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APJML
31,4 Understanding female consumers’
intention to shop online
The role of trust, convenience and
1138 customer service
Received 3 October 2018
Prashant Raman
Revised 26 December 2018 Department of Management, Institute of Public Enterprise, Hyderabad, India
14 January 2019
21 January 2019
Accepted 10 March 2019
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine the female consumer’s intention to shop
online. The rising number of female online shoppers has compelled the analysts and online vendors to believe
that understanding the attitude and behaviour of the female consumers is very crucial for their growth.
Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is proposed that expands the theory of reasoned
action (TRA) with three additional constructs, namely, trust, convenience and customer service. The proposed
model is examined with the help of questionnaire responses collected from 909 online shoppers from India.
Findings – The paper empirically shows that there is a significant influence of attitude, convenience, customer
service and subjective norm on the female consumer’s intention to buy online. Customer service acts as the most
crucial factor in influencing the attitude of female consumers towards online shopping. The paper also points out
that trust does not directly affect the female’s intention to shop online but indirectly influences it through attitude.
Practical implications – The paper has significant implications for practitioners. First, the results
advocate that convenience and customer service are the vital antecedents to both behavioural intention and
behavioural attitude. Second, the paper also showcases that trust influences behavioural intention indirectly
through attitude, stressing the need for the online retailers to develop consumers’ trust in online shopping.
Originality/value – The paper examines TRA framework in the context of female online shopping, while
earlier studies have concentrated completely on efficiency-based software tools like word processing,
spreadsheets, etc. The integration of the three constructs – trust, convenience and customer service – in the
TRA framework has not been studied in the past. The interaction effect of the different elements of customer
services on the female consumer behaviour has never been examined in the previous research works.
Keywords India, TRA, Trust, Convenience, Attitude, Intention, Subjective norm, Female,
Customer service, Online shopping
Paper type Research paper

Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing
and Logistics
Vol. 31 No. 4, 2019
pp. 1138-1160
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1355-5855
DOI 10.1108/APJML-10-2018-0396
1. Introduction
The last ten years or so have witnessed an immense growth in the e-commerce industry in
India primarily due to five important reasons: rise in smartphone users, the launch of 4G
networks, development in the domain of information technology, growing consumer income
and an incredible increase in the penetration of internet services. Morgan Stanley (2017)
foresees the Indian e-commerce industry to grow from $15bn in 2016 to $200bn by 2026. The
financial services company also believes that the tally of online consumers is expected to
touch 475m in 2026 from around 60m in 2016. The country will also witness a 5× growth in
the number of female shoppers by 2020 and they will increase their online spending by
twofold from 20 per cent in 2015 to 42 per cent by 2020 (Google-A.T. Kearney, 2016).
Across the globe, women hold the main responsibility of taking care of children and
elders in the family. In this caregiving role, women tend to buy products on behalf of their
spouses, children, co-workers, friends, etc. (Baldwin, 2017). In simple terms, women are
multiple markets in one. Whenever a company provides a good service to a woman, she has
a multiplier influence on that company’s business as she represents a wide range of other
probable customers (Tung, 2016). As the e-commerce industry is experiencing an amazing
progress, the number of female consumers buying online is destined to increase. The total
internet users in India stands at 480m in 2017 which is an increase of around 11 per cent
from 2016. Out of the total internet users, 30 per cent (144m) are females and this number is Female
continuously growing every year (IAMAI, 2018). The internet user base is increasing in consumers’
India and with it the number of women using the internet is also growing swiftly intention to
( Jain, 2014). The other reason to study the female consumer behaviour is because women are
fuelling the growth engine of the world economy (Forbes, 2014). The worldwide income shop online
levels of female consumers are estimated to reach $18 trillion by 2018 (Ernst and Young,
2013). In 2013, the total consumer spending of females globally was $29 trillion and is 1139
expected to touch $40 trillion by 2018 (Statista, 2018). In today’s scenario, women are the
most powerful consumers in the world and their representation in the workforce is more
than ever before (Kayembe, 2017). Wei et al. (2018) maintain that a large amount of the
research studies associated with online shopping behaviour pertain mainly to the western
world and very little research is carried out in other regions. Furthermore, Gehrt et al. (2012)
confirm that the Indian e-commerce industry is even less researched and relatively very few
studies have been conducted to understand the various facets and habits of Indian
consumer behaviour. Research on female online buying behaviour in India is miniscule and
only a handful of recognised research works are accessible (Kumar and Singh, 2014).
A marketer generally struggles to understand and manage the subtleties of female consumer
behaviour (Rao et al., 2018). This demands a focussed study on the various issues related to
female online shopping which leads us to the theoretical framework for the current study.
The objective of the current research is to create and statistically test the conceptual
model involving different factors affecting the female consumers’ intention to shop online.
The conceptual model incorporates trust, convenience and customer service in the theory
of reasoned action (TRA). TRA is a very prominent intention model that has been widely
used in predicting and describing consumer behaviour across many areas (Ajzen and
Fishbein, 1980) both in online and offline environment. TRA demonstrates a decent power
to predict consumer’s behavioural intention towards different types of products like
fashion, apparel, toothpaste, mineral water, etc. (Montano and Kasprzyk, 2015) and
domains such as finance, marketing, health, etc. Many theories have tried to establish the
association between attitude and behaviour, but only TRA is able to establish an
unmatched precision for predicting consumer behaviour by measuring beliefs, attitudes
and intentions (Amaro and Duarte, 2015). TRA is the most preferred model to identify the
influence of beliefs, attitudes and social factors on online purchase intentions (Lee and
Shin, 2014). Therefore, TRA is considered to be the most apt theory in the context of online
shopping studies and, hence, TRA is used as a base theory for the present study. Nick
Hajli (2014) hails trust to be an important component of the e-commerce industry. Other
existing literatures also advocate that trust has a positive influence on consumer online
purchase intention (Hsu, Chang, Chu and Lee, 2014). Bilgihan et al. (2015) in their
respective studies also mention that rise in the consumers’ trust levels, increases the
consumers’ intention to purchase a product. Hence, trust is considered to be one of the
most crucial factors in predicting consumers’ intention to shop online (Agag and
El-Masry, 2016), and is included in the TRA framework for the current study. As online
shopping can be done from the comfort of one’s homes, the facet of convenience steps in
and is considered as a major influence in online shopping. Past studies have also found
convenience to be a crucial component in online shopping (Clemes et al., 2014).
Correspondingly, Burke (1998), in his study, identifies convenience as the most commonly
cited reason for shopping online. Burke summarises the remarks of the respondents:
Shoppers appreciated the ability to visit the virtual store at any hour, and to perform other
activities, like exercise, cooking, and child care, while shopping. They could shop even when
transportation was unavailable, and avoid crowded parking lots or bad weather. The [home
shopping system] eliminated drive time and checkout time, and allowed shoppers access to distant
stores (p. 356).
APJML Thus, convenience is included in the TRA framework for the current study. Another
31,4 important element in online shopping is customer service. Past studies have
acknowledged that the customer service comprising of easy return policies, faster
delivery services, etc., provided by the online vendors have a significant influence on the
purchasing decisions of the consumers (Rao et al., 2014). Consumers typically look for
customer service when they do not get sufficient information from the website.
1140 An efficient customer service helps in reducing perceived risks (Yang et al., 2015) and
increases the intention to shop online (Pei et al., 2014). As more and more consumers are
accepting e-commerce to shop, return policy is becoming a strategic tool to increase sales
and customer loyalty (Khan et al., 2015). Very few researchers have actually studied the
impact of online retailer’s return policy on consumer behaviour (Nguyen et al., 2018;
Rao et al., 2014). Hence, customer service has been included in the TRA framework for
this study.

2. Theoretical background
2.1 Theory of reasoned action
The TRA, theorised by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), describes the process of predicting a
human behaviour and explains the association amongst beliefs, attitudes, subjective norm,
intentions and behaviour of individuals. As per the theory, the most crucial predictor of a
person’s behaviour is identified by his/her behavioural intention to perform it. “Attitude
towards the behaviour” and the individual’s “subjective norm” determines the behavioural
intention of the individual.
A person’s attitude is the magnitude to which a he/she favours or disfavours an object
(Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). TRA also mentions that a person’s attitude towards behaviour
comprises of a person’s belief that a certain behaviour will result in a particular outcome and
the person’s assessment of that outcome.
Subjective norm is “the person’s perception that most people who are important to him
think he should or should not perform the behavior in question” (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975).
The definition infers that when a person decides to perform a particular behaviour, he/she
takes into account the normative expectations of others, like family friends, colleagues etc.,
which he/she thinks is important to him/her.

2.2 Trust
In online shopping, trust is the faith that the customer has on the online vendor; that he/she
will deal in a fair manner (Carter et al., 2014). The conventional brick and mortar stores have
a salesperson who acts as a source of trust for the consumers (Abbes and Goudey, 2015) but
in the online shopping context, there is no salesperson and search tools and help buttons
have taken his place, thus eliminating the very foundation of consumer trust from the
shopping experience (Cho and Sagynov, 2015). Past studies also suggest that trust forms the
basis of e-commerce (Steyn and Mawela, 2016) and acts as an important determinant
towards the success of an online retailer (Fang et al., 2014).
Trust is considered to be an essential construct in online shopping due to many reasons
(Nick Hajli, 2014). First, online shoppers are required to furnish personal details when they
purchase a product online or at the time of registering themselves on the websites. The
customers fear that this information might be shared with a third-party agency for any
unwarranted promotional activities (Akhter, 2014). Second, consumers’ perceived level of
risk increases when they share their bank account details, debit/credit cards information,
etc., with an online website, which has no physical presence (Ali et al., 2016). The buyers
may have a lurking fear about the leakage of their financial information to some unknown
entity (Akhter, 2014).
2.3 Convenience Female
In the online shopping setting, consumers are motivated by the utilitarian value involved in consumers’
buying a product online (Celik, 2016). One such utilitarian benefit is convenience of shopping intention to
online (Chiu et al., 2014). The concept of convenience in the online shopping refers to
convenience of saving time, convenience of anywhere shopping and easy price comparisons shop online
(Al-Debei et al., 2015; Hung et al., 2014). There is a large segment of population which is busy
in carrying out its day-to-day activities and have serious time constraint to physically go out 1141
for shopping (Chiu et al., 2014). They consider online shopping to be a time-saving
mechanism (Al-Debei et al., 2015). Prior studies also indicate that the elimination of travel
time and the time of standing in the long queues act as a convenience factor which greatly
influences the customers to shop online (Anesbury et al., 2016).
There are two important reasons of studying convenience as a factor in this research.
First, many researchers in the past have discussed the significance of convenience in the
development of e-commerce (Lai, 2014). Second, convenience is perceived to be the core
benefits of shopping online ( Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997). According to the study by
Korgaonkar et al. (2014), online consumers are more convenience seekers as compared to
traditional shoppers.

2.4 Customer service

In the online shopping framework, timely delivery of the product is one of the foremost
expectations that shoppers have from the online vendors (Hung et al., 2014). Quick delivery
service and hassle-free product returns make for a substantial slice of customer service. The
other aspect of an online purchase is the higher degree of risk involved (Li et al., 2014) since
the consumer is unable to examine the product before purchasing it. Moreover, post
purchase, the consumer has to wait for the product to be delivered to him/her before he/she
is able to physically examine the goodness of it (Parise et al., 2016). The online consumer
expects an effortless customer service that includes a simple return policy (Pei et al., 2014).
In case of any discrepancies related to product fitment, colour, design and quality, the
consumer anticipates to return it without any hassles (Chiu et al., 2014).
There are two reasons for including customer service as a part of this research. First,
consumers are very conscious about the customer service issues related to online shopping
like timely delivery of products and customer service support issues related to product
returns (Thakur and Srivastava, 2015). Consumers regard customer service failure as a very
important issue, which can negatively affect their future purchase intentions (Chang and
Wang, 2012). Second, product delivery and product return as part of customer service has
never been studied in previous research works. Customer service in the online shopping
context has always been used as a grievance handling mechanism. But in the current
scenario of cut-throat competition, online vendors are positioning customer service as a
differentiating factor for their businesses (West et al., 2015).

3. Research model and hypotheses

Based on the past research, a theoretical model is proposed that integrates the theoretical
power of TRA with three new constructs, namely, trust, convenience and customer service
(as shown in Figure 1) to encapsulate the unique elements of the online shopping
environment.

3.1 The influence of trust on intention and attitude

Existing studies in e-commerce suggest that a higher degree of trust in online vendors results
in an increased level of intention to shop online and vice versa (Ponte et al., 2015). Trust plays
an important role in providing a satisfied result while performing any online transaction
APJML
31,4 Trust in Online
H1
Shopping

H2
Attitude towards
1142 Convenience of H3 Online Shopping H7

Online Shopping Intention to Shop

H4
Online
H5
H8
Customer Service Subjective Norm
offered by Online
Figure 1. H6
Shopping
Research model

(Blut et al., 2015). Kaur and Khanam Quareshi (2015) state that before placing an online order,
customer should have some amount of trust in online vendor as the online transaction can
require the consumer to submit financial information and other data that may be personal in
nature. Kim (2014) emphasises that the existence of trust strengthens the buyers’ confidence
and also ensures that online vendor is not involved in any kind of devious activities. Another
important component of trust is the information available on the website. A consumer
perceives a website to be trustworthy only when he/she finds that the information available on
it is complete, accurate and of high quality (Ponte et al., 2015). It has been extensively verified
in the existing literature that trust certainly influences the customers’ online buying intention
in a positive manner (Hsu, Chuang and Hsu, 2014; Lu et al., 2016; Mansour et al., 2014; Pappas
et al., 2014). Therefore, the first hypothesis is proposed:
H1. Trust in online shopping has a positive effect on the intention to buy online.
Establishing trust to positively influence consumers’ attitude is vital in the online framework
(Lim, 2015). Trust has been categorised into many different types. The two prominent types
are: trust in the website (Seckler et al., 2015) and trust in the vendor (Oghazi et al., 2018). Based
on the study by Al-Debei et al. (2015), trust helps in the formation of a positive attitude
towards transaction behaviour. Moreover, trust in a website is positively related to the
attitude towards that website (Hsu, Chuang and Hsu, 2014). Trust which is very closely
associated with risk is based on the consumer’s perception (Chen et al., 2015). While some
degree of risk is unavoidable, there is a general belief that the other participants will not
indulge in any kind of fraudulent activities (Celik, 2016). Therefore, trust creates a positive
feeling towards the seller and reduces the consumer’s perception of risk (Hsu, Chuang and
Hsu, 2014). Consumers portraying higher levels of trust have shown positive attitude and
behaviour (Al-Debei et al., 2015). Hence, it is hypothesised that trust as a behavioural belief
influences a consumer’s attitude towards online shopping:
H2. Trust in online shopping has a positive effect on the attitude towards shopping online.

3.2 The influence of attitude on intention

Attitude towards the behaviour is defined as “degree to which a person has a favourable or
unfavourable evaluation of the behaviour in question” (Ajzen, 1991). Attitude also decides
whether the behaviour under consideration is good or bad, and whether a person wants to
perform that behaviour or not (Armitage et al., 2015). In the context of online shopping,
many researchers have undeniably acknowledged the positive and significant influence of Female
attitude on intention (Chen and Tung, 2014; Hsu, Chuang and Hsu, 2014). Additionally, consumers’
favourable attitude tends to make the online transactions effortless and increases the intention to
intention to accept online shopping (Pantano and Viassone, 2015; Poncin and Mimoun,
2014). If a consumer has a positive attitude towards online shopping, then he/she is highly shop online
likely to log onto an online website and shop (Aldhmour and Sarayrah, 2016; Chen and
Tung, 2014). Thus, it is hypothesised that attitude has a significant influence on the 1143
consumers’ intention to shop online:
H3. Attitude towards online shopping has a positive effect on intention to shop online.

3.3 The influence of convenience on intention and attitude

A lot of research on online shopping shows that convenience acts as the most important
motivator for consumers to shop online (Anesbury et al., 2016). Cho and Sagynov (2015) in
their study reveal that the intention to buy online increases when a consumer’s perception
towards convenience related to online shopping increases. Convenience includes elements
like time, effort and anxiety (Cho and Sagynov, 2015) and ability to compare many products
at one place, anytime (Hung et al., 2014). Anesbury et al. (2016) also analysed the positive
impact of convenience on online shopping as compared to the problems of travelling to the
brick and mortar stores in search of the desired product. A study by Tandon et al. (2016)
mentions that consumer’s intention to shop online is dependent on the convenience of
ordering a product from the website. Korgaonkar et al. (2014) conclude that consumers who
are convenience oriented have a positive outlook towards online purchase intention. As a
result, the below hypothesis is set forth:
H4. Convenience to shop online has a positive effect on intention to shop online.
In addition to influencing consumers’ behavioural intention, convenience is also recognised
as a means to form consumers’ attitude towards online shopping (Al-Debei et al., 2015). It is
observed that consumers perceive convenience to be one of the major benefits of shopping
online which has a significant impact on the attitude towards online shopping (Farhana
et al., 2017). Several past studies suggest that the core incentive for the consumers to use the
internet to shop is the convenience to choose from a large number of brands and ability to
compare the products and prices at one place. This is difficult to accomplish in a traditional
store (Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015). Consumers also form positive attitude towards online
shopping because of the convenience of saving time, round-the-clock availability of the
online store and ability to access the online store from practically any location (Clemes et al.,
2014; Tingchi Liu et al., 2012). Hence, the following hypothesis is proposed for the study:
H5. Convenience has a positive effect on attitude towards shopping online.

3.4 The influence of customer service on intention and attitude

Consumers’ intention to shop online is significantly affected by the customer service
provided by the online vendors. Customer service which includes order tracking, faster
delivery and easy return policies (Morganti et al., 2014; Xu et al., 2015) plays an instrumental
part in the intention to shop online. Consumers give immense importance to the completion
of online transaction and delivery of products when shopping online (Slabinac, 2015). As
there is a spatial and temporal gap between consumers and retailers in online arena, the
money paid and product received is not concurrent and hence the consumer is anxious
about the delivery of the product on time (Sinha and Singh, 2014). A study by Janakiraman
et al. (2016) mentions that an easy and hassle-free return policy offered by the online vendor
increases consumer’s purchase intention. In a similar study by Pei et al. (2014) and Minnema
APJML et al. (2018), it is mentioned that an effective return policy has a significant influence on the
31,4 consumer’s perception towards the fairness of the return policy which in turn leads to a
positive purchase intention. In light of this, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H6. Customer service has a positive effect on intention to shop online.
Poleretzky (1999), in his study, mentions that “In the physical world, if I make a customer
unhappy, they’ll tell five friends, and on the internet, they’ll tell 5,000”. Consumers in the online
1144 shopping context quickly form attitudes towards an online vendor and share their opinions
with others in no time. It is therefore really essential for the online vendors to offer good
customer service or else it is most likely that consumers might switch to their loyalty to other
competitors. Failure to provide adequate customer services like updating status of the order,
delivery schedule, return process, etc., will lead to a bad perception towards customer service
quality (Lo et al., 2016) and will create a negative attitude among the shoppers towards online
purchasing (Clemes et al., 2014). For example, a return service which is difficult or ambiguous
for the consumer to comprehend will result in a negative perception about the online vendor
(Kaur and Khanam Quareshi, 2015). Consumer’s attitude towards online shopping is
significantly influenced by the quality of delivery service that encompasses quick delivery
and return of products. (Ðkudienë et al., 2015; Thaichon and Quach, 2015). Past research
works have revealed that quick product delivery and easy product returns significantly
increase a consumer’s positive experience (Chiu et al., 2014). This positive experience not only
aids in customer retention but also indirectly creates a positive attitude towards online
shopping (Minnema et al., 2018). There are many studies that indicate that one of the vital
factors to form a positive attitude towards online shopping is to deliver a superior value
through exceptional customer service (Giovanis and Athanasopoulou, 2014). Taking note of
the above arguments, the following hypothesis has been proposed:
H7. Customer service has a positive effect on attitude towards online shopping.

3.5 The influence of subjective norm on intention

As stated by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), subjective norm means “perceived pressures on a
person to perform a given behaviour and the person’s motivation to comply with those
pressures”. Subjective norm tries to encapsulate the consumers’ perception about the
influence of important referents like family, friends, colleagues, online discussion forums,
etc., on them. It is linked to intention because consumers regularly make decisions keeping
in mind the response they may get after performing an activity. The basic postulate is that
individuals have a tendency to refer to their social network about new technologies and can
get influenced by the apparent social pressure (Slade et al., 2015). An individual collects
information from his/her referents with an intention to get social acceptance by adhering to
the suggestions offered by them (San-Martin et al., 2015). Several research studies in the field
of psychology have identified that subjective norm acts as a crucial factor in determining
the behavioural intention ( Joshi and Rahman, 2015; Montano and Kasprzyk, 2015).
Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H8. Subjective norm has a positive effect on intention to shop online.

4. Methodology
4.1 Questionnaire, piloting and collection of data
A questionnaire was used to gather data for the research study which was grouped into
three sections. The initial section gathered the data related to the demographic details of the
respondents. The next section tried to capture the factors (attitude, trust, convenience,
customer service and subjective norm) influencing female consumers to shop online. And
the third section encapsulated the female consumers’ behaviour and motivation to go for Female
online shopping. The variables used in the study were measured through multi-item scales consumers’
adapted from the past research works. Table I presents the adaptation and source of intention to
measurement scales used for the items in the questionnaire.
Prior to collecting the data, the face and content validity was conducted for the survey’s shop online
scale items and the general quality of the research design. The items in the questionnaire
were validated on the basis of the opinions of a focus group consisting of e-commerce 1145
academicians and professionals. The suggestions provided by the focus group helped in
modifying some of the items to make the meanings clearer. A pilot test was carried out on
the questionnaire by distributing the survey instrument to 29 female online shoppers to
check whether the items mentioned in the survey form were comprehensible and at the same
time understandable. The questionnaire was then reviewed and updated as per the remarks
and recommendations received during the pilot testing.
Data were collected from 13 states covering 90 major cities of North India via online/physical
distribution of the questionnaire. The period of data collection was from October 2015 to
November 2016. Invitation to take part in the study was directly sent to 1,500 random

Trust in online shopping Items adapted and modified from Chen (2006), Kim et al. (2011), Koufaris and
Hampton-Sosa (2004)
Trust 1 Online shopping websites are trustworthy
Trust 2 Online shopping websites are reliable
Trust 3 I trust the information mentioned on the online website
Trust 4 I believe in the policies followed by online website
Attitude towards online Items adapted and modified from Agarwal and Prasad (1999), Jarvenpaa
shopping et al. (2000)
Attitude 1 I like to shop online as it provides more variety of products
Attitude 2 Online shopping is attractive
Attitude 3 I would be more likely to shop online if extensive descriptions of items were
included
Attitude 4 I would be more likely to shop online if the pictures of the items were more
attractive
Convenience of online shopping Items adapted and modified from Brown (1990), Gehrt and Yale (1993), Yale
and Venkatesh (1986)
Convenience 1 Shopping through the internet makes ordering items convenient
Convenience 2 I shop online because I can reduce my efforts in travelling, parking,
waiting, etc.
Convenience 3 I would be more likely to shop on the internet if the website was easy to use
Convenience 4 I like to shop on the internet because it is easy to compare many products.
Subjective norms Items adapted from Hsu and Lu (2004)
Subjective norm 1 The opinions and experiences of my family affect my purchasing decision
Subjective norm 2 The opinions and experiences of my friends affect my purchasing decision
Subjective norm 3 The opinions and experiences discussed in online forums affect my
purchasing decision
Customer service offered by Items adapted and modified from Jeong et al. (2003), Kunz (1997), Walsh and
online shopping Godfrey (2000), Zhu et al. (2002)
Customer service 1 I am happy with the product return services offered in online shopping
Customer service 2 When shopping on the internet, I am happy with the delivery services
Customer service 3 I would be more likely to shop online if product returns services were
made simpler
Customer service 4 I would be more likely to shop online if faster delivery service was ensured
Intention to shop online Items adapted and modified from Limayem et al. (2000), Van der Heijden
et al. (2003) Table I.
Intention 1 Would you repeat the purchase of the same product again? Source of scales for
Intention 2 Are you willing to purchase a product on the internet? the items
Intention 3 Will you continue to make purchases on the internet? adopted/adapted
APJML respondents through e-mail/questionnaire. A total of 950 questionnaires (online/physical) were
31,4 obtained, out of which 41 were excluded due to partial responses. The final suitable respondents
for the research were 909 resulting in a 63 per cent response rate. Two sampling techniques
were used for this study: judgmental and snowball sampling. The initial set of respondents was
selected on the basis of judgemental sampling. Then, additional units were obtained on the basis
of information provided by initial sample units. Judgemental sampling was based on two
1146 parameters: the respondents considered for the study were those who had prior experience of
using internet or at least were aware about internet shopping and the sample was from major
cities of India having high internet penetration rate. A brief summary of the characteristics of
the respondents is shown in Table II.

4.2 Reliability and validity of the instrument

Structural equation modelling (SEM) using IBM AMOS 22.0, Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences and Microsoft Excel software are used to determine the reliability and
validity of data and to evaluate the appropriateness of the research model.
The convergent validity, discriminant validity and internal consistency reliability (ICR)
tests are applied to assess the psychometric properties of the six latent constructs. There are
certain standards that need to be fulfilled by the latent constructs for the validity tests to
hold good. These parameters are: the standardized item loadings should be more than 0.70,
the items that are theoretically related should load strongly on their respective constructs

Measure Items Per cent

Age Below 30 years 70.7

Above 30 years 29.3
Education Graduate and below 19.9
Postgraduate and above 80.1
Monthly income of individual Below 30,000 Rs 26.7
Above 30,000 Rs 73.3
Years of using a computer Less than 1 year 0.3
1–3 years 3.6
3–5 years 20.1
Above 5 years 75.9
Years of using the internet Less than 1 year 0.7
1–3 years 14.5
3–5 years 21.5
Above 5 years 63.4
Proficiency on the internet Not skilful 7.6
Somewhat skilful 18.8
Skilful 52.1
Very skilful 21.5
Primary access to the Internet Home 79.9
Work place 20.1
Hours per week usage of the Internet Less than 5 h 24.4
5–10 h 24.8
10–20 h 20.8
Above 20 h 30.0
Primary use of the internet other than the work Information and product search 38.0
Purchasing 5.3
E-mail/E-card/Other communication 26.7
(i.e. chatting)
Game/music/downloading documents, etc./ 25.7
Table II. Entertainment
Profile of respondents Online banking/Pay bills 4.3
instead of any other construct, the square root of average variance extracted (AVE) by a Female
construct should be more than 0.70 (i.e. AVE should not be less than 0.50) and the square consumers’
root of AVE should be more than the correlations between that construct and all other intention to
constructs (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Composite reliability which is a commonly used terminology for ICR is very much shop online
comparable to Cronbach’s α as they both measure reliability of the scale and internal consistency
(Yi and Davis, 2003). Composite reliability has been calculated using the formula (Chin, 1998): 1147
P 2
li
CR ¼ P 2 P ;
li þ ei

where, λ is the standardized factor loading for item i and ε is the respective error variance
for item i.
The error variance (ε) is calculated based on the value of the standardized loading (λ) as:

ei ¼ 1l2i :

The value of ICR should be more than 0.70 to be considered as acceptable (Compeau et al., 1999).
The item loadings and cross-loadings have been obtained by conducting a factor analysis on the
data. All the 22 items show good loadings (W0.70). Table III displays items that were supposed
to converge on the same construct does converge with no high cross-loadings.

Trust Attitude Convenience Subjective norms Customer service Intention

Trust 1 0.876 0.196 0.095 0.066 0.124 0.055

Trust 2 0.871 0.102 0.158 0.074 0.064 0.030
Trust 3 0.860 0.180 0.095 0.133 0.105 0.072
Trust 4 0.853 0.158 0.094 0.116 0.092 0.014
Attitude 1 0.161 0.879 0.129 0.059 0.108 0.087
Attitude 2 0.276 0.855 0.075 0.046 0.070 0.004
Attitude 3 0.100 0.849 0.143 0.212 0.138 0.048
Attitude 4 0.126 0.833 0.138 −0.006 0.112 0.097
Convenience 1 0.169 0.083 0.831 0.077 0.153 0.130
Convenience 2 0.074 0.103 0.823 0.091 0.229 0.061
Convenience 3 0.146 0.159 0.748 0.245 0.136 0.083
Convenience 4 0.103 0.188 0.721 0.108 0.344 0.084
Subjective Norm 1 0.066 0.054 0.080 0.868 0.156 −0.073
Subjective Norm 2 0.087 0.069 0.148 0.866 0.088 −0.090
Subjective Norm 3 0.188 0.106 0.166 0.743 0.121 0.013
Customer Service 1 0.285 0.230 0.217 0.020 0.813 −0.003
Customer Service 2 0.339 0.278 0.184 0.093 0.785 0.063
Customer Service 3 −0.056 −0.076 0.253 0.175 0.782 0.090
Customer Service 4 0.018 0.197 0.300 0.326 0.772 0.063
Intention 1 −0.062 0.062 −0.001 −0.069 0.120 0.883
Intention 2 0.013 0.013 0.106 −0.051 0.082 0.879
Intention 3 0.200 0.121 0.177 −0.010 −0.052 0.768
Eigenvalues 7.122 2.505 2.327 1.949 1.370 1.004
Percentage of total
variance explained 32.371 11.386 10.578 8.860 6.229 4.562
Table III.
Notes: Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy 0.854; Bartlett’s test of sphericity: df – 231 Sig. 0.000; Factor analysis,
extraction method: principal component analysis; rotation method: varimax with Kaiser normalisation; the loadings and
italicized values signify the loadings of the items on a particular factor cross-loadings
APJML The composite reliability, AVE square roots and correlations among latent constructs are
31,4 shown in Table IV. ICRs are all more than 0.85, beyond the suggested minimum reliability
measure (0.70). The calculation of the AVEs is done on the basis of the following formula:
P
li2
P P ;
1148 li2 þ 1li2

where, λ is the standardized factor loading for item i.

The diagonals represent the square roots of AVEs. An analysis of the matrix shown in
Table IV confirms that all non-diagonal values do not surpass the diagonals of the particular
constructs and the square root of the AVEs is greater than 0.70. To conclude, the outcome of
the tests presented in Table III and Table IV gives ample confirmation that the survey data
are reliable and sufficient convergent and discriminant validity is attained.
The research instrument also uses confirmatory factor analysis to analyse the overall
fitness of the model. The model is estimated by using AMOS 22.0 and provides a reasonably
good fit for the data (refer Table V ). The calculated normed χ2 for measurement model is
2.15 ( χ2 ¼ 501.23, df ¼ 233, p o0.00) which is less than 3 as recommended by Bagozzi and Yi
(1988). The other fit indexes also show good fit for the measurement model. The adjusted
goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) is 0.82, which is greater than the recommended value of 0.8
(Chau and Hu, 2001). The normed fit index (NFI) is 0.92 and comparative fit index (CFI) is
0.91, both the values are greater than 0.9 as recommended by Bagozzi and Yi (1988). The
root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) is 0.07, and as recommended by
MacCallum et al. (1996) any value between 0.05 and 0.10 is considered to be an indication of
fair fit. The standardised root mean square residual (SRMR) is 0.06, which is less than the
recommended value of 0.08 (Hu and Bentler, 1999). The combination of the above results
advocates that the proposed measurement model fits the data fairly well.

Latent construct ICR Trust Convenience Customer service Attitude Subjective norm Intention

Trust 0.92 0.87

Convenience 0.86 0.36 0.78
Customer service 0.87 0.5 0.65 0.79
Table IV.
Internal consistency Attitude 0.92 0.43 0.39 0.5 0.85
reliability and Subjective norm 0.87 0.26 0.38 0.39 0.23 0.83
discriminant validity Intention 0.88 0.09 0.25 0.18 0.15 0.12 0.85
of the constructs Note: AVE square roots (on-diagonal) and correlations (off-diagonal)

Fit index Values Recommended criteria

df 233
χ2 501.23
χ2/df 2.15 ⩽ 3.00
AGFI 0.82 ⩾ 0.80
CFI 0.91 ⩾ 0.90
NFI 0.92 ⩾ 0.90
Table V. SRMR 0.06 ⩽ 0.08
Fit indices RMSEA 0.07 ⩽ 0.10
4.3 Hypotheses and model testing Female
Standardized β coefficients are calculated by examining the path coefficients in the SEM consumers’
and are reported in Table VI along with the related t-values for each construct. Figure 2 intention to
displays the path coefficients and significance levels for each hypothesis along with the
variances for the two dependent constructs: attitude towards online shopping and intention shop online
to shop online. The four constructs – attitude, convenience, customer service and subjective
norm – collectively explains 54 per cent of the variance in female’s intention to shop online. 1149
But, trust in online shopping has no influence in female’s intention to shop online. Trust,
convenience and customer service explains 49 per cent of the variance in female’s attitude
towards online shopping.
Seven of the eight hypotheses are supported (refer Table VI for estimation results for
hypotheses). It was proposed that trust in online shopping would have a positive effect on
female’s attitude towards online shopping (H2). This proposition is confirmed. It was
predicted that the convenience of online shopping would have a positive effect on female’s
intention to shop and also on female’s attitude towards online shopping. This hypothesis is
also confirmed. Hence, both H3 and H4 hold true. As hypothesised, customer service offered
by online shopping would have a positive effect on the female’s intention to shop online as
well as on the female’s attitude towards online shopping, both H5 and H6 are supported. It
was expected that female’s attitude towards online shopping would have a positive effect on
female’s intention to shop online. This expectation is supported since a positive relation of
the constructs is obtained, thus supporting H7. H8 is also supported as subjective norm

Unstandardised Standardized
Hypothesis coefficients coefficients t-statistics p-value Support

H1. Trust → Intention 0.00 0.00 −0.04 0.97 No

H2. Trust → Attitude 0.21 0.27 8.22 ** Yes
H3. Convenience → Attitude 0.17 0.14 4.23 ** Yes
H4. Convenience → Intention 0.28 0.25 6.60 ** Yes
H5. Customer service → Attitude 0.35 0.33 9.13 ** Yes
H6. Customer service → Intention 0.12 0.08 2.08 * Yes
H7. Attitude → Intention 0.09 0.06 3.47 * Yes Table VI.
H8: Subjective norm → Intention 0.27 0.24 6.26 ** Yes Summary of
Notes: *p o0.05; **p o 0.001 hypothesis test results

Trust in Online
Shopping 0.00
H1
0.27**
H2
Attitude towards
Online Shopping
0.14** 0.10*
(R2) 49%
Convenience of Online H3 H7 Intention to
Shopping 0.25** Shop Online
0.33** H4 (R2) 54%
H5
0.24**
H8
Customer Service Subjective Norm
offered by Online 0.08*
Shopping H6 Figure 2.
Results
APJML shows a positive effect on female’s intention to shop online. And finally, it was proposed that
31,4 trust in online shopping would have a positive effect on female’s intention to shop online.
This proposition is rejected (H1).

5. Discussion
5.1 Findings
1150 In accordance to the literature review discussed in the study, the empirical findings support
the validity of the conceptual model. The model states that consumer’s intention towards
online shopping is determined by trust, convenience, customer service, subjective norm and
attitude. The model also emphasises that convenience of online shopping emerges as the
prominent predictor of female’s intention to shop online. The three factors: trust,
convenience and customer service immensely affect the female’s attitude towards online
shopping. The model developed in this study explains 54 per cent of the variance in
consumer intention towards online shopping in India. This is significant as the value of R2 is
more than 25 per cent which establishes an extremely acceptable prediction level in
empirical research (Gaur and Gaur, 2006).
Trust. Consistent with previous research works (Mpinganjira, 2016), the result of this
study reveals that trust is an important predictor of consumer attitude towards online
shopping (β ¼ 0.27). Undeniably, the role of trust in online shopping has been immensely
accentuated in past research works (Thaichon and Quach, 2015). In fact, it has been
recognised that vendors who build high levels of trust in an e-commerce website flourish
more than those who do not (Lu et al., 2016). Privacy and security are the two major elements
of reliability and trustworthiness that act as main drivers in reducing the perceived risks
among the online shoppers. These two elements have also been commonly recognised as the
main impediments in the adoption of online shopping because of their substantial influence
on trust and their effect on forming positive attitudes (Thaichon et al., 2014).
Convenience. The result of the study divulges that convenience acts as an important
variable in forming positive attitude (β ¼ 0.14) and predicting consumers’ intention
(β ¼ 0.25) to shop online. This finding is consistent with the previous literature on
convenience (Aldousari et al., 2016). Consumers have revealed that their chief incentive to
use the internet for shopping is the convenience to shop online and ability to compare many
products at one place since a large number of retailers are available online. This finding is in
line with the previous literature where convenience is regarded as the most common factor
in motivating consumers to shop online (Kawa and Maryniak, 2018; Wagner et al., 2017).
Convenience also reveals some critical aspects from the perspective of an online
consumer. Online shopping helps the customers to search and compare products without
physically travelling and visiting different places to find good offers. Thus, it becomes
imperative for the customers to have complete description and clearer pictures of the
product. Extensive and clear description helps the consumers to know more about the
product configuration and its appearance. This is in line with the study conducted by
Duarte et al. (2018).
Customer service. The study contributes extensively in the area of customer service and
provides insights in the domain of online return services and fast and accurate delivery of
products. Customer service plays an important role in predicting the attitude (β ¼ 0.33) and
intention (β ¼ 0.08) to shop online. Consumers’ perception towards online shopping is
significantly influenced by timely delivery of product or trouble in returning the product.
Consistent with the past study conducted by Fisher et al. (2016), faster delivery of the
product acts as the major influencing factor for the customers. The other important issue in
customer service is the return policy offered by the online vendors and the ease of returning
the products. Consumers tend to have a negative attitude towards the satisfaction levels
where high amount of effort is required to return the product. This is similar to the study Female
conducted by Reimers et al. (2016). The findings of the current research are comparable to consumers’
the past studies conducted on customer services where timely delivery of products and intention to
favourable return policies offered by online vendors result in a positive attitude towards
online shopping (Aldousari et al., 2016; Minnema et al., 2018). shop online
Subjective norm. The association between subject norm and intention to shop online has
always been an inconclusive study. Some studies have either found no relationship between 1151
subjective norm and intention to shop online or have considered subjective norm to be a
weak predictor of intention to shop online (Amaro and Duarte, 2015). The current study,
however, finds that subjective norm has a positive and direct influence on intention
(β ¼ 0.24) to use online shopping. It is also important to observe here that Indian female
consumers demonstrate collectivism values and hence they are deeply influenced by the
expectations of individuals around them. This finding is similar to the past studies
conducted by Sekaran and Bougie (2016). Al-Qeisi et al. (2015) in their study reveals that
although the effects of subjective norm on intention are substantial, the effect of subjective
norm is much stronger in western cultures in comparison to the non-western cultures. On
the contrary, the current research recognises that subjective norm does have a significant
influence on non-western countries like India as well.
Attitude and intention. In this study, it is found that attitude has a positive influence
(β ¼ 0.06) on intention to shop online. This finding is in congruence with many past studies
conducted on attitude and intention (Al-Rafee and Cronan, 2006; Hsu, Chuang and Hsu,
2014). The result suggests that when consumers have a positive attitude towards online
shopping, then the intention to use internet as a shopping instrument also gets a favourable
response. This outcome is consistent with the findings of Amaro and Duarte (2015). Past
studies suggest that influence of attitude on intention is stronger than the influence of
subjective norm on intention (Dillard and Pfau, 2002; Park, 2000). But the current research
indicates that the influence of subjective norm is much stronger on intention than attitude.
Hence, social influence plays a strong role in consumer’s intention to shop online.
Trust and intention. The findings of the study reveal that trust has no direct influence on
intention to shop online but has an indirect influence on it through attitude towards online
shopping. The result of the current research is, however, contrary to the past studies
where researchers have emphasised on the importance of trust on intention to shop online
(Bilgihan, 2016). One of the major reasons for this finding is that young consumers are more
influenced by convenience and customer support. These consumers are already aware about
the online shopping channel and so other than trust, they look more for customised service
offerings, product variety and convenience of getting the product delivered to them quickly.
This finding is similar to a study conducted by KPMG (2017).

5.2 Theoretical contributions and crucial observations

The primary contribution of this research study to the existing literature of online shopping
is the identification of important roles played by trust, convenience and customer service in
the female online shopping context. The study shows that convenience has the biggest
influence on female’s intention to shop online. This is in congruence with the past research
works conducted in e-commerce area, providing further evidence that convenience is a
significant factor for behavioural intention (Ozturk et al., 2016), and a crucial predictor of
behavioural attitude (Clemes et al., 2014).
The other important contribution of the current study to the existing literature is the
recognition of relationship between subjective norm and intention to shop online. It has been
found in the past studies that either there is no relationship between subjective norm and
intention to shop online or subjective norm is considered to be a weak predictor of intention
APJML to shop online (Amaro and Duarte, 2015). Contrary to the existing belief, the current study
31,4 establishes that subjective norm has a positive and direct influence on intention to use
online shopping. It has also been mentioned in the past studies that influence of subjective
norm is much stronger in the western countries as compared to the non-western countries
(Al-Qeisi et al., 2015; Hasbullah et al., 2016), but the current study establishes that subjective
norm does play a significant role in a non-western country like India as well.
1152 And finally, one of the most significant contributions of the current study to the existing
literature on the TRA framework is the inclusion of the customer service construct. Customer
service has not been used widely along with the TRA framework. This study contributes
extensively in the area of customer service and provides deeper insights in the domain of
online return services and fast and accurate delivery of products. The study confirms that
customer service acts as an important role in predicting the attitude and intention to shop
online. This is in line with the other studies conducted on customer service and customer
support (Minnema et al., 2018; Xu et al., 2015). It has also been observed that not many studies
have examined the interaction effect of customer service such as order fulfilment and other
associated elements on the behaviour of the consumer (Nguyen et al., 2018). The current study
acknowledges the impact of different elements like quick delivery, precise delivery and order
fulfilment on the consumer behaviour in an online context. The research hence adds to
the existing literature about the important facets of customer service and the related
incentives offered by the online vendors like faster delivery options, accurate delivery and
lenient return policies, etc.

6. Managerial contributions and directions for further research

6.1 Directions for future research
The current research is driven by a need to recognise the role of trust, convenience and
customer service in female consumer’s intention to shop online. The results derived from the
proposed model suggest the following directions for further research.
First, the current study suggests that there is no direct significant relationship between trust
and intention. Therefore, further research is required to re-evaluate the role performed by trust
in predicting the behavioural intention of the female shoppers in the online shopping scenario.
Second, the research also states that convenience of online shopping plays an extremely
important role in identifying a female’s intention and attitude towards online shopping.
Considering the importance of convenience as a factor in predicting behavioural intention,
further study is required to examine the different elements of convenience.
Third, the three constructs used in the current study can be applied to other models like
theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance model and efficiency of the models
can be compared.
Last, but not the least, future research is also encouraged to incorporate respondents who
are not experienced online shoppers, and to identify an appropriate mechanism for
attracting new online female customers.

6.2 Managerial implications

There are some implications from these findings on online shopping that deserve attention.
First, the online vendors must make the return process easier and convenient for its
consumers. The online vendors can provide an automated online self-service option on their
websites where the consumers can easily initiate the return process. Second, online vendors
should clearly display the return policy on their website before the ordering of the product
and at the time of initiating the return process. Third, online retailers can also hire the
services of a third-party logistics company to pick-up the return package and make it more
convenient for the consumers.
 With the improvement in the information technology, one of the biggest advantages of Female
online shopping is the ability to order products from anywhere and anytime. Online retailers consumers’
can take this accessibility factor to the next level by offering services to the consumers to intention to
buy the products from any social media platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, etc., thus
making it convenient for the younger population to order from their social account itself. shop online
The other important part that the online vendors need to address is the ease of using
website. Since online shopping framework lacks the support of a salesperson, online 1153
retailers can implement chatbots and online recommendation system to help the consumers
make the right purchase.
The other important result from the study suggests that trust plays a positive role in the
formation of attitude of the consumers towards online shopping. Online vendors can create a
positive attitude of trust, by getting involved in trust building interventions like displaying
privacy policy, using third-party seals (Verisign, TRUSTe, Trust Guard, etc.), regularly
interacting with the consumers, promoting good reputation of their dealings, etc.
Finally, the study has indicated a positive relationship between subjective norm and
intention to shop online. Online vendors should encourage participation and interaction
among the consumers on their platforms and constantly monitor the discussions and
intervene with some suggestions, insights and recommendations as and when required.
This will help in creating a loyal customer base for the online companies and also a platform
where the voice of customers can be heard.

7. Conclusion
In conclusion, the current research has effectively evaluated the factors affecting the
female’s behavioural intention in an online shopping scenario. The model proposed in this
research and the different hypotheses developed are built on the TRA framework along
with the previous studies conducted on trust, convenience and customer service. The study
has found support for seven of the eight hypotheses developed. The outcome of the present
research establishes the vital role played by attitude, convenience, customer service and
subjective norm in predicting female’s behavioural intention.

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Corresponding author
Prashant Raman can be contacted at: prashantraman5@gmail.com

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