Preferences towards Online Shopping among Urban Population with special reference to Chennai City

Online shopping is an important aspect of the retail industry at this new era. The online medium, a hybrid of multiple communication technologies, offers a multitude of communication functions, including marketing. As a marketing communication channel, the Internet has attracted nearly one-third of its users to try online shopping during the decade when it became commercialized. This study is to identify the factors that influence the consumers (with special reference to Chennai city) to go for online shopping than the retail shopping. Results indicate that convenience, income, age range, product type, influence consumer intention to engage in online shopping. When consumers perceive offline shopping as inconvenient, their intention to shop online is greater. The attitudes towards online shopping and intention to shop online are not only affected by ease of use, usefulness and enjoyment, but also by exogenous factors like saving time, comparison shopping, product characteristics, previous online shopping experiences, easy to access and trust in online shopping. The Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship.