factors influence people generally on their decision. Shopping online has very different characteristics from shopping in a store. Some of these characteristics may contribute to consumers’ intention to shop online, while others may discourage them. In addition to consumers’ psycho-graphics and demographic backgrounds that likely affect their attitudes toward and intentions of shopping online, the fact that the Internet is accessible and therefore merchandise is widely available is important. According to Laudon et al. (2012), Approximately 80 million households have broadband access to the Internet in 2010, representing about 68 percent of all households. About 83 million Americans now access the Internet using a smartphone such as an iPhone, Droid, or BlackBerry. Mobile e-commerce has begun a rapid growth based on apps, ring tones, downloaded entertainment, and location-based services. In a few years, mobile phones will be the most common Internet access device. In addition, according to Hasslinger et al. (2007)’s research, they identified price, trust and convince as the primary concern when people shopping online.