Consumer Decision Process in on Line Buying

Abstract

Increase in the adoption and penetration of the Internet has turned the online marketplace into an important distribution and communication channel where consumers and businesses interact with each other. The rapid increase in consumers’ involvement in online purchase has transformed the Internet into a powerful force that influences consumer behaviour. Non-store retailing, which is considered to be the predecessor for today’s online retailing started to steal business from traditional retailers in the United States of America during 1970s, Rosenberg, L.J, and Hirschman, E.C in their visionary article written nearly 34 years ago predicted that brick and mortar retail stores in America will be vanished in the near future. This prediction came at a time when internet
was not invented. With the arrival of internet few of decades later, it is unavoidable that online shopping would become an alternative way for purchasing goods. Today companies use the Internet to convey, communicate and disseminate information, to sell products, to take feedback and also to conduct satisfaction surveys with customers.