An Empirical Study of Perceived Risks in Online Shopping by College Students

Abstract

Online purchase in India is showing an upward trend, with increasing activity by youth, especially college students. The paper empirically tests the factors which influence college students to go in for online shopping. A convenience sample technique is used to collect sample of 200 respondents to measure the dimensions of perceived risk by the college students in online shopping. The results suggest that all risk factors (Quality Risk, Time Risk, After-sales service Risk, Advertising Risk, Purchase Behaviour Risk, and Non-availability of product Risk) are related to frequency of online shopping of the students. Age and gender related to mode of payment and Product Purchased. While, all the risk factors have negative relationship with frequency of online shopping but gender has no relation with Product Purchased by the students. This work could be extended from other streams to identify their buying behaviour of college students in online shopping.

Keywords: Online Shopping, e-Commerce, Perceived Risk, College Students