DIGITAL STOREFRONTS AND CONSUMER CHOICE: HOW WEB-BASED IMAGE DIMENSIONS SHAPE ATTITUDES AND BUYING INTENT FOR LIFESTYLE GOODS

Abstract

India’s e commerce has gained a predominant scope in the 21^st century and many online players are entering into this competitive space. Indians prefer to surf the internet for Life style related products that are highly marketed through online. Since there are numerous online visitors, converting them into buyers is the marketers task. This study contributes to the Indian Online marketers to frame an effective web store image in accordance with customers perspective. Next to find whether this store attributes creates a purchase intention among the shoppers and further on to identify whether attitude acts as an intermediary between web store image and intention to purchase.. A total of 325 online shoppers were taken for data collection. Convenient sampling technique was adopted and PLS SEM is used for analysis. Ease of use, Enjoyment, Familiarity, Merchandise, Settlement, Style, Trustworthiness and Usefulness plays an important role in web store image formation for life style related e stores. Upon testing the path movements between the taken constructs, no evident relationship is found between store image and intention to buy. There exists relationship between shoppers attitude and purchase intention. A positive relationship is found upon testing store image and intention to purchase through shoppers attitude.