FACTORS AFFECTING BUYING DECISION IN ONLINE LOCAL

MARKETPLACE IN HIGHER EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF DE LA SALLE

JOHN BOSCO COLLEGE

EMADIN, POPS

BALBOA, ALEXIS

MACARINE, KEVIN
INTRODUCTION

The emergence of Internet technologies has a significant impact on

consumers' daily activities, and many previously offline activities have now

migrated to the online environment. In this regard, online retail shopping has

grown in popularity and has become an essential part of consumer life.

According to the most recent data, Internet penetration in the Philippines

increased by 46.9% in 2019 and the number of Internet users increased to

79.7 million, owing to the availability of various connection options such as

mobile, broadband, and dial-up. The Internet becomes one of the most

abundant resources, consumer information sources, consumer use of the

Internet for information search and channel selection.(Miyazaki and

Fernandez,2001).

According to Constantinides (2004), more than 20% of Internet users

worldwide buy products and services, while more than 50% of internet users in

the United States are regular online buyers. To successfully conduct business

in the online, it is necessary to understand consumer decision and assess the

potential impact of new technologies on traditional theories and consumer

decision making. As stated by Peter and James, purchase decision is a process

where consumers make decisions to buy various products and brands starting

with need recognition, information search, information evaluation, making

purchases and then evaluating decisions after buying (Schiffman and Kanuk,

2004). It is necessary to recognize that each purchasing process is unique due

to environmental and personality factors. Internal and external factors

influence consumer decision (Mowen, 1987; Berkowitz, Kerin, & Rudelius,

1992; Kanuk & Schiffman, 1997; Urbanskien, Clottey, & Jaktys, 2000; Kotler

& Armstrong, 2003; Gaiutis, 2004). Furthermore, consumers are influenced by

their environment, where they live, the people around them, their lifestyle, and

other factors. Decision making factors that influence consumer decision may

be psychological, cultural, social, situational, personal, or marketing-related.

Consumer knowledge, according to Banyte and Palaima (2006) behavior

and the identification and research of factors influencing consumer decision

have become major barriers for businesses seeking a competitive advantage in

local markets. Many researchers, as in traditional consumer decision, focus on

identifying key factors influencing consumers' purchasing decisions in online

local marketplace. They also seek to model the processes of Internet users'

purchasing and acting decisions (purchase). Consumers, on the other hand,

consider not only the price factor from an economic standpoint, but also

attitudes, reference group, and other factors (Keeney, 1999; Hummel and

Lechner, 2002; Ridings et al., 2002; Preece and Maloney-Krichmar, 2003;

Chang et al., 2010; Azizi and Javidani, 2010).

Online transactions have inherent uncertainties, and the information

obtained by the parties to a transaction may be skewed or not true. As a result,

mutual trust between the buyer and seller is critical (Thananuraksakul, 2007;

Jadhav, 2016).
 This study focuses on identifying the buyers' decision-making before

purchasing online. The purpose of the study is to explore the factors that can

influence customer buying decisions through internet shopping, and this study

is important to determine the factors that can affect the customers' decisions

when it comes to buying using online sites. The process being used in this

study is descriptive, by collecting data and information through conducting

pilot testing, giving survey questionnaires, and then data analysis and

interpretation. The output would define the decision-making of a customer

before buying online.

Statement of the Problem

This study primarily aims to determine the factors affecting the buying

decision through online of the Higher Education of De La Salle John Bosco

College. Furthermore, it seeks to answer the following research questions:

1. What is the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of:

 1.1 Age

1.2 Gender

1.3 Preferred online Marketplace

a. Live selling

b. Display image Marketing

2. What are the factors affecting the buying decision of the online local

marketplace in terms:

a. E-services

b. Communication

c. Perceived Benefits

d. Loyalty & Repetition

e. Transaction Safely

3. Is there a significant difference on the factors affecting to the buying decision

in online marketplace among the Higher Education Department of De La Salle

John Bosco College In terms of:

a. Communication

b. Loyalty & Repetition

4. How does this study will give perceived benefits to the Higher Education

Department of De La Salle John Bosco College?

Data Gathering Procedure

This research proposed the concept of the factors affecting the buying

decision in the online marketplace. In order to establish whether the research

instrument is appropriate for carrying out this study, the following criteria will

be used to choose a sample of respondents for the study: In addition, the

researcher will compose a letter requesting authorization to carry out the

study. The questionnaire will be distributed to the responders once it has been

finished and authorized. To ensure accuracy and a reliable source of results,

the researcher will ask the respondents to fill out the form as completely and

honestly as possible. It will be studied and contrasted with the findings of

earlier studies after all the acquired data has been arranged and handled in

line with the applied data.

Review related literature

Martin et al. (2019) provided a critical overview of how e-grocery/retail research

has evolved in the last 20 years, based on a bibliometric analysis to find the most legit

documents, geographical regions and journals, using 144 Scopus documents. They

noticed that experimental design and choice modeling (used in the present paper) are
practically nonexistent in the field of e-grocery and should inspire several areas of

future research. This conclusion underscores some of the contributions of this study

to the literature. According to Darley et al. (2010), consumer behavior encompasses

five core stages of the consumer decision-making process: problem recognition,

search, alternative evaluation, purchase and outcomes. The focus of the present paper

is on the third stage (alternative evaluation). Mokhtarian (2004) compares the

advantages between online shopping and in-store shopping. While online shopping

can offer unlimited selection, lower prices/search costs, more information,

personalization, convenience and speed; in-store shopping provides sensory

information, tangibility, immediate possession, social interaction, entertainment,

movement and trip chaining. This author concludes that neither type, online shopping

or in-store shopping, uniformly dominates the other. Based on a survey carried out in

Rome, Russo and Comi (2020) concluded that the quantity of goods purchased by end

consumers at stores depends on: the socio-economic attributes of consumers, the type

and characteristics of sold freight and the accessibility of purchasing zone. In order to

investigate the willingness to buy groceries online, it is essential to figure out what

actually matters to the customers. According to Bowersox at al. (2013), a customer

service program must identify and prioritize all activities required to accommodate

customers’ logistical requirements. In broad terms, customer service can be

considered the measure of how well the logistics system is performing in creating time

and place utility for a product, including post sale support (Lambert and Stock, 2000).

The components of customer service could be classified in three phases: Pre-

transaction, Transaction and Post-transaction Brick-and-mortar (adjective): used to

describe a traditional business that operates in a building, when compared to one that

operates over the internet.

 Pre-transaction phase components represent the features concerned with only

the supply side, which may first encourage customers to shop online from a specific

grocery store, or look for another, or even give up shopping for e-groceries. If those

features look attractive for the customers, they will proceed in the decision-making

process to buy online, checking whether or not the Transaction phase components

reasonably fulfill their specific demands. The Post-transaction phase components will

either foster customer loyalty, make them switch to another egrocer, or even give up

shopping online altogether. Regarding the item “available flexibility for delivery” (Pre-

transaction phase), online grocery shopping may involve one or more forms to deliver

the products to the customer. Attended home delivery seems to be the most common

method, where the products are delivered directly to the customer. A weakness of this

method is that it requires someone to be at home to receive the products within a

certain period of time. Unattended home delivery is an alternative method when it is

not possible to personally receive the products at home. The grocer delivers the

products to a locked reception box placed in the yard or garage of the customer. This

method makes it easier to carry out the deliveries as the delivery time window gets

bigger, therefore companies gain more flexibility in their delivery schedule, which

makes it possible to optimize routes (K¨ amar¨ ainen, ¨ 2003, pp. 9–10). That box

needs to be big enough to fit the products the customer orders. Temperature control

inside the box may be required, which is generally expensive for the customer.

Alternatively, some companies allow the customers to place the order online and pick

it up at the retail store, via chilled lockers (“click and collect”), or travel to designated

pickup sites to collect their merchandise. Inventory can be stored at the grocer’s or at

the distributor warehouses (Chopra, 2003; Chopra and Meindl, 2016; Olsen, 2018;

Saskia et al., 2016). Chopra (2016, 2018) provides an interesting framework exploiting
the complementary strengths of the physical and the online channels to create an

omnichannel portfolio. This structures supply chain networks in terms of facilities,

inventory, transportation and information, which can be cost effective and tailor the

fulfillment of each customer request based on product and customer characteristics.