Online shopping is one of the quickest developing industries. While sectors such as hospitality and FMCG came to a standstill due to the lockdowns imposed following the Covid-19 pandemic, online shopping saw tremendous success. Online shopping is gaining rapid momentum. Now the same products and services were available online before the pandemic as well. Then why was there a massive surge in online shopping during the pandemic? This is because of the customer’s purchase intention.
A purchase intention is essentially a measure of a consumer’s attitude towards purchasing a product or availing a service. In other words, purchase intention is a customer’s willingness to buy a certain product or service. There are many other factors that influence the consumer’s purchase intention and thereby their online shopping behaviour. Some of them are –
- Financial Risk
Financial risk basically refers to the perception that money could be lost while making a transaction online. It is often the primary concern while shopping online and more prominent when shopping on a new e-commerce store or website. Along with the apprehension of losing money, there is also the concern for the security and privacy of bank details.
- Product Risk
When customers shop at a traditional brick and mortar store, they have the product right in front of them to see and touch. Offline shopping has the advantage of testing the product before purchasing it. Online shopping on the other hand depends on description and images of the product as well as customer feedback and reviews. Due to the absence of the physical product, customers lose the ability to evaluate the product before purchasing it and thus incur the risk of purchasing something different from what they imagine the product would be.
- Convenience
Convenience is one of the significant advantages of online shopping. With online shopping, customers do not have to take time out of their schedules to go out and shop. The sheer ability to purchase anything from anywhere and at any time is what makes online shopping popular.
- Return Policy
The return policy refers to the customer’s ability to return a purchased product in case it is broken or not what was expected and get a refund for their purchase. Without a return policy, customers are forced to risk money and put a tremendous amount of faith in the product. This has a severe impact on a customer’s purchase intention because they have too much at stake. With an easy return policy, customers feel the freedom to keep the product in case it matches up to their expectations or return it if there is a defect in it.
- Cultural Influences
Cultural differences and biases have a huge impact on a consumer’s shopping behaviour. Customers are highly likely to forgo benefits such as easy return, fast delivery or even certified warranty if their society’s value system has a long standing belief. For instance, in India, there is a tradition of visiting the family jeweller to purchase any jewellery. Now even if the jewellery available online is certified, customers are still hesitant in purchasing jewellery online.
To bridge the gap between the authenticity of offline shopping and convenience of online shopping, livestream shopping on live stream platforms has impacted the customer’s purchase intention.
Live video shopping platforms such as Bringin’ brings a new way to discover, experience, and make informed buying decisions. The immense scope of live streamed instructional exercises, audits, selective pre-dispatch, and demos assist purchasers with settling on an educated choice.
Bringin’ offers customers not only honest feedback, detailed reviews and exclusive information about a product but also credible feedback from expert creators before they actually buy the product. Purchasers not just approach their favourite influencers’ favoured products yet additionally itemized data about the product from industry specialists.
Customers can experience brands through the eyes of influencers and creators in real-time and understand why they are big fans of a certain product or brand. Through live streaming shopping Bringin’ helps bridge the gap between the convenience of online shopping and personalised experience of offline shopping.
