ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS IMPACTING THE ONLINE SHOPPING DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Daniel MICAN; Dan-Andrei SITAR-TAUT

doi:10.2478/subboec-2020-0004

Authors

Daniel MICAN Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, babe;-Bolyai University, Romania, E-mail: daniel.mican@econ.ubbcluj.ro https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0277-9700
Dan-Andrei SITAR-TAUT Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration: Cluj-Napoca, RO https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5360-3874

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/subboec-2020-0004

Keywords:

Purchase decision, Online shopping behavior, Consumer decision-making process, E-commerce

Abstract

Selecting online the most suitable product or service can be a draining process, and the broad diversity of products on retailers' websites is overwhelming. Following this, there has been a high interest in examining buyers’ motivations and recognizing the determinant factors that affect the decision-making process in the case of online shopping. Hence, in this article, we carried out an empirical study and we analyzed to what extent certain factors such as product features, confidence in the online shop, product reviews, product price, consumer evaluations, the trust of the sources, usability of the online shop, convictions and commitment to the brand, product notoriety, consumer loyalty programs, WOM, and eWOM influence the purchasing decision. The findings reveal that the most significant variables determining the acquisition decision are product features, confidence in the online shop, reviews of the product, product price, and evaluations of customers from trusted sources. The most relevant information resources are trustworthy websites that offer specialized product reviews and reliable websites that offer customer product reviews.

JEL classification: L81, M31

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