ISSN: 2349-5677

Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

93

Price Sensitivity Decision Involvement of Online Shoppers-An
Empirical Study
ManikeeMadhuri Sharma Dr S Harish Babu
Research Scholar, University of Mysore HOD, Dept of MBA
Department of Business Administration & NitteMeenakshi Institute of Technology &
Assistant Professor, Research Academy
Acharya Institute of Management & Sciences (AIMS) Bangalore
Peenya, Bangalore, India harishtrue@gmail.com
manikeesharma@gmail.com

Abstract
Customer conducts is currently a-days an extremely pivotal perspective for advertisers to tap as
in view of the umpteen number of items accessible to the end clients. Items and administrations
have now changed from being item driven to client driven. Customers are the lord regarding the
matter of being dedicated to one specific item or administration. There is again a ton of contrast
when shopper conduct is followed in online and logged off shopping situations. Through this
paper the creator attempts to study whether brands assume an essential part in online buyer
purchasing conduct. Are brand names more critical online or they assume a significant part in
conventional stores? Internet shopping portrays a gigantic value alternative. Henceforth, does the
developing accessibility of value choices online make customers more value delicate while
deciding on advanced showcasing? The creator has tended to these and a couple of comparative
inquiries by first concretizing how distinctive store atmosphere (online and customary) variedly
changes customer inclination. In the study, the fluid cleanser classification, sandwich spreads
and paper towel classes are utilized to test the theory.
Objective of the study:
1. To study whether brand names get more critical online just in few classes and not in
many others relying on the level of data accessible about those items online?
2. To study if tangible hunt traits like visual nods about the item (e.g., the outline
impregnated on a paper towel), have lesser impact on choices on the web, and sensible proof
(i.e., non-tactile gimmicks, for example, the fat substance of sandwich spreads) have more
noteworthy effect on mixtures in web obtaining practices.
3. To also understand if price sensitivity is higher in online shopping behaviors.

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

94

Procedure of the study: The study is continuously completed over the city of Bangalore. The
information has been gathered from 100 clients who are incessant online customers through an
organized survey with the assistance of accommodation inspecting system. Additionally a
different survey has been created through which information from 100 respondents crosswise
over retails saves in Bangalore have been gathered with the assistance of comfort examining
system to get a thought in regards to obtaining conduct of the individuals concerning logged off
shopping background.
Key Words: Brand value; Consumer Choice models; E-commerce; Grocery products; Digital
marketing; Price-Value sensitivity.

Introduction
Every one of us is a purchaser. We retain things of circadian use; we too ingest and purchase these
articles as indicated by our needs, inclination and undertakings power. These might be
consumable merchandise, standing products, perspective appurtenances or, computerized
merchandise. What we purchase, how we purchase, zone and in the event that we purchase, in
how copious wealth we purchase relies on upon our recognition, presumptuous idea, diverting and
social achievements and our age and progenitors cycle, our state of mind, conduct values,
inspiration, identity, social class and flourishing included components that are both incorporated
and outsider to us. While purchasing, we too consent whether to purchase or not to purchase and,
from which forerunner or operator to purchase. Now and then in specific cases certain social
orders have a tremendous hold of individuals who go about as influencers to the purchasing
conduct of others. Certain gatherings in a few social orders can influence customers to purchase in
mass amounts and at continuous interims. The advertisers appropriately attempt to acknowledge
the needs of changed buyers and having acknowledged his modified practices which ache for an
all-grasping reflection of their inside and nature's turf, they systematize their issues for
showcasing. Shopper conduct could be credible as the controlling activity and physical movement
unpredictable in obtaining, assessing, provision and organization of appurtenances and
administrations. This simple intensely brings out that it is not only the issues of
products/administrations that accept retention in client conduct at the same time, the activity
begins plenteous before the appurtenances acknowledge been gained or purchased. A movement
of undertakings begins in the personalities of the buyer, which prompts the grant of options in the
midst of articles that could be gained with their about preferences and weaknesses. This prompts
inner and outsider research which again takes after a movement of controlling for securing and
utilizing the merchandise, and again the segment procurement conduct which is also real critical.
Such a kind of conduct gives more noteworthy proof to associations creating products and
conveying administrations to get a perspective whether the item has been triumphant.

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

95

Online and Offline shopping
There is accretion absorption in compassionate the furnishings of computer advised arcade of
environments (Hoffman and Novak 1996). An affair of accurate absorption to both practitioners
and academics is in free whether there are analytical differences in customer best behaviour
between online and approved (offline) stores, and if there are differences, in compassionate the
reasons for these differences. Put addition way, will the aforementioned being display altered best
behaviour online and offline, and if so, why? Identifying and compassionate these differences are
important for formulating business strategies, abnormally for online marketers.
The columnist has addressed these questions by aboriginal proposing a accepted conceptual
framework to clear how assorted factors access online and offline choices. Although there are
abounding factors that affect online best behaviour, the author focuses accurately on assessing
whether cast names accept added applause on choices online or offline, and whether amount and
added seek attributes accept college applause online or offline. The columnist empirically
evaluates the implications of the conceptual framework by analyzing customer choices in Town
Essentials, an online grocery account of Bangalore and in acceptable supermarkets acceptance to
the aforementioned grocery alternation operating aural Bangalore.
Review of Literature
Few research papers accept explored how customer behaviour online differs from customer
behaviour offline. Exceptions are a conceptual cardboard on Interactive Home Arcade by Alba et
al. (2010) and a beginning abstraction by Burke et al. (2009). Alba et al. point out that a key
aberration between online and offline arcade is the adeptness of online consumers to access
added advice about both amount and non-price attributes. Added advice on prices could access
customer price acuteness for akin products. At the aforementioned time, accepting added advice
on non-price attributes could abate amount acuteness for differentiated products. Therefore, the
author found that an important analysis catechism is constitutes as the accurate dynamics of
amount acuteness in this environment of varied consumer purchasing behaviour. Burke et al.
(1998) tracked the purchases fabricated by 18 consumers in an acceptable supermarket over a 7-
month period. Two months later, the aforementioned accumulation of consumers alternate in
class abstracts wherein bazaar altitude identical to the in-store ambiance were created on a
computer arrangement for several artefact classes of interest. Most of the accountably fabricated
online purchases were in the apish abundance during the aforementioned weeks in which that
accountable had fabricated the in-store purchases. An allegory of online purchases against in-
store purchases appear analytical differences if advice accordant to best decisions was not

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

96

analogously accessible in both store types. The authors address alloyed after-effects with
attention to purchases of abundance brands. For some product categories (e.g., paper towel), the
admeasurement of purchases of abundance brands was greater online than in the acceptable
supermarkets, admitting in added categories (toilet tissue and soft drinks), the admeasurement of
purchases of abundance brands was abate online. The author takes into account these results to
the bearding product-class differences. While the appeared after-effects are interesting, the
author does not accommodate any all-embracing conceptual framework to accept and adumbrate
differences between online and offline best purchasing behaviours.

The Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses
The author has come up with a conceptual framework to help evaluate the comparative impact of
brand names, prices and other search characteristics on purchaser choices within an explicit
product category. Using this framework certain hypotheses have been arrived at upon about the
potential differences between online and offline consumer purchasing behaviour.
Information availability and search: The conceptual framework gives an idea as to
articulate how differences in advice accessible for accommodation authoritative online
and offline access consumer choices. When allotment a part of alternatives, consumers
are faced with a miscellaneous choice assignment bearings (Lynch et al., 2008).
Consumers accomplish their choices application above-mentioned advice already
accessible in their memories as able-bodied as advice they access from the alien
environment. When analytic for advice in the alien ambiance (e.g., online store),
consumers focus on those accordant attributes that are accessible and are analytic
(Dickenson et. al, 20100). To the admeasurement that accordant advice is missing in the
alien environment, or if seek costs for accepting accordant advice are college than
accepted benefits, consumers will await more on their above-mentioned advice (Richford
2012). If advice on an aspect is not already accepted to the customer and the accepted
benefits of seek are top about to seek costs, consumers will aboriginal try to seek for that
information. On the added hand, if the accepted allowances are top but seek costs are as
well top (in an accustomed medium), again consumers may try to infer the amount of that
attribute. An accepted adjustment of inference, abnormally in low-involvement artifact
categories like groceries, is the halo effect whereby consumers infer aspect ethics based
on their all-embracing evaluations of that artifact.

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

97

Information Integration: The author now adduces an apparatus by which consumers
accommodate all the advice in fact accessible to them (including above-mentioned advice in
their memories and any information acquired through search) into all-embracing artifact
evaluations and preferences. Information affiliation approach (see, for example, Andean 2010,
2011; Bateman, Capon, and Lutz, 2012) offers a specific apparatus to call how individuals
accommodate abstracted pieces of available advice into an all-embracing basis of preference.
In the ambience of artifact evaluations, this approach suggests that consumers accredit accent
weights and calibration ethics (utilities) to product attributes for which advice is accessible at
the time of accommodation making, and again combine these weights and ethics according to
some aphorism (e.g., adding, averaging) to appear up with an all-embracing evaluation. The
averaging aphorism has begun abundant abutment as an advice integration apparatus (e.g.,
Troutman and Shantou 2008; Johnson and Levin 2009; Boomeseyer 1991).




Hypotheses
H1a: Sensory search attributes will have smaller impact online than offline.
H1b: Non-sensory attributes will have larger impact online than offline.
These hypotheses chase anon from the arguments of the antecedent subsection. Attributes for
which beneath advice is accessible will accept lower appulse on artefact evaluations.
H2: Brand names accept greater appulse on choices in abundance environments area beneath
absolute advice is accessible for facilitating customer choices.
The author accepts H1 application from the afterward reasoning: When the absolute accessible
advice decreases, the accent weight absorbed to cast name increases (note that the cast name
information is appropriately accessible both online and offline). The cast name becomes an agent
for attribute advice that is missing or expensive to acquire. For artefact categories with few
acoustic search attributes (e.g., sandwich spreads), it is acceptable that added advice is accessible
online than offline and brands becomes beneath important online than offline. For categories with
some acoustic attributes (e.g., paper towels) the author can apprehend added advice to be
accessible offline than online, and thus, brands become added important online than offline.
H3: To the admeasurement that attributes listed in the online abundance are accordant for
choice amount will have abate appulse on choices in online supermarkets than in acceptable
supermarkets. Information seek (for the attributes listed in the display) is beneath effortful online
than offline. Further, all attributes listed online are searchable with about according effort. Thus,
online, we should apprehend almost added non-price advice to be accessible at the time the
consumer makes best decisions. According to the advice affiliation theory, as advice on added
attributes becomes available, the about accent weights of the attributes already available (either in
the centralized anamnesis of consumers or in the alien environment), including price, should
decrease. Further, if consumers use the claimed account feature, there is bargain availability of

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

98

aggressive amount advice (specifically, the accepted prices of brands not on the personal account
are not available), which as well diminishes the accent of amount online. On the added hand, if
the artefact class has an ample amount of acoustic attributes for which advice is not available
online, the accent weights of the accessible attributes, including cast name and price, may
increase. However, due to the halo effect altercation the author has presented earlier, it is
acceptable that the furnishings of missing acoustic advice will be to enhance the amount of the
brand, rather than to access amount sensitivity. Thus, on balance, it is apprehend that the
accumulated furnishings of all these factors would be to abate amount acuteness online, arch to
the hypothesis.
For testing the hypotheses, the columnist has acclimated abstracts from three artefact categories
for which the above was able to access advice from both Town Essentials and commensurable
approved supermarkets: Detergent, Sandwich spreads, and Paper Towel. Detergents and
cardboard towels are categories with common amount promotions, while cardboard towels are as
well one of the lot of frequently purchased categories. Nutritional advice (fat) should be an
important aspect in the Sandwich spreads category. If the hypotheses are valid, afterward after-
effects in anniversary class can be expected:

Liquid detergent: In this category, the seek attributes that affect best cover cast name, price,
promotion, and brand-specific attributes (e.g., bushing package, scent). Bactericide is a heavily
answer class in acceptable supermarkets with common appearance and displays. However, in the
Town Essentials store, promotions absorb alone amount cuts - there are no appearance (e.g.,
abundance fliers) or end of aisle displays. Some variables that affect choice, such as
amalgamation visuals and scent, are difficult to anticipate online. This class contains some
acoustic attributes that are not as readily accessible online as offline, namely, bushing
amalgamation (these accept an altered affectionate of amalgamation architecture than approved
packages) and aroma (the bactericide boxes are not sealed, and appropriately offline consumers
may be able to accomplish some appraisal of the aroma if they ambition to). Therefore, the author
apprehends bushing bales and aroma to accept lower appulse on best online (H1a). However, it is
not accepted that these furnishings needs to be able because these attributes are absurd to be
important in influencing customer choice. Because some acoustic attributes are missing online,
the columnist expects cast names to accept stronger access on choices online than in acceptable
supermarkets (H2). Finally, the author expects prices to accept abate appulse online than offline
because of the affidavit categorical beforehand (H3).

Sandwich Spreads Category: In the sandwich spreads class there are no searchable acoustic
attributes that affect consumers acumen of superior (Steno Kamp, 2010). The above seek
attributes that access best are brand name, price/promotion, and comestible advice (fat content). In
acceptable supermarkets, consumers may use the trade names to infer about fat content, admitting
online, the exact fat agreeable of anniversary Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) is displayed on the
abundance screen. Thus, it should be accepted that the fat agreeable advice to accept added
appulse online than offline. Because of the online availability of easy-to-search comestible
information, the columnist expects that added absolute advice about attributes is accessible online

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

99

than offline. Thus, non-sensory attributes should accept added appulse online (H1b), while cast
name should accept beneath appulse online (H2). Because added absolute advice is accessible
online, prices should accept almost lower appulse on choices online (H3). It is to be acclaimed
that the advice on acquaintance attributes (e.g., taste) and acceptance attributes (e.g., bloom
benefits) are missing both online and offline.

Paper Towel: In the cardboard anhydrate category which is most likely named as Paper Towel
category, we can use brand names, price/promotion, and some brand-specific attributes (e.g.,
apparent white against design, cardboard size) as allegorical variables. Some acoustic seek
attributes (e.g., the exact architecture on the towel, its softness) are missing online. Therefore, the
author apprehends cardboard towels with designs (an acoustic attribute) to accept lower impact
on best online, area the absolute designs cannot be calmly apparent (H1a), and for brand names
to accept college appulse online (H2). Finally, it is apprehended the lower amount acuteness
online (H3).
Conclusion
Many admiral are actual anxious that online consumers will focus on amount and this will
aftereffect in able amount antagonism (For example, the Booz Allen analysis appear in Financial
Times, February 9, 1998). At aboriginal glance, the after-effects seemed to abutment this
contention. But, added analyses adumbrated a added circuitous story, at atomic with account to
grocery products. First, humans currently online may not be as amount acute as the accepted
population. Even if the online citizenry becomes commensurable to the accepted population, the
accumulated furnishings of amount and advance assume to be stronger in approved food than in
online stores. Even afterwards accounting for the actuality that online promotions are bigger
signals of amount reductions; the columnist finds that offline promotions abet beyond changes in
cast choices. This is partly because of the low alternation amid point-of-purchase (POP)
activities and amount in acceptable supermarkets. It is acceptable that consumers in the
acceptable supermarkets are affairs featured articles even if there is little amount reduction.
There is as well affair in some abode that online markets would commoditize brands, thereby
abbreviation the amount of cast names (Burde 2010). Several admiral accept appropriate that
online markets accomplish it added difficult to differentiate products, and will accordingly abate
the amount of cast names. The abstraction suggests that brands can accept added or beneath
appulse online than in acceptable supermarkets depending on the admeasurement of accordant
advice accessible for authoritative choices in these markets. If added absolute advice about
artefact attributes is accessible online, cast names become beneath valuable. This is decidedly
acceptable if the artefact class contains few acoustic attributes (e.g., sandwich spreads category).
Based on the results, the columnist expects the cast names will be added important online in
artefact categories that are differentiated on cast angel and added attributes that do not
accommodate themselves to be calmly abbreviated by an online abundance (e.g., appearance
products). On the added hand, cast names will be beneath important online for anatomic articles

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

100

(e.g., fax machines, computers) for which online food can accord abundant aspect information,
as able-bodied as allusive information, online. An important limitation of the abstraction is that it
lacks beginning control, authoritative absolute inferences infeasible. The columnist had to
exclude accidental appointment for a longitudinal abstracts accumulating accomplishment of this
blazon from considerations of both amount and applied feasibility. An important affair not
addressed by the analysis is the best behaviour in online markets that are not cable services. The
broader Internet bazaar (essentially all sellers affiliated to the Internet) or online arcade malls
accredit consumers to seek beyond sellers to acquisition the articles and prices that best
accommodated their needs. In these types of online markets, seek can both aggrandize and
attenuated the application sets of some consumers, and the advice sources that they use while
authoritative choices. Some analysis initiatives are currently underway to analyse customer
accommodation authoritative and choices in these situations. In particular, several contemporary
studies analyse issues accompanying to online amount acuteness (Lynch and Airy 2011;
Shankar, Rangaswamy, and Pester 1999, Brynjol and Smith 1999).
References
[1] Alsek, J., Hutch, J.W., 2008. Magnitudes of consumer know-how. Journal of Consumer
Research 23, 311-324.
[2] Alba, J.W., Lynch, J., Wets, B., Czaniszewski, C., Luz, K., Sawyers, T., Woods, S., 2009.
Co-operative family spending: Purchaser, trader, and industrialist spur to contribute in
automated markets. Journal of Marketing 71, 48-53.
[3] Andy, T.H., 2010. Incorporation model and arrogance alteration. Emotional Review 68, 151-
167.
[4] Andy, T.H., 2011. Basics of Evidence Incorporation Philosophy. New York: Academic
Press.
[5] Baku, C.Z., 2009. Dipping purchaser exploration expenses: Repercussions for automated
bazaars. Management Science 23, 2000-22.
[6] Bahnuer, M., 2009. Point-of-sale exhibition impression surges. Superstore News 35, 39.
[7] Dechamma, T.R., Bopaid, M., Lurtz, S.L., 2011. Reasoning algebra in multi-attribute
defiance replicas. Journal of Marketing Research 11, 141-54.
[8] Dechamma, T.R., Khaggar, H., 2008. Effects of evidence demonstration arrangement on
shopper data acquirement policies. Journal of Consumer Research 4, 333-40.
[9] Baruah, F., Samuelith, R.D., 2009. Frictionless trade? A contrast of internet and conservative
venders. Working Paper. MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA 02139.
[10] Hyeber, G., McDein, F., 2009. The influence of inferential opinions on merchandise
assessments. Journal of Marketing Research 29, 344-33.
[11] Kalyan, S., Palkir, R.S., 2010. Integrating demographic variables in brand select
prototypes: An inseparable replacements outline. Marketing Science 19, 266-81.
[12] Kamath, J.A., Rutz, C.J., 2012. Quantifying brand assessment with scanner statistics.
International Journal of Research in Marketing 11, 8-21.

ISSN: 2349-5677
Volume 1, Issue 1, June 2014

101

[13] Lorentz Jr., K., Steps B., 2011. Collaborating household spending: Effects of pursuit
price for value and superiority information on amount compassion, fulfilment with stock, and
holding. Working paper. National Institute of Singapore.
[14] Lorentz, Jr., K., Maram, V., Weiny C.F., 2008. Selections from sets counting recalled
brands: Usage of remembered potentials and preceding general valuations. Journal of
Consumer Research 17, 369-84.
[15] Ghosh, V., Muthuswamy, A., Pillai, G., 2009. The accessible average and price
understanding. Working paper. University of Mysore.
[16] Swaith, H., Louiere, O., 2012. The key aspect of the gauge limit in the approximation and
judgment of multinomial consumer logical models. Journal of Marketing Research 39, 405-
14.
[17] Troenth, B.P., Louis, Y.F., 2011. Functional groundwork and proceeds: A
polychotomous assortment model with judgment. Review of Economics and Statistics 76,
141-51.
[18] Choudhury, C.N, Shantou, H., 2009. Do customers appraise goods by tallying or
averaging characteristic evidence? Journal of Consumer Research 2, 201-206.