Effects of Perceived Risks on Online Shopping Behavior

Abstract: Online shopping is rapidly expanding across the globe including developing markets. The consumer is under the perception of different types of risks associated with online shopping which may damage him. For that matter, researchers have continuously made efforts to investigate different types of perceived risks to establish and correct for consumer and societal benefits. After review of the research articles, some gaps were observed; 1) previous studies treat buyers and non-buyers in the same way as a single unit and there is no comparison among them, 2) most of the studies are quantitative thus focusing on the measurement of the responses yet there is a lack of qualitative work which may express how these people are affected, 3) there is a lack of documentation of personal bad experiences of online buyers (non-buyers), 4) customer service and complaint handling are not exposed to existential confirmation and research in academic studies, and 5) most of the studies reviewed for this research are based on a ‘special segment’ of students aged 18-34, contributing from 65% to 93% of responses which give biased results. To do the research the theory of Perceived Risks was used as a frame of reference to develop an analysis model with Consumer Behavior Theory in the context for online shopping.This study took on these areas and a Quasi-qualitative approach was used including Quasi-statistics by making a purposeful sample based on convenience and snow-ball techniques to fulfill the purpose of the study. A total of 11 one-on-one interviews were made to conclude seeing saturation level. Study shows that i) buyers and non-buyers are two different units of the population with different but comparable attitudes ii) despite perception of risks, buyers continue to keep shopping online, iii) non-buyers have either a bad subjective experience or have technological problem and they are aged more than 30, iv) the bad experiences of buyers and (currently) non-buyers tell about card hacking, bad product, non-delivery, and theft, v) customer service and complaint handling both, are areas which have poor quality and bad coordination, and vi) a new construct of perceived risks, ‘dream-damage’ is found in the context of online shopping.