Online Consumers of Kolkata: Upshot of Perceived Risk and Gender (Male & Female) on Consumer Decision Making Styles

Abstract

With the advancement of science and technology, online shopping is the convenient transaction medium for the consumers. In India, online retail spread rapidly and now consumers tried to change their framework from conventional retails to online retails, because of the information and availability of the various brands, range of pricing etc of a product. In the present research, researchers explored online male and female consumers decision making styles of Kolkata mediating role of the different dimensions of perceived risk by the consumers. Two standardized scales along with a general information schedule were used to measure online consumer decision making styles and perceived risk. Through the multistage random sampling the sample was selected from the population under study. Two-way Analysis of Variance, correlation and independent sample t-test were calculated. Results showed that gender had a significant effect on the online consumer decision making styles. Results of two-way ANOVA revealed that different factors of perceived risk, financial risk and product performance risk, showed a significant effect on online consumer decision making styles. Correlation matrix also revealed a significant negative correlation between the dimensions of both variables. Such result demonstrated that different dimensions of perceived risk shapes the decision making patterns of the online consumers in various ways.