A Study on Consumers’ Buying Preferences: Website-Based vs. App-Based Products and Services

Abstract: The aim of this study is to understand the consumer buying behavior via website versus mobile application. There are millions of people online at any point of time and all of them are potential customer for some or other retailer. With the advent of technology, many portals have been developed online, for the ease of customers as per their convenience like – websites, mobile applications. Since there are many portals and so many providers of services, it is vital to understand what customers are buying, form where they are buying, how they are buying and the reason behind buying from that particular place/portal. Customer behaviors are influenced by the advantages and disadvantages of these portals (websites and mobile applications) and also the demographics due to which they show varying behaviours. To understand the consumer behaviour, a questionnaire was designed and distributed online to 156 respondents and the sample consisted of people from Bengaluru. The result of this study would contribute to enhancement of knowledge and help analyze why one portal is working more than the other for the same retailer. It will help identify the major product/service categories that are availed via website and sectors availed via mobile application so that providers of different services/products can develop marketing strategies to generate more traffic and sales.

Keywords: Online shopping, website, mobile application, consumer buying behavior

I. INTRODUCTION

In August 15, 1995, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) launched public Internet access in India. Since then, Internet has immensely changed the scenario of India. The exposure to this technology has made the lives of the people easy, as they can now communicate, learn, entertain and buy products or avail services online at ease. It has become the center of the lives of the people. One cannot imagine life without the Internet. As compared to 137 million Internet users, the figures have risen to 462 million Internet users in 2016 in India (IAMAI, 2016).
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