Factors impacting online purchasing spend

Online shopping has increased dramatically over the past couple of years and is expected to continue to grow. In South Africa, a marked increase in online shopping has been noted, despite still lagging behind international adoption levels. As internet adoption continues to increase across the continent, the acceptance and use of e-commerce will also expand significantly. Retailers are relying more and more on websites to not only reach customers and promote their products, but also to facilitate sales. The question that arose and was explored in this study is which factors impact the online purchasing spend of South African consumers. The population consisted of 4537 members of an online database. Quantitative date were collected through the use of online questionnaires which were completed by 204 respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used to analyze the results. It emerged that online shopping spend is largely influenced by factors such as perceived online shopping accessibility and hedonic experience which in turn is influenced by perceived website comprehensiveness and accuracy, perceived online proficiency and perceived general online shopping/website attributes. In order to achieve a competitive advantage and increase consumer online spending, online retailers should thus concentrate on these factors. These elements could also be incorporated in theoretical models designed for online shopping.