E-commerce: A study on women's online purchasing behavior

J Ö N K Ö P I N G I N T E R N A T I O N A L B U S I N E S S S C H O O L JÖNKÖPING UNIVERSITY

E-commerce A study of women’s online purchasing behavior

Thesis within Business Administration

Author: Eliasson, Malin

Holkko Lafourcade, Johanna

Smajovic, Senida

Tutor: Sasinovskaya, Olga

Jönköping January, 2009

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Acknowledgements

The authors of this thesis would like to thank our tutor Olga Sasinovskaya for her guidance and commitment during the process of writing this thesis. We would also like to thank our fellow students for their valuable feedback during seminar sessions. To Hemtex AB, all respondents of the survey and focus group members- a big thank you! This thesis would not have been possible without your involvement. Malin Eliasson Johanna Holkko Lafourcade Senida Smajovic Jönköping International Business School 2009-01-06

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Abstract

Key words: E-commerce, women, online purchasing behavior, online shopping, Internet shopping

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to map out the present behavior of women between 40-55 years concerning Internet shopping. Fur-thermore, the research aims at finding and analyzing factors that might help marketers when persuading the target group to increase their usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textile and decorations.

Background: Along with the increasing usage of computers, E-commerce has emerged as a sales channel, and grows rapidly in Sweden. Due to the high growth rate many companies start up web sites for E-commerce. Hemtex AB followed this trend and started their web shop in October 2008 (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30). Studies have shown younger consumers to be more frequent online shoppers than older consumers (HUI, 2006) and men to make more online purchases than women (Belanger et al, 2002). This might imply some difficulties for Hemtex concerning their start up of a web shop, since their main target group conists of women in the age 40-55 years. This demographic group is however large and has a high purchasing power (SCB, 2008), which mean it is a profitable group to target for marketers in various industries. One major difficulty with online shopping is the inability to touch the product before purchasing it, which can be a difficulty to overcome when selling textiles on the Internet (Forsythe & Shi, 2003). There-fore it is interesting to conduct research of the online purchasing behavior and habits of women age 40-55 years concerning the home textile industry.

Method: The purpose of this thesis was achieved by using customers of

Hemtex AB as a critical case to take part in a survey as well as in a focus group. Two models concerning consumers‟ intention to make purchases in an online environment were used to analyse the out-come of the survey and the focus group.

Conclusion: The thesis determined computer experience and age of women to

have an impact on whether they make online purchases or not. The largest obstacle for online shopping was payment discomfort and the largest benefit of shopping online was the conveniece factor. Several factors that could increase the probability for women of making online purchases age 40-55 was discovered, and specific rec-ommendations for marketers which target women in this age group were developed. Furthermore, one of the models concerning con-sumers‟ intention to make purchases‟ in an online environment was modified to focus the intentions of women to shop online.

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Sammanfattning

Sökord: E-handel, kvinnor, Internet köpbeteende, Internet handel

Syfte: Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att kartlägga det nuvarande köpbe-teendet bland kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år beträffande Internet shop-ping. Vidare ämnar forskningen att hitta och analysera faktorer som kan hjälpa marknadsförare att få målgruppen att öka sitt användan-de av Internet som ett medium för att handla hemtextilier och in-redning.

Bakgrund: Samtidigt som användandet av datorer ökar så har E-handeln ut-vecklats som säljkanal och ökar snabbt i Sverige. På grund av den höga tillväxten väljer många företag att starta webbsidor för E-handel. Hemtex AB har följt trenden och startade sin Webbutik i Oktober 2008 (S. Lindström, personlig kommunikation, 2008-10-30). Studier har visat att yngre konsumenter tenderar att handla mer på Internet än äldre konsumenter (HUI, 2006) och att män handlar mer än kvinnor (Belanger et al, 2002). Detta skulle kunna innebära svårigheter för Hemtex när de startar upp en Webbutik eftersom deras huvudmålgrupp består av kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år. Denna demografiska grupp är stor och har stark köpkraft (SCB, 2008), vil-ket betyder att det är en lönsam grupp att rikta sig mot för mark-nadsförare i olika branscher. En stor svårighet med E-handel är att man inte kan undersöka varan före köp, detta kan vara en svårighet att överkomma när man ska sälja särskilt textiler över Internet (For-sythe & Shi, 2003). Därför är det intressant att forska i köpbeteen-det på Internet bland kvinnor i åldern 40-55 år beträffande hemtex-tilbranschen.

Metod: Syftet med uppsatsen uppfylldes genom att ett urval av Hemtex kunder fick delta i en enkätundersökning samt i en fokusgrupp. Två modeller om konsumenters avsikt att göra köp i på Internet använ-des för att analysera resultatet av enkäten och fokusgruppen.

Slutsats: Uppsatsens resultat var att datavana och ålder hade en effekt på om kvinnorna genomförde ett köp på internet eller inte. Det största hindret för köp på Internet var osäkerhet kring betalning och den största fördelen med Internet köp var bekvämlighet. Flera faktorer som kunde öka sannolikheten för kvinnor i åldern 40-55 att göra In-ternet köp var identifierade, och specifika rekommendationer fast-ställdes för marknadsförare som riktar sig till den här åldersgruppen. Vidare utvecklades en av de teoretiska modellerna om ‟konsumen-ters avsikt att göra köp i en Internet miljö‟ för att fokusera på kvin-nors avsikter att handla på Internet.

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Table of Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................... 1

1.1 Definitions ............................................................................................... 2 1.2 Background ............................................................................................ 3 1.3 Hemtex information ................................................................................ 5

1.4 Problem .................................................................................................. 6 1.5 Purpose .................................................................................................. 7 1.6 Research questions ................................................................................ 7

2 Frame of reference .................................................................... 8

2.1 Previous research................................................................................... 8

2.2 Technology Acceptance Model, (TAM) ................................................... 9 2.2.1 Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use ................................ 10 2.3 Applying TAM in B2C E-commerce ...................................................... 11 2.3.1 Trust ..................................................................................................... 11 2.3.2 Social Presence ................................................................................... 12

2.3.3 Perceived Enjoyment ............................................................................ 12 2.4 Framework for consumers’ intention to shop online ............................. 12 2.4.1 Usefulness ............................................................................................ 13 2.4.2 Ease of Use .......................................................................................... 14

2.4.3 Enjoyment ............................................................................................ 14 2.4.4 Consumer traits .................................................................................... 14

2.4.5 Situational factors ................................................................................. 15 2.4.6 Previous online shopping experiences ................................................. 15

2.4.7 Product characteristics ......................................................................... 16 2.4.8 Trust in online shopping ....................................................................... 16

3 Method ..................................................................................... 17

3.1 Research approach .............................................................................. 17 3.2 Choice of data collection ...................................................................... 18

3.2.1 Primary Data Collection ........................................................................ 18

3.2.2 Secondary Data Collection ................................................................... 19 3.3 Sampling .............................................................................................. 19

3.3.1 Critical case sampling ........................................................................... 19 3.4 Pre study .............................................................................................. 21

3.5 Questionnaire design ............................................................................ 21 3.5.1 How the empirical material of the survey was derived .......................... 22 3.6 The focus group ................................................................................... 23

3.6.1 How the empirical material of the focus group was derived .................. 24 3.6.2 Limitations of a focus group as a qualitative sampling method ............. 25 3.7 Data analysis ........................................................................................ 25 3.8 Generalizability ..................................................................................... 26 3.9 Validity .................................................................................................. 26

3.10 Reliability .............................................................................................. 27

3.11 Trustworthiness and dependability ....................................................... 28

3.12 Limitations ............................................................................................ 29

4 Empirical findings ................................................................... 31

4.1 Empirical findings of survey .................................................................. 31

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4.1.1 Computer and Internet experience ....................................................... 31 4.1.2 Difficulties concerning online purchases ............................................... 35 4.1.3 Advantages concerning Internet shopping ........................................... 38

4.2 Empirical findings of focus group .......................................................... 41

5 Analysis ................................................................................... 46

5.1 Research question 1 ............................................................................. 46

5.2 Research question 2 ............................................................................. 50 5.3 Research question 3 ............................................................................. 55 5.4 Research question 4 ............................................................................. 58 5.5 Concluding analysis with a focus on the modified TAM’s ..................... 61 5.6 Recommendations for marketers ......................................................... 63

6 Conclusion .............................................................................. 66

References ................................................................................... 67

Appendix ...................................................................................... 71

Pre study: .......................................................................................................... 71

Empirical findings appendix............................................................................... 75

Table of figures

Figure 1 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) ................................................ 10

Figure 2 Extended TAM for online shopping ..................................................... 11 Figure 3 Framework of consumers' intentions to shop online .......................... 13

Figure 4 Computer experience level of shoppers and non-shoppers ................ 32 Figure 5 Main use of Internet ............................................................................ 33 Figure 6 Shoppers and non-shoppers ............................................................... 33

Figure 7 Main reason for not shopping online ................................................... 34 Figure 8 Shoppers and non-shoppers divided in age group .............................. 35

Figure 9 Extent of payment discomfort for shopper and non-shoppers ............. 36 Figure 10 Difficulties of Internet shopping ......................................................... 38

Figure 11 Main advantage of online shopping................................................... 39 Figure 12 Importance of various factors for online shopping ............................. 40

Figure 13 The framework for women's intention to shop online ........................ 63

Table 1 Previous research and the main findings ............................................... 9 Table 2 Schedule for gathering of questionnaires ............................................. 20

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1 Introduction

During the last 30 years the access of personal computers has increased all over the world. Along with the development of new technology and computers, the ability to connect computers all over the world emerged in the 1970s. This worldwide computer network was called the Internet (Laudon & Traver, 2008). Along with the Internet an opportunity has emerged; the possibility to make purchases online (Joines, Scherer & Scheufele, 2003), which is called Electronic commerce (E-commerce), and is defined as;

“Maintaining business relationships and selling information, services and commodities by means of computer telecommunications networks.” (Encyclopedia of Britannica, 2008).

In Sweden the annual growth rate of E-commerce is 30 percent, which add up to 4 percent of total retail sales in 2008 (Handelns utredningsinstitut, HUI, 2008). Although E-commerce only makes up a fraction of total retail sales in Sweden, it is still an interesting field for research due to its fast growth rate. E-commerce is developing into an important sales channel for companies in diverse industries, and it is essential for marketers to gain increased knowledge of their target groups‟ behavior on the Internet. With better knowl-edge of how and why consumers shop online, marketers will be able to plan their market-ing efforts in a better and more efficient manner.

More than 80 percent of the Swedish population between 16 and 74 years have access to Internet from their home (Statistiska Centralbyrån, SCB, 2007) and 62 percent use it every day (HUI, 2006). Over 70 percent of the Internet access is accessible through broadband (SCB, 2007), reliable and fast Internet access is essential for rapid growth of E-commerce (HUI, 2006). This argument is supported of Lian & Ling (2008), who state the growth of E-commerce is dependent of the increasing popularity of the Internet.

Generally, men make purchases online more frequently than women do (Belanger, Comunale & Slyke, 2002), and younger consumers purchase online products more often than older consumers (HUI, 2006). Based on this, older women should be the least prob-able consumers in an online environment. What does older women‟s Internet purchasing behavior actually look like, and how can it be increased?

The recent rapid growth of E-commerce has resulted in that many companies have decided to start up web sites for E-commerce (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30). For companies targeting a younger audience, the start up of a web site for E-commerce is probably a good strategic move, since young adults are frequent Internet users. But for companies targeting an older group, the success of the web site depend of the ability and willingness of middle aged consumers to shop online.

The focus of this study is the online shopping behavior of women between the age of 40-55 years in Sweden, as well as factors that would influence an increase of their online pur-chasing. The study is conducted on Hemtex AB‟s customers as a critical case, and includes a questionnaire to map out the target groups‟ online purchasing behavior and a focus group to collect more in-depth information about how to increase their level of online purchas-ing. The report is a bachelor thesis within marketing, at Jönköping International Business School, Sweden.

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1.1 Definitions

Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce - “Online businesses selling to other busi-nesses” (Laudon & Traver, 2008, p.15)

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce - “Online businesses selling to individual consumers” (Laudon & Traver, 2008, p.15)

Electronic business (E-business) - “The digital enabling of transactions and processes within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm” (Laudon & Traver, 2008, p.11)

Electronic commerce (E-commerce) - “Maintaining business relationships and selling information, services, and commodities by means of computer telecommunications net-works” (Encyclopedia of Britannica, 2008)

Electronic shopping / Internet shopping/ Online shopping - “The buying of goods or services over the Internet, using either a computer or an Internet television” (Oxford Reference Online, 2008).

Mail-order - “Retailers offering all kinds of products that can be ordered over the phone. The goods are often delivered within forty-eight hours” (Kalakota & Whinston, 1997, p.221).

Non-shoppers - Based on the survey, the authors of this thesis refer to people who have never conducted an online purchase, as „non-shoppers‟

Shoppers - Based on the survey, the authors refer „shoppers‟ to people who do have con-ducted an online purchase.

Web shop - “A web site that offers the ability to purchase goods or services to consum-ers” (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30)

Web site - “A set of texts and/or images usually sharing a common theme, accessible via the Internet by keying in the address of the site, known as a uniform (or universal) resource locator ( URL ), or by using a hyperlink from another site” (Oxford Reference Online, 2008)

http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t18.e2158&srn=2&ssid=746840422#FIRSTHIT

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1.2 Background

In 2006, nearly 2000 Swedish companies used E-business, although only 200-300 of the companies had any substantial turnover. The most successful companies when it comes to E-commerce is pure E-businesses, that is; they only operate on the web and has no physi-cal store, and mail order companies (HUI, 2006). The average purchase ranges between 201-500 SEK and the total retail sales added up to 18 billion SEK in 2007. The rate of in-crease in turnover was from 2003 to 2005 30 percent annually (HUI, 2008).

There are many advantages for a firm to conduct business on the Internet, for example; the possibility to reach a broader customer group, potential for rapid growth, and that the company can obtain more information about the customer than they could in a normal re-tail environment. Another benefit is the fact that consumers consider E-commerce to have several advantages. In order of importance; low price, simple, convenient, broad supply, not available close to consumer and to save time. The most successful online products are clothing, books, CD‟s, trips, and movies (HUI, 2006). One reason for why for example books are popular to purchase online is that consumers know what they get (Lian & Ling, 2008). Important aspects for successful E-commerce is the credibility of the company, the web site, fast delivery, build up customer loyalty, supply, safety concerning payments and the price (HUI, 2006).

Naturally there are disadvantages of shopping online; according to Gefen & Straub (2002) trust is very important in E-commerce and the lack of it is the major factor for consumers to avoid online purchases (Emurian & Wang, 2005; Gefen & Straub, 2002). Humans must decrease their social uncertainty, that is, to try to control their environment and behavior of other people. This is usually done by rules and customs. As Internet is a new sales channel, there are few established customs and rules, which is why trust is so important in E-commerce (Gefen & Straub, 2002).

For companies considering to enter the E-commerce market, knowledge about the online consumer behavior is crucial. The demographic group most positive towards shopping online is the consumers in the range 20 to 29 years, where 74 percent made an online pur-chase in 2006. Older consumers do not make purchases as frequently as the younger ones; 60 percent between age 40 to 49, and 41 percent between age 50 to 59 had made at least one Internet purchase in 2006. The consumer group that increases their level of purchasing on the Internet the most from one year to another is the age group 40 to 49 years (HUI, 2006). One interpretation of these facts could be that older consumers generally shop less than younger consumers in online stores.

Men purchase products through the Internet more often than women do, 55 percent of men bought a product online in 2006 versus 46 percent of women. The reason for this dif-ference might be the focus of most Internet business, which mostly has men as their target group (HUI, 2006). The research of Belanger et al (2002), support the notion of men as more frequent online buyers than women. Their research also concluded computer use, email use, prior web use and access to a credit card as significant determinants of online purchasing (Belanger et al, 2002). The gender issue is also supported by study which re-vealed women to be less content with online shopping than men, which according to Har-ris and Rodgers (2003) was the main factor to why fewer women than men shop online. The common finding in all these studies made by various authors and HUI, is that women make online purchases more seldom than men.

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If interpreted together, the two paragraphs above imply that older women are the least probable consumers in the online environment. Therefore, it would be interesting to con-duct research on this particular group. Further, a recent study show, that the older a con-sumer is, the larger is his or her purchasing power. The reasons for the high purchasing power are high income and assets, combined with low level of debts (HUI, 2008). SCB (2008) show nearly a 100 percent increase in net fortune between the age range 30-49 and 50-64. The age range 40-49 is the one that increases their online purchasing the most form one year to another (HUI, 2006). Due to the assumption of women being the least prob-able online consumers, combined with high purchasing power, it would be interesting to investigate the behavior of older women, concerning Internet and Internet shopping. This demographic group, which conduct a relatively small amount of online shopping and has high purchasing power, would be an interesting group to target for marketers, since it would have a potential to generate large turnover for a company. To conduct a study, the age group need to be further narrowed down, and for this purpose the researchers‟ have chosen to investigate women between 40-55, since they represent a demographic group with high purchasing power, and low level of Internet purchases combined with a trend of increasing their purchasing online.

The last ten years Sweden has experienced an increasing trend in the interest of home de-cor, home furnishing, and home textiles. This can be seen for example by the increase of TV programmes concerning home design, such as “Äntligen hemma”, “Room service”, and “Design Simon and Thomas”. The competition in the market for home textiles and home decor has increased during the past years, and more companies in the retail trade have started to broaden their range of products to also include home textiles (Hemtex, 2008). Recently Hennes & Mauritz (H&M), a worldwide fashion store with Headquarters in Stockholm recently announced that they were also going to enter the market of interior de-sign by offering home textiles as a complement to their regular range of products, which are clothing (Elmblad, 2008). According to the New Wave Group (2008), the market for home textiles in Sweden has an annual turnover around 6,8 billion SEK, and the market has increased during the past years and this trend seems to be continuing (New Wave Group, 2008). That the market for home textiles and home decor is one of the fastest growing retail trade markets is also confirmed by Hemtex (2008). The past five years this market has increased by 3-4 percent in Sweden and the other Nordic countries (Hemtex, 2008).

Textiles and clothing have since long been sold through mail-order in Sweden, by the use of a catalog sent to the customers. Today many mail-order companies use both a catalog and the Internet as the purchasing medium for their customers. The existence of mail-ordering could imply that it exists an interest from consumers to purchase clothing and tex-tiles using distance purchasing (Sanna Lindström, Head of the project group launching Hemtex web shop, personal communication, 2008-10-30). Therefore, it should be equally possible to successfully sell clothing and textiles using the Internet, as it would be to sell it by using mail-ordering. Moreover, the competition increases from the mail-ordering indus-try as well, who are using Internet as a more common tool for customers to shop from (Hemtex, 2008).

Forsythe and Shi (2003), claim the transcendently most common reason for not purchasing products on the Internet, is the inability of the consumer to be able to touch the product before the purchase (Forsythe & Shi, 2003). If the inability to touch the good before a pur-chase really is the major reason for why consumers hesitate to shop on the Internet, it

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could be difficult to sell for example clothing and textiles through the Internet, since one of the major factor when choosing those kind of goods are the structure of the fabric.

The recent rapid growth of E-commerce has resulted in that many companies, in various industries have decided to start up web sites for E-commerce. One of the most recent companies to start up a web site for E-commerce is Hemtex, which is a Swedish retail chain within home decor, and with a focus of home textiles (S. Lindström, personal com-munication, 2008-10-30). Hemtex is today the market leader, with 26 percent of the market for home textiles in Sweden. Due to Hemtex‟s recent start-up of a web shop, the research-ers‟ decided that investigating Hemtex‟s customers as a critical case for this study could be interesting and relevant for the study. Hemtex‟s main target group is 40-55 years, which correspond to the group the researchers‟ had aimed to make the investigation within (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30). Due to this, the researchers‟ consider Hemtex as a representative case for this study.

Women are the main target group of Hemtex, and as mentioned above, women purchase products online rather seldom. One reason for less satisfaction among women concerning E-commerce might be that they purchase more emotionally charged products, such as clothing, perfume and makeup, whereas men primary shop books, magazines and CD´s, which is perceived as practical rather than emotional products (Harris & Rodgers, 2003). For women, more than men, shopping is a social activity, and shopping through the web is done unaccompanied, which might increase women‟s discontent with the purchasing chan-nel. Belanger et al. (2002) suggest women might not be ready to leave their usual way of shopping quite yet (Belanger et al, 2002). Women perceive online shopping as more haz-ardous than men do, and are more affected by word of mouth to fulfil a purchase. Market-ers might want to reduce women‟s perception of risk associated with online purchases, to increase their online purchasing (Garbarino & Strahilevitz, 2004).

The aim of this study was to investigate the online behavior of women between 40-55, both concerning their behavior online and their habits of purchasing goods on the Internet. This was studied on the home textile industry, by using Hemtex consumers as a critical case (Patton, 2002). The authors‟ ambition of this thesis was that the outcome of the study might be useful for marketing managers, since it could provide them with more knowledge of the target group‟s behavior concerning Internet shopping and what factors could induce their level of shopping on the Internet. During the literature review for this thesis, the au-thors found that much research has been done concerning the differences in purchasing behavior related to gender and age when it comes to E-commerce. However, only a rela-tively small amount of previous research with focus on the purchasing behavior of older women was discovered. This is another reason why it is interesting to investigate this par-ticular demographic group.

1.3 Hemtex information

In the process of reviewing material with the intent to write a thesis within the field of E-commerce, the authors became aware of Hemtex‟s intentions to open a web shop in late October 2008. The authors considered this as an interesting strategy of the company, since their target group consisted mainly of middle-aged women, who the authors perceived to not conduct much shopping online. Therefore using the customers of Hemtex as a critical case seemed to be an interesting topic for research. Hemtex was approached, and the au-thors asked for their permission to investigate their customers, which was granted. A small

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collaboration with Hemtex was established and maintained during the process of writing the thesis.

Hemtex operates over 200 stores in the Nordic countries, where of 145 are situated in Sweden. The major part is owned and operated by the corporate group, while 27 stores are operated as franchises. Hemtex has expanded strongly the past eight years and is today the market leader within home textiles and control 26 percent of the market. Their market po-sition has its focus on the middle-price segment with a certain part of the range of products in the higher-price segments. Hemtex is the actor on the market that offers the broadest range of products for home textiles. The main competitors in the market are Jysk, IKEA, and Kid Interior (Hemtex, 2008).

Hemtex AB has achieved better sales figures than expected the past five years, but the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008 they showed declining sales figures, and the board consid-ered new ways of increasing sales. In the spring of 2008 the board decided Hemtex should start a web site for E-commerce. Their web shop was introduced in the end of October 2008. The decision to start a web shop was mostly based on a willingness to catch up with competitors, rather than a discovered customer need for a web shop of the target group, from extensive marketing research. The mail-ordering company Ellos has operated a web shop for svereral years, selling clothing and home textiles. They are Hemtex‟s main com-petitor in the online market. Hemtex target group is 25-60 years (Hemtex, 2008), although their main target group is women between 40 to 55 years (S. Lindström, personal commu-nication, 2008-10-30).

1.4 Problem

With an annual turnover growth of 30 percent, E-commerce is turning into an important retail channel in Sweden (HUI, 2006). Due to the high annual growth rate of E-commerce it is an interesting area for research. To keep up with the competition many Swedish com-panies make the decision to start a web shop (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30) and in 2006 it was possible to make online purchases from more than 2000 Swedish companies (HUI, 2006). However, not all consumers embrace the new sales chan-nel to the extent the companies‟ managing the web shops would like them to. Research has shown younger consumers to be more frequent online shoppers than older consumers (HUI, 2006) and men to make more online purchases than women do (Belanger et al, 2002). As discussed in the background section, this implies that older women are the least frequent buyers in the online environment. Still, the demographic group in the ages be-tween 40 to 49 years is the one that increases their frequency of online shopping the most annually (HUI, 2006). To summarize; middle aged women make few purchases online but belong to a group that increases their online shopping the most annually. Combined with a strong purchasing power (SCB, 2008), this makes middle-aged women an interesting group to investigate in the context of E-commerce, since companies targeting this group might have a possibility to increase their sales. If entering the online market as a pioneer, a com-pany can position themselves in the top of the customer‟s mind, and thus become an online market leader.

A major drawback with E-commerce is the intangibility of the products sold online, which can increase the difficulty for the customers to decide whether or not the product fits their needs (Forsythe & Shi, 2003). This implies it would be difficult to sell clothing and textiles using the Internet as a sales channel, since for these products a customer decision is based on the fabric, colour, fit and quality of the textile or garment. The home textile industry is

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an industry in which competition has increased during the past years due to both the entry of new actors (Hemtex, 2008b), as well as an expansion of the market into the E-commerce context (S. Lindström, personal communication, 2008-10-30). During the past years the interest of design and home décor has increased rapidly in Sweden mostly with women as the main customers (Hemtex, 2008b). The increased competition, the entry into the E-commerce context combined with the difficulty of selling those products online makes the industry an interesting area for research. Hemtex is a company in the home tex-tile industry, and opened a web shop in October 2008 (S. Lindström, personal communica-tion, 2008-10-30). Their main target group consists of women between the ages 40-55 years. The age of the target group might be an obstacle to having a profitable web shop, since women in this age belong to one of the demographic groups conducting the least amount of online shopping.

The problem of this thesis is how companies in the home textile industry could circumvent the intangibility problem experienced by consumers in relation to online shopping. Further, the problem involves a difficulty for the marketers of companies within home textiles, to convince customers with a low frequency of online purchasing behavior to increase their level of online purchasing. This thesis aims at describing the online purchasing behavior of women in the age 40-55 years as well as to uncover factors that might increase their level of online shopping. The contents of these findings might facilitate for marketers from com-panies with a web shop within the home textile industry, who target women in the investi-gated age. The purpose of this thesis will be achieved be using customers of Hemtex as a critical case.

1.5 Purpose

The purpose of this thesis is to map out the present behavior of women between 40-55 years concerning Internet shopping. Furthermore, the research aims at finding and analyz-ing factors that might help marketers when persuading the target group to increase their usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textile and decorations.

1.6 Research questions

1. How does the level of computer and Internet experience of the target group relate to the level of Internet

purchases?

2. Which factors does the target group perceive as the most important obstacles regarding Internet shopping and why?

3. Which are the most important benefits according to the target group regarding Internet shopping, and

why?

4. Which factors could increase the target groups Internet shopping?

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2 Frame of reference

2.1 Previous research

The authors of this thesis have reviewed a large amount of previous research within the fields of online purchasing behavior, trust and gender. There were little or no research found that have investigated the online purchasing behavior of middle aged women. In ta-ble 1 previous research that is relevant to this thesis have been summarized.

Author; Main findings;

Harcourt, W. (Ed.). (1999). Women at Inter-net: creating new cultures in cyberspace. United Kingdom: Biddles Ltd.

Explores women‟s access to and knowledge of the Internet, across the world, and sug-gest concrete implications in order to in-crease women‟s engagement with new in-formation technologies.

Gittler, M. A. (1990). Mapping women‟s global communications and networking. In W. Harcourt. (Ed.), Women at Internet (p. 91-101). United Kingdom: Biddles Ltd.

Investigating the communication and net-working abilities of women from a global perspective.

Jack Neff, (2008). “Wired women an un-tapped goldmine for package goods” Advertising Age (Midwest region edition). Chica-go: Vol. 79, No. 41; p. 21

Women do spend time chatting about and buying low-involvement products online.

Claire Cain Miller, (2008) “Woman to woman online (Business/financial desk)” New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York, N.Y.: Aug 14, pg. C.1

Advertisers think that products that are dis-cussed on blog posts or in articles in tradi-tional women‟s magazines will increase in sale due to the power of word of mouth.

Harris, M., & Rodgers, S. (2003). Gender and E-Commerce: An Explanatory Study. Journal of advertising research, 322-329.

This study implies that women are less emotionally content with online shopping than men are, this since women found it less convenient. Women also had less trust in online shopping than men.

Garbarino, E., & Strahilevitz, M. (2004). Gender differences in the perceived risk of buying online and the effects of receiving a site recommendation. Journal of business re-search, 57, 768-775.

Women perceive it more risky to make online purchases than men. Women are slightly more affected by recommendations from friends concerning Internet shopping, both concerning perceived risk and pur-chasing intention.

Smith, S., & Whitlark, D. (2001). Men and women online: What makes them click? Marketing research. Summer. 13(2), 20-25.

Recognise that marketers in the digital envi-ronment need to understand what drives men and women online in order to make web site decisions. Women and men differ in online needs and motivations. 5 male and 5 female type of Internet users are identi-

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fied.

Sorce, P., Perotti, V., & Widrick, S. (2005). Attitude and age differences in online buy-ing. International journal retail & distribution management. 33(2). 122-132.

Older consumers find online shopping less convenient than younger do. Younger con-sumers search more frequently about prod-uct information than older do, but purchase to similar extent.

Holsapple, C., & Sasidhara, A. (2005). The dynamics of trust in B2C E-commerce. ISeB. 3. 377-403.

Trust is one of the most important factors for successful B2C E-commerce.

Kolsaker, A., & Payne, C. (2002). Engen-dering trust in E-commerce; a study of gender-based concerns. Marketing intelligence and planning. 20(4). 206-214.

Men and women are discovered to attribute high levels of concern regarding security of online payment, the confidentiality of their personal information and the integrity of the e-tailers.

Choudhury, V., Kacmar, C., & McKnight, D. (2002). Developing and validating trust measures for E-commerce: an integrative typology. Information systems research, 13, 334-359.

Trust helps online consumers to overcome perceived risk and insecurity.

Chiu, Y., Lin, C., & Tang, L. (2005). Gend-er differs: assessing a model of online pur-chase intentions in e-tail service. International journal of service industry management. 16(5). 416-435

A model is tested to see how it influences the attitudes and the online purchase inten-tions of males and females. A gender differ-ence was discovered.

Table 1 Previous research and the main findings

2.2 Technology Acceptance Model, (TAM)

The authors chose to include the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), firstly because it is a well-known, acknowledged model, especially in information studies. Secondly, the au-thors have chosen to include the model since it can be well applied to the research findings in terms of a foundation for women‟s computer knowledge and their ability to take on the online purchasing technique. Thirdly, the model is introduced as a base for the other two following models that are both an extension of the original TAM and applied to the online B2C context.

The aim of the TAM is “[…] to provide an explanation of the determinants of computer acceptance that is general, capable of explaining user behavior across a broad range of end-user computing technologies and user populations, while at the same time being both par-simonious and theoretically justified” (Davis et al, 1989, p. 985). In 1989, Davis developed scales for two specific variables that were hypothesized to be basic determinants of user ac-ceptance of computers. These two variables were referred to as „perceived usefulness‟ and „perceived ease of use‟. The purpose of the study was to, through the use of these two va-

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riables to investigate why certain people tend to accept information technology and some do not (Davis, 1989).

Figure 1 Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

Source: Davis et al. (1989)

One of the most significant purposes of TAM was to provide a foundation for outlining the impact of specific external factors on the internal beliefs, intentions and attitudes. By identifying a small number of basic variables suggested by previous research, TAM was de-veloped as an attempt to achieve the purposes mentioned above (Davis et al, 1989).

2.2.1 Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use

Davis (1989), refers to perceived usefulness as “[…] people tend to use or not use an appli-cation to the extent they believe it will help them perform their job better” (Davis, 1989, p 320). However, even though potential users perceive a given application to be useful, they may at the same time regard the system to be too difficult to use and that the effort of us-ing the application outweighs the benefits. This is referred to as „perceived ease of use‟ ac-cording to Davis (1989). In the study, Davis could demonstrate that the new scales that he had developed for „perceived usefulness‟ and „perceived ease of use‟ were found to have strong empirical relationships with the self-reported measures in the study of usage beha-vior. He also found that „usefulness‟ was considerably more strongly linked to usage com-pared to „ease of use‟ (Davis, 1989). This technology acceptance model has been cited in various research since it was introduced by Davis in 1989. Since Internet was introduced and the market for E-commerce started to emerge, some research has tried to apply the technology acceptance model in the E-commerce setting (Li and Qiu, 2008; Dellaert, Mon-suwé and Ruyter, 2004).

The authors of this thesis have chosen two different models that have been further devel-oped from the TAM model and applied in an E-commerce setting. These two models,the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ and the „framework for consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟, have been chosen in particular because they are modifications of the TAM and are applied to the online shopping context. They will be used as a foundation for the analysis where the authors aim at applying both models to the research findings and try to evaluate which of the two models that is the best one to consider when it comes to online shopping.

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2.3 Applying TAM in B2C E-commerce

This model was included in the study because it is a modified version of TAM that is ap-plied for the E-commerce context. Li and Qiu (2008) have added three additional factors, which are „social presence‟, „trust‟ and „perceived enjoyment‟ to the original TAM. The au-thors of this thesis have chosen to use this model because they believe that these three ad-ditional factors will have an important impact on women‟s attitudes towards E-commerce. The different factors in the model also relate to perceived difficulties concerning online shopping, in terms of „trust‟ issues and the absence of „social presence‟. The factors in the model also relate to advantages with online shopping, in terms of „perceived enjoyment‟ of online shopping. The „extended TAM for online shopping‟ will be used as a mean to facili-tate the analysis of the empirical data and to answer the research questions. The factors from the original TAM; „perceived usefulness‟ and „perceived ease of use‟ will be analyzed together with the empirical findings in order to answer research question one. Further, the factor „trust‟ will be discussed and analyzed more in-depth in research question two. Lastly, in research question three the factors „social presence‟ and „enjoyment‟ will be discussed in the analysis.

In their article, Li and Qiu (2008), take the technology acceptance model, TAM, and add three additional constructs to the model to make it more applicable in the study of online shopping adoption behavior. The cognition-oriented constructs (Figure 2, below) refers to „perceived usefulness‟ and „perceived ease of use‟ from the TAM.

Figure 2 Extended TAM for online shopping

Source: Li and Qiu (2008)

2.3.1 Trust

In any close relationship, trust is one of the most desired qualities (Holmes, Rempel & Zanna, 1985). Gefen and Straub (2003) state that due to the lack of „social presence‟ may hold back the growth of B2C E-services and this by hampering the development of con-sumer trust that the consumer seeks in the service provider. In the creation of trust, human interaction is believed to be a critical element. In fact, one of the major issues that affect the exceptional growth rate of E-commerce is trust (Gefen & Straub, 2003). According to Li and Qiu (2008), „perceived usefulness‟ can be affected by trust both in the short term and in the long term. At the same time, „perceived ease of use‟ is believed to have a positive influence on trust. This is because „perceived ease of use‟ may help promote the consum-ers‟ positive impressions of E-businesses and may improve the consumers‟ willingness to invest and make a commitment in the buyer-seller relationship (Li & Qiu, 2008).

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2.3.2 Social Presence

The term social presence refers to the feeling of being together with others. The concept of „social presence‟ is indeed relevant when it comes to the online shopping environment. Some E-commerce web sites have started so called consumer-to-service person interac-tions such as „live help‟ or instant messaging tools simulating interpersonal communications between shopping friends. This is done in order to provide online shoppers with similar perceptions to what they could experience in the real world (Li & Qiu, 2008). In their ex-tended model, Li and Qiu (2008) state that the „social presence‟ that a web site can contri-bute with, can positively contribute to trust among consumer. Trustworthiness in face-to-face human interactions is usually noticeable by an excess of important social cues. When a consumer interacts with a web site for the first time, they have a difficulty trying to judge the trustworthiness of the web site because they understand few of these social cues (Li & Qiu, 2008).

2.3.3 Perceived Enjoyment

According to Venkatesh (1999), a high level of intrinsic motivation (motivation that arises without any external stimulation) is likely to lead to a higher level of sustained usage beha-vior when it comes to technology. The level of intrinsic enjoyment of an activity is a com-mon measure of flow. The term flow refers to a positive feeling a person gets when he or she experience total involvement in an activity. Due to the fact that online shopping is li-mited to mostly two-dimensional pictures and text, it does not always provide the same enriching and emotionally fulfilling experience as shopping in the physical world provides (Koufaris, 2002). Li and Qiu (2008) suggests in their extended model that „perceived en-joyment‟ will apply both direct and indirect influences on the adoption intentions of those consumers that are users of an online shopping web site. If consumers perceive a web site to be fun to use, they will regard the task as less boring and therefore they are more likely to be engaged in the task, finding the right product and pay for it. This will lead to a com-pleted purchase (Li and Qiu, 2008).

2.4 Framework for consumers’ intention to shop online

Dellaert et al. (2004) have constructed the „framework for consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟. Dellaert et al (2004) developed this model based on TAM. This model was chosen to be included in the study because it is an extension of the original TAM and applied to the E-commerce context. Compared to the previous mentioned modified model, this one is more extended, as the authors of this model have added more factors to TAM than the previous mentioned one. The authors of this thesis have chosen to use this model as it re-lates to computer knowledge, and positive and negative issues with online shopping. The factors „usefulness‟ and „ease of use‟ are related to computer knowledge. „Enjoyment‟ is re-lated to the positive outcome of online shopping. Trust in online shopping is related to po-tential negative aspects of E-commerce. This model also includes „situational factors‟ and „consumer characteristics‟, which also are important factors that affects the consumer‟s on-line purchasing behavior. As this model included more factors than the „extended TAM for online shopping‟, it was used as a foundation for some of the questions in the question-naire, in which the online purchasing behavior was mapped out. Common for the both modified models are that they both have added „enjoyment‟ and „trust‟ to the original TAM. This is why the two models are interesting to compare in the analysis of the research find-ings.

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The model „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ will serve as support for the researchers‟ when analyzing empirical data and answering the research questions. The factors „usefulness‟ and „ease of use‟ will together with the factors „personal characteristics‟ and „consumer traits‟ help the researchers‟ to analyze the empirical findings and answer re-serach question one. In research question two, the factors „trust in online shopping‟ and „product characteristics‟ will be analyzed together with the empirical findings. Lastly, the factors „enjoyment‟ and „situational factors‟ will be analyzed in research questions three.

Figure 3 Framework of consumers' intentions to shop online Source: Dellaert et al., (2004)

Factors in the modified TAM such as CROI, Service Excellence, Experience, Control, Computer Playfulness and so forth, that are a part of the factors „usefulness‟, „ease of use‟ and „enjoyment‟ are disregarded in this thesis, since they are not applicable and relevant for this study.

2.4.1 Usefulness

Usefulness is defined as the perception of the individual that his or her performance will be improved or enhanced by using the new technology (Davis, 1989). Dellaert et al. (2004) classifies the new technology as shopping on the Internet and the individual‟s performance as the outcome of the online shopping experience. In their interpretation of the model, „usefulness‟ refers to the perceptions of the consumers that by using the Internet as a shopping means, the outcome of their shopping experience will be enhanced. The attitudes

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of the consumers toward online shopping and their intentions to shop online are influ-enced by these perceptions (Dellaert et al, 2004).

2.4.2 Ease of Use

According to Dellaert et al. (2004), and their extension of the TAM model, „ease of use‟ implies that the consumer perceive the online shopping to require a minimum of effort. The difference between „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ is that „ease of use‟ is more focused on the consumers‟ perception of the process that leads to the final shopping outcome, whereas „usefulness‟ refers to only the outcome of the online shopping experience. It can be concluded, in a simplified manner, that „ease of use‟ is how easy the Internet is to use as a tool for shopping, and „usefulness‟ describes how effective online shopping is in helping consumers in completing their task. Consumers are more likely to intend to use the tech-nology the more effortless and easier they regard it to be. According to Dellaert et al. (2004) since using a computer is a necessary requirement for online shopping, the comput-er anxiety will have a negative influence on the consumers‟ perception of using Internet as a shopping tool (Dellaert et al, 2004).

2.4.3 Enjoyment

In their modified model, Dellaert et al. (2004), refer to the factor enjoyment as the out-come of the playfulness and fun of the online shopping experience. This is compared to only shopping for the completion of the task shopping in itself. According to Dellaert et al. (2004), the actual purchasing of goods might be subsidiary to the actual experience of shopping online. Due to this, consumers‟ perceptions concerning the potential entertain-ment of online shopping is reflected by the factor „enjoyment‟ (Dellaert et al, 2004).

2.4.4 Consumer traits

To understand why consumers choose to shop online one needs to address different con-sumer traits, such as „personality characteristics‟ and „demographic factors‟ (Dellaert et al, 2004). The authors of this thesis regard the „demographic factors‟ as most relevant to their study, and therefore the „personality characteristics‟ will not be discussed. Burke (2002) has identified four „demographic factors‟ that are relevant; age, gender, education and income. According to Dellaert et al. (2004), these four factors have a considerable moderating effect on the relationship between „usefulness‟, „ease of use‟, „enjoyment‟ and the attitude of the consumers towards online shopping. The importance of age is significant, due to the fact that younger adults, in particular those under age 25, are more interested in using new technology, compared to older consumers. The younger generations tend to be more inter-ested in using the Internet to search for product information and compare and evaluate al-ternatives (Wood, 2002). Gender is another factor that is relevant for attitudes among consumers to perform online shopping. In general, men are more interested in using different types of technologies in their shopping process. Female consumers prefer to use a catalog when shopping from their homes, whereas men are more positive towards using the Internet as a shopping means. However, those female consumers that do perform online shopping, tend to do this more frequently than men that are using the Internet as a shopping means (Burke, 2002). Education is a third factor that is relevant in the relationship between the three basic de-terminants and the attitudes of the consumers to shop online (Dellaert et al, 2004). Accord-ing to Burke (2002) consumers with higher education are more likely to feel comfortable

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using non-store channels for shopping. Li, Kuo and Russel (1999) also confirm this and state that an individual‟s level of Internet literacy is positively correlated with education. The last factor is income, which also affect the relationship (Dellaert et al, 2004). According to Lohse, Bellman and Johnson (2000), high-income households often correlates positive with possessions of computers and Internet access. They also correlate positively with con-sumers with higher level of education. Consumers with higher levels of income also intend to shop online to a larger extent than consumers with lower income (Lohse et al, 2000).

2.4.5 Situational factors

Dellaert et al. (2004) argue that there are a number of situational factors, which are likely to moderate the relationship between consumers‟ attitudes and their intensions to shop on-line. However, in their framework they are only regarding the most relevant. These are time pressure, lack of mobility, geographical distance, need for special items and attractiveness of alternatives (Dellaert et al, 2004) According to Wolfinbarger and Gilly (2001) conveni-ence and accessibility are the most important attributes of online shopping for customers. They are able to shop on the Internet at any time of the day and comfortably in their home environment (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001). Due to this, time pressure as a situational factor has an important impact on the relationship between consumers‟ attitudes and their inten-tions to online shopping. The attitude towards online shopping becomes less important be-cause the main drive for online shopping is that it is always available and time saving (Del-laert et al, 2004). The situational factors lack of mobility and geographical distance are also important for consumers to shop online. Some consumers are not able to visit traditional stores due to illness or large travel distances. Online shopping is therefore a viable alterna-tive to help these consumers (Dellaert et al, 2004). The fourth situational factor is the „need for special items‟ (Wolfinbarger & Gilly, 2001). This refers to consumers that require tai-lored products that cannot be purchased in traditional stores. The last factor is the attrac-tiveness of alternatives. If an attractive store provides their products online, a consumer may not shop online anyway because he or she prefers the brick-and-mortar alternative. All of these five „situational factors‟ moderate the relationship between attitude and the con-sumer‟s intentions to shop online and they are indeed important. (Dellaert et al, 2004).

2.4.6 Previous online shopping experiences

Shim, Eastlick, Lotz and Warrington (2001) state that there is a positive relationship be-tween consumers‟ previous Internet shopping experience and their intensions to shop on-line. Previous research findings demonstrate that intensions towards online shopping are directly influenced by prior online shopping experience (Eastlick & Lotz, 1999). The indi-vidual will make system-specific evaluations that are based on their prior experiences with the system, depending on the extent of minimal system-specific information are given to them (Dellaert et al, 2004). Shim et al. (2001) states that consumers are likely to continue to shop online in the future when prior experiences with online shopping resulted in satisfac-tory outcomes. These positive experiences will decrease the perceived risks that the con-sumer associates with shopping on the Internet (Shim et al, 2001). On the contrary, if a consumer evaluates „previous online shopping experiences‟ in a negative way, this may make him or her unwilling to engage in online shopping in the future. Due to this, Weber and Roehl, (1999), pay attention to the importance of, through providing existing online shoppers satisfying online shopping experiences, turn them into repeat shoppers.

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2.4.7 Product characteristics

According to Dellaert et al. (2004), consumers‟ attitudes towards shopping online is also in-fluenced by the characteristics of the product or service that is under consideration. In the online shopping context, there is a lack of assistance and physical contact. This factor will influence the suitability for different products and this means that some product categories are more suitable for the online shopping contexts than other categories (Dellaert et al, 2004). Grewal et al. (2004) argue that for some products, for example clothing, the custom-er has a need to feel, touch and try them on and these types of products can therefore be difficult to purchase over the Internet. This entails that more standardized products like books, CD‟s and videotapes are more likely to be considered for online shopping (Dellaert et al, 2004).

2.4.8 Trust in online shopping

According to Lee and Turban, (2001), online shopping involves more uncertainty and risk than traditional shopping and the lack of „trust‟ in Internet shopping is still an unresolved issue for consumers who intend to shop online. Trust is also emphasized by Choudhury, Kacmar and McKnight (2002), who claim trust help E-consumers to overcome their sense of insecurity and risk. Doney and Cannon, (1997) argue that the salesperson is the most important source of trust in the retail setting. The consumer trust is dependent on the li-keability and expertise of the salesperson. Due to the fact that the consumers are not able to examine the product or control the sending of their personal and financial information when shopping online, online shopping always contains a certain level of risk (Lee & Tur-ban, 2001). As this situation creates a sense of powerlessness among consumers who shop online, trust is indeed an important factor that affects the relationship between consumers‟ attitude and their intentions towards online shopping (Dellaert et al, 2004). Due to the lo-wered risk involved in exchanging information, a high level of privacy and security in the Internet shopping experience will affect consumer trust in a positive way. The level of trust is generally positively related to the attitudes and intentions of the consumers to shop on-line. At the same time, abuse of consumers‟ trust in online shopping will have a negative ef-fect on consumers‟ attitudes towards online shopping. Abuse of their trust can be invasion of privacy or misuse of personal information and this can lead to a reluctant behavior among consumers‟ future online shopping behavior (Dellaert et al, 2004).

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3 Method

3.1 Research approach

When conducting research, there are two different approaches to take. The researcher can apply the deductive reasoning, which is the logical process of getting a conclusion from something that is already known to be true. The inductive approach, on the contrary, is the logical process of, on the basis of observation of facts; establish a general proposition (Zikmund, 2000). According to Kirkeby (1990), there is a need for an additional research approach. Induction and deduction cannot give us qualitative new knowledge, which is knowledge that is not of a kind that we already have. The solution to this dilemma is the concept of abduction. The abductive approach is somewhat similar to the inductive ap-proach, and is used as a method to create new terms and methods through the analysis of facts (Kirkeby, 1990). In this thesis, the aim is to map out the behavior of women concern-ing their Internet shopping, as well as analyzing the factors that may increase their frequen-cy of Internet shopping. Since there is limited information about women‟s Internet shop-ping in the age group of 40 to 55 this study takes an abductive approach to the research because there is a possibility that a general proposition can be established about the target group and their purchasing behavior online.

Research can take several different forms; it could be explanatory, descriptive or explorato-ry. According to Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2007) explanatory studies are studying a problem or situation to explain the relationship between variables. Robson (2002) explains descriptive studies as describing a correct profile of events, situations or persons. (Cited in Saunders et al, 2007) Robson (2002) mean that exploratory studies is a way to find out what is happening in a particular situation, to assess phenomena and ask questions in a new light. (Cited in Saunders et al, 2007). This study used all three methods in different ways; howev-er, the focus was on the explanatory form. When mapping out the behavior of women concerning their Internet shopping, a descriptive form was used, since the aim was to de-scribe the target group‟s attitudes toward Internet as a purchasing channel. This was achieved by using a questionnaire. The explanatory form was used when finding and ana-lyzing the factors that might increase the group‟s Internet shopping, and to explain why the target group behaves in a certain way. This was conducted through the use of a focus group. The exploratory form was used in the pre study, which aimed at gathering basic in-formation concerning the area of interest, and as a base for the questionnaire. However, the purpose of the thesis is descriptive and explanatory.

When collecting data for empirical research, there are generally two different research strat-egies to apply; the quantitative approach, which includes all data collection techniques that generate or use numerical data. The qualitative approach on the contrary, is mainly used as a synonym for all data collection techniques that generates or uses non-numerical data. It can therefore refer to data that is not only words, but also other non-numerical data such as video clips, observations and pictures (Saunders et al, 2007).

This study includes both a quantitative and qualitative approach due to the nature of our purpose, which is both descriptive and explanatory. When mapping out the behavior of women in the age of 40 to 55 concerning Internet shopping, the quantitative approach was used. By using the quantitative approach, a larger portion of the population can be investi-gated, than could have been by only using a qualitative research. Using a quantitative ap-proach enabled the results to be conceptually generalized, which mean that the findings could be applicable in the sense of the critical case. The purpose also aims at finding fac-

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tors of how to increase the usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textiles, as well as to find the reasons behind the attitudes and behavior of the target group. To answer this part of the purpose a qualitative approach was taken by using a focus group. It would be difficult to uncover factors by using a quantitative approach because there is a need to go in depth into the subject. The intention of the qualitative research approach was to un-cover factors that can motivate and influence the target group to increase their purchasing online.

3.2 Choice of data collection

To answer the purpose of the thesis, both primary and secondary data had to be collected. Primary data is data collected especially to answer the purpose and research questions of the current study. This data must be gathered by the researcher of the study at hand and can be done by observation, interviews or questionnaires. Secondary data is data that has been collected earlier, to fulfill the purpose of some other study. This data can be gathered from books, articles, reports and many others sources (Saunders et al, 2007). How primary and secondary was collected to this study will be described in the two following sections.

3.2.1 Primary Data Collection

In this study, primary data was collected through standardized interviewer-administered questionnaires. However, data was also collected through a focus group where several par-ticipants could discuss a specific subject more in depth. Before the questionnaire was com-piled, a pre study was conducted.

There are four types of interviews that can be conducted; personal interviews where only a single person is being interviewed, focus groups where several people are being interviewed at the same time, telephone interviews where the interview is conducted through a tele-phone conversation or convenience interviews where the interview is conducted in a place with many people (Christensen, Engdahl, Grääs & Haglund, 2003). In order to design the questionnaire, a pre study had to be conducted to attain relevant information. The pre study was conducted in the form of personal interviews with open answer questions, which also is a type of qualitative sampling. To conduct the qualitative part of the data collection, a focus group was used to find out how to increase the usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textiles. A focus group is characterized by having several participants at the same time discussing a specific subject. The group discussion is lead by a moderator. The aim with the focus group is to create a discussion where unpredicted reasoning can be detected (Christensen et al, 2003). It would have been difficult to uncover factors of how and why Internet shopping can be increased by only using the quantitative approach. By having a qualitative approach too, the study can go more in-depth within this subject. The decision to use a focus group was based on the belief that a discussion between several res-pondents would let more feelings and thoughts arise, than if the same questions would be discussed with only one respondent in an ordinary interview. By listening to each other, the respondents in the focus group could come up with ideas they would not have done in a one-to-one setting.

There are two types of questionnaires, interviewer-administered and self-administered questionnaires. When conducting an interviewer-administered questionnaire an interviewer needs to be present, while in the self-administered questionnaires the respondents com-plete the form by themselves (Christensen et al, 2003). For this data collection the decision was to use an interviewer-administered questionnaire, since it would decrease bias resulting

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from respondents who might have skipped one or more questions, which would have made the analyzes less credible. In addition, if any questions or difficulties arose an expla-nation could be given and thus reassure that the correct information was collected.

3.2.2 Secondary Data Collection

To be able to build a frame of reference and gather information about the background to the problem there was a need for secondary data. The main source of secondary data con-sisted of scientific articles that were found in several databases available through the Uni-versity Library, such as; Emerald, Google scholar, ABI/inform, and Scopus. Books from the library, statistics from SCB and reports from Handelns Utredningsinstitut were also used in the secondary data collection.

3.3 Sampling

The target group for this study is women in the age of 40 to 55, since they are a demo-graphic group, which do not conduct much purchasing online, combined with having strong purchasing power. This combination makes the mentioned target group especially interesting to investigate. This target group also was a special interest to Hemtex since they autumn 2008 opened a web site targeting women in this age group.

Sampling of primary data can be divided in two groups, probability sampling and non-probability sampling. In probability sampling, each case has an equal chance of being se-lected. To use probability sampling the researcher needs a sampling frame, that is; a list of all cases in the population, and must select cases randomly. When a sampling frame is not available, non-probability sampling is one alternative method for sampling. Non-probability sampling includes; quota sampling, purposive sampling, snowball sampling, self-selection sampling and convenience sampling. The latter means cases are selected haphazardly and are most appropriate when for example interviewing customers at a shopping centre for a marketing survey. Gathering respondents will be continued until the sample size has been reached (Saunders et al, 2007). In this case, a sampling frame was not available, which meant that probabaility sampling could not be used. Instead the researchers‟ decided to use convenience sampling, which is a type of non-probability sampling since it seemed suitable as the questionnaire would take place in a shopping mall.

3.3.1 Critical case sampling

The critical case sampling method is a strategy for selecting purposeful samples. Critical cases can also be used to represent particularly important things. They are also representa-tive to prove that if something happens here, it will happen anywhere, or the opposite, if it does not happen here, it will not happen anywhere. What is crucial in the data collection for this type of sampling is the understanding of what is happening in the critical case. In cases where resources can limit the evaluation to the study of one location alone, it is par-ticularly important to look for critical cases. In these situations, it makes sense to choose the location that can have the largest impact on the development of knowledge and yield most information to the study. It is not possible to make broad generalizations to all possi-ble cases, only by studying one or a few critical cases; however, from the weight of evi-dence from a single critical case, logical generalizations can often be made (Patton, 2002).

In this study, the authors have chosen to study Hemtex AB and their customers as a critical case. The authors believe that Hemtex have the potential of being a representative sample

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for the home textile industry. This is because Hemtex recently introduced their web shop and their target group is women and particularly in the ages 40-55 years. It is interesting to regard Hemtex as a critical case, because the authors can argue that the outcome of the re-search may be applicable to other similar companies that distribute home textiles via Inter-net in an online store (Patton, 2002). Since there is not any list available of all the cases in the sampling frame, probability sampling could not be used. Instead, this study used non-probability sampling by the usage of convenience sampling. This study is conducted on Hemtex customers, since this will allow the results to be utilized on the home textile indus-try. The respondents were asked to respond to a questionnaire outside the Hemtex stores in Jönköping City and at A6 center between 10 of November to 23 of November, accord-ing to the schedule below. A6 center is an in-door shopping mall just outside the city centre in Jönköping, and has nearly 90 stores.

Date Time Place

10-nov 13.00-17.30 A6 centre

11-nov 13.00-15.00 A6 centre

12-nov 16.00-18.00 A6 centre

13-nov 16.00-18.00 City

14-nov 16.30-19.30 A6 centre

15-nov 11.00-15.00 A6 centre

16-nov 12.00-15.00 A6 centre

17-nov 17.00-19.00 A6 centre

19-nov 17.00-19.00 A6 centre

20-nov 17.00-19.00 A6 centre

21-nov 12.00-14.00 City

21-nov 16.00-18.00 A6 centre

22-nov 12.30-13.30 A6 centre

Table 2 Schedule for gathering of questionnaires

The aim was to have an equal distribution of respondents from the stores at A6 and Jönköping City. Due to bad weather, the study could not be completed outside, and instead had to be conducted indoors at A6 centre. This did not however affect the results of the study, since the reason to have two locations was mainly to finish the primary data collec-tion in a more efficient way.

The sample size of the questionnaire aimed at including at least 90 respondents, since the target group 40-55 was divided into three age categories; 40-45, 46-50 and 51-55, since the study also aimed at investigating if there were any differences regarding the attitudes to-ward Internet shopping in the age groups. The aim was that each age group should consist of at least 30 respondents since this fulfills the central limit theorem, which makes the re-sult from the study somewhat generalizable (Saunders et al, 2007). In total 93 respondents answered the survey, 30 in the lowest and the highest and 33 in the middle age group. The reason for the unequal distribution was that all 90 surveys was filled out by the respon-dents, and when summarizing how many respondents from each age group were represents, there were three missing in one of the groups. These were gathered by conveni-

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ence sampling, using the researchers‟ personal network of women in the appropriate age that were current customers at Hemtex.

The women approached and asked to take part in the survey were generally very positive, and most of the women that were asked to participate did so. The reason for the large time consumption of the data collection was that only about 40 percent of the shoppers in the store were appropriate age group of the study. The interviewer had to determine the age of the potential respondent by using her own judgement before approaching, which might have affected the lower age group to be more time consuming to collect.

At the end of the questionnaire, the respondents were asked if they were interested to par-ticipate in a focus group on the subject. The respondents were told they would receive cof-fee and cookies, as well as a Hemtex voucher worth 100 SEK. Approximately 10 percent of the respondents said they would be interested in taking part in the focus group. After a few days, the volunteers were contacted and asked if they could participate on a specific date and time.

3.4 Pre study

To design a questionnaire, information is needed about the specific target group. Although many articles and reports were read, little information could be found that only dealt with Internet shopping of middle-aged women. In order to construct the questionnaire a pre study was needed to collect basic information. To find the respondents, convenience sam-pling was used. The pre study included five women from the age 40 to 55, and the inter-views were conducted with open questions since the goal of the study was to uncover fac-tors, feeling and ideas relevant for this specific age group. The pre study was a great help and facilitated the compilation of the questionnaire.

The notes, in Swedish, from the pre study interviews are available in the appendix. The rea-son for conducting the interviews in Swedish was that the respondents were not fluent in English and would be able to express themselves more accurately in Swedish.

3.5 Questionnaire design

As mentioned earlier, the questionnaire was interviewer-administrated, which mean that the interviewer read the questions for the respondents and noted their answers on the answer-ing sheet.

The questionnaire was built upon the research questions, and was divided into four sec-tions. The first section starts with the computer and Internet habits of the respondents, thereafter questions about their shopping habits online were inquired. The questions in the first section are based on scientific articles (Belanger et al, 2002; Choudhury et al, 2002), from the „framework of consumers' intentions to shop online‟ (Dellaert et al, 2004) and a report (HUI, 2006).

The second and third section deals with the perceived difficulties and benefits concerning Internet shopping. In these sections no questions were asked, instead statements were used as a way to measure attitudes and feelings. The respondents were asked to determine how well they agreed to the statement on five point Likert scale. Likert scale is a scale used in questionnaires where the respondent can state how well he or she agrees with a statement, for example „strongly agree‟ or „strongly disagree‟ (Oxford Reference Online, 2008). A five-point Likert scale was used since it was perceived as most appropriate way of getting accu-


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rate answers. According to Fink (1995) when conducting interviewer-administered ques-tionnaires or telephone interviews, the most common scale to use is a four or five point scale. A discussion concerning whether to use an odd or even scale was held and the deci-sion was that an odd scale is the best approach since it would not force the respondents to take a stance as it could result in misleading information, thus reducing the credibility in the study. Also in this section, the information was based on the pre study, a scientific article (Choudhury et al, 2002) and a report (HUI, 2006).

A fourth and final section was added to the questionnaire, dealing with questions concern-ing Hemtex and the respondent‟s awareness of Hemtex recently opened web shop. The reason for including these questions was to give the marketers at Hemtex a chance to re-analyze and interpret the results of this study in a way that more focus Hemtex rather than the whole industry.

When designing a questionnaire, several types of questions can be used. This paragraph will bring up the types used in the questionnaire for this study. Open questions let the respon-dent answer freely to the question, or to mention a certain number alternatives, which the respondent chooses freely from. Open questions are used when the author is unsure about the response. The drawback of open questions is that they are time consuming to analyze (Saunders et al, 2007). In this questionnaire, only one open question was used, since the au-thors did not know what the respondents might answer. List questions provide the respon-dent with a list of alternatives, which they might choose from (Saunders et al, 2007). This type of question was used in a few questions to find out the major preference of the res-pondent, or which alternatives the respondent had experienced. Category questions are customized so that the respondent can only answer one alternative (Saunders et al, 2007). This type of question was used in the first section, when the target group‟s behavior was mapped out. Ranking questions let the researcher find out the respondents perception of the alternatives relative importance (Saunders et al, 2007). A ranking question was only used once in the questionnaire, since having too many ranking questions in a questionnaire make it fairly complex for the respondent to answer. Rating questions are often used to collect data on how the respondent feels about something, or their opinions. One example is how well the respondent agrees to a statement made by the interviewer (Saunders et al, 2007). Rating questions was the most common type of question in this questionnaire since it allows posing many questions to the respondents without confusing them, since the same scale is used.

According to Saunders et al. (2007), it is good to pilot test the readymade questionnaire to make sure respondents have no problems understanding the questions, and that the ques-tionnaire is easy for the interviewer to use. If problems arise, the questionnaire can be re-designed, which could decrease bias in the analyses of the data (Saunders et al, 2007). When the questionnaire was finished, it was tested on five respondents, who answered the ques-tionnaire and afterwards were interviewed about if the questions and instructions had been clear, and if not, why. The comments were analyzed and a few adjustments were made to the questionnaire in terms of for example phrasing. The five questionnaire interviews were also timed, to determine how much time would be required to answer the questionnaire.

3.5.1 How the empirical material of the survey was derived

In order to obtain descriptive data of the results from the survey, the raw data need to be processed in a computer program. To achieve this, the authors used a statistical computer program called Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS), which was supplied by

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Jönköping International Business School. When the required number of questionnaires had been collected, they were assigned identification number from one to 93. To facilitate the data entry processes in SPSS, the questionnaire had been pre-coded, by assigning each al-ternative in all questions with a number.

To start with, all questions were given specific labels and variable names in the variable view window in SPSS. For example, the question „Have you ever made a purchase using the Internet?‟ was given the label ‟Ever purchased over the Internet‟, and the variable name „Everpurch‟. This question had two possible answers; „Yes‟ or „No‟ and these were given numerical codes „Yes=1‟ and „No=2‟. The same procedure was done with all questions in the questionnaire, even though in somewhat different ways, due to the construction of the question and the number of alternatives available.

In the data view window in SPSS and the actual data entry began. This started with ques-tionnaire number one, where the reader read the numerical codes for each question and the typer typed them into the program. All questionnaires together took approximately four hours to enter.

Once the data was entered into SPSS, the data had to be searched for errors, using the var-ious methods available in SPSS for this purpose. Errors need to be corrected before an analysis is conducted to avoid unnecessary bias. A few errors were found and corrected, by going through the concerned surveys. The correct code was found and entered into SPSS and thereby the error was corrected. Next, the researchers‟ explored the data by construct-ing various tables, bar charts and pie charts, to get an overview of the data. Based on this overview it was decided what was most interesting to focus on and how this could be pre-sented. The findings from the questionnaires are presented in tables, bar charts and pie charts. These were added to the empirical findings section along with comments and ex-planations to make them more easily interpreted for the reader. The majority of the charts are presented in the appendix, and only the most interesting ones can be found in the em-pirical section.

3.6 The focus group

A focus group is characterized by a group of people discussing a particular subject, product or topic. The aim with a focus group is to create an interactive discussion amongst the group members. To be able to generate a good discussion the participants characteristics are important, the participants must have some common characteristics that are connected to the topic so that they can share their ideas and thoughts. (Saunders et al, 2007). Most of-ten, focus groups are unstructured and lead by a moderator. The task for the moderator is to introduce the topic and ask questions without interfering in the group discussion. The group should consist of six to ten participants that are homogenous; a heterogeneous group can cause confusion due to differences among the participants. When conducting a focus group the participants can talk freely about their feelings, fears and worries. This gives the researchers‟ more in-depth information that would have been hard to acquire us-ing a questionnaire or other similar methods (Zikmund, 2000).

The participants where approached during the questionnaire and later contacted for more information about what day the focus group would be held, and if they could attend. The aim was to have two focus groups, one focus group of shoppers and one of non-shoppers, to be able to further investigate their differences. Of the 93 survey participants, 10 left their contact information for taking part in the focus groups. Due to low interest and inability to

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attend by the participants of the survey, some focus group members had to be sampled by using convenience sampling of the researchers‟ private networks. However, due to the low interest, it was difficult to get participants to participate in the focus groups to be able to conduct two groups, since each group had to consist of at least six members, preferably six to ten. Instead, only one focus group was conducted, containing a mix of shoppers and non-shoppers.

The areas and questions up for discussion in the focus groups was derived from the results of the survey, the „extended TAM model for online shopping‟, the „framework of consum-ers' intentions to shop online‟ and the research questions. This was done to gather relevant information for the analysis.

The focus group was scheduled on 2 December at 18.00 to 20.00. The location was a group room at Jönköping University library. The occasion began with a small welcoming speech by the moderator, and thereafter the moderator explained the process of participat-ing in a focus group to the members. This followed by a small chat where the participants could become familiar with one another, during which coffee, sandwiches and cookies were served. After this, the moderator held a small introduction with charts and figures of the results from the questionnaire.

After the presentation, the moderator, repeated the structure of the evening, and asked again if everything was clear. Before starting the discussion, the moderator explained the need to record the conversation on tape and asked again for their permission. Thereafter the moderator started the tape recorder and the discussion. The participants were asked to discuss the possible reasons for why the results of some survey questions looked a certain way. They were also asked to discuss potential factors that could increase their online pur-chasing. At the beginning of the focus group discussion, there was a sense of nervousness among the members of the group, and the members basically just talked directly to the moderator. However, as they understood the procedure of participating in a focus group, and that the questions would only address their own thoughts and feelings, they became more comfortable and began to discuss among themselves. The moderator guided them through the discussion with the predetermined areas or questions, as well as follow-up questions.

The focus group discussion was held in Swedish, since the members of the group were not comfortable in speaking English, and would be able to express themselves more clearly in their mother tongue. After the discussion was finished, the moderator expressed her grati-tude for the helpfulness of the participants and distributed the 100 SEK vouchers for Hemtex.

3.6.1 How the empirical material of the focus group was derived

A tape recorder was used during the focus group, and the conversation on this tape was written down word by word as a transcript. The transcript was scrutinized and the most es-sential quotations were selected and translated into English. The selected quotations were re-written to a fluent text, to facilitate for the readers, and are presented in the qualitative part of the empirical findings. The quotations can be found in the appendix. The full tran-script can be obtained if requested, however only in Swedish, since the focus group was held in that language.

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3.6.2 Limitations of a focus group as a qualitative sampling method

One limitation with using a focus group is that the moderator has less control of the dis-cussion compared to a one-to-one interview, and that participant might start discussing is-sues irrelevant to the research (Krueger, 1994). By having a well-prepared moderator, the influence of this problem has been limited. The advantage of having several participants discussing the topic was considered to be more valuable for the research at hand since it would allow more ideas and reflections to appear than a one-to-one interview would.

Another limitation could be that some focus group members might only contribute to the discussion to a small extent since they do not want to embarrass themselves (Krueger, 1994). To avoid this limitation, the moderator had specific instructions to deliberately try to invite potential quiet participants to take part in the discussion by posing questions directly to those participants. This was however not a problem since all focus group members par-ticipated to a somewhat equal extent in the discussion.

Data derived from a focus group can be difficult to analyze (Krueger, 1994). Since this fo-cus group mainly dealt with confirming results found in the survey and to discover underly-ing reasons for the cause of certain results, this problem was minimized.

In order to get the most accurate results possible from a focus group, the moderator should be well-trained and experienced (Krueger, 1994). To decrease the impact of this li-mitation, the one of the researchers‟ with the most experience of interviews and in psy-chology was selected to act as the moderator. During the focus group the other researchers‟ helped the moderator to keep the discussion on track.

To merely conducting one focus group might be risky since it is difficult to distinguish what opinions are unique for just that focus group and what is applicable on a larger popu-lation. To avoid this problem, triangulation can be used, which mean to compare the re-sults from the single focus group to other research on the same subject (Morgan, 1998). By using triangulation and comparing the focus group results with the results in the survey, this limitation of only using one focus group has been decreased.

3.7 Data analysis

In order to analyze the data collected through the survey and the focus group, several strat-egies were used. When the questionnaire was analyzed the data needed to be processed through a statistical software program by the researchers‟ in order to be able to grasp the data. Tables, charts and pie charts were created to make the process of analyzing the data feasible. The aim was to give a descriptive analysis of the women‟s opinions and habits concerning online shopping. The tables, charts and pie charts were interpreted as made up the foundation for the focus group discussion. The raw material from the focus group transcript was divided in different categories to cor-respond to the research questions. The analysis of the survey and the focus group was con-ducted jointly, and divided to fit with the four research questions. To be able to understand and analyze the data, the researchers‟ applied both the modified TAMs in order to interpret the findings. The research questions and the modified TAMs also facilitated the process of analyzing the data, since it worked as a guideline and helped the researchers‟ to make sense of the large amount of data that was acquired through the use of a focus group.

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Further the researchers‟ made their own modified model that was based on the modified TAM, „framework of consumers' intentions to shop online‟. The conclusion of each re-search question generated several findings and uncovered factors of how to increase the shopping behavior of women in the ages between 40 to 55 years. These factors were then used to give recommendations to marketers and will hopefully be useful.

3.8 Generalizability

Generalizability, sometimes known as external validity, means that depending on how your research was conducted and what result was acquired, will have an effect on the generaliza-bility and the application on other research frameworks. This is true particularly for case studies that are conducted in one organization or a handful of organizations, especially if they differ in some way. If the research was conducted in above-mentioned way the aim with the research is not to develop a theory that can be applicable to all populations instead the research is limited to the specific organization that is being investigated (Saunders et al, 2007).

As a critical case Hemtex and their customers were chosen to be investigated by the re-searchers‟ of this thesis. According to Saunders et al. (2007) when conducting a case study within one organizations or a small number of organizations the generalizability will be af-fected and cannot be generalized to all populations. However, the intention of the re-searchers‟ is not to generalize the findings from the study to the entire population. In this critical case study the results that were derived from the critical case can be generalized and applicable to other similar companies that distribute home textiles through Internet in an online store. When using a critical case, an assumption can be made that if something hap-pens in this particular organizations then there is a possibility that it will happen anywhere. One must keep in mind that it is not feasible to make too broad generalizations to all prob-able cases by just studying one or a small number of critical cases. But by discovering find-ings in one particular critical case, logical generalizations can be concluded.

3.9 Validity

Validity is “the ability of a scale or measuring instrument to measure what is intended to be measured” (Zikmund, 2000, p. 281). There are three approaches to validity; face validity, criterion validity and construct validity. Face validity or refers to the congruence between the measurement and the research object that was intended to be examined. This approach is dependent on judgment by a researcher and can threaten the validity. Content validity re-fers to a measure and its ability to be able to give an overall view to a specific concept. Cri-terion validity means that the researcher is trying to establish a connection between a mea-surement and a criterion. Criterion validity can be divided in two ways, concurrent validity or predictive validity. Construct validity is how well a measure can confirm several hypo-theses that are derived from the theory (Zikmund, 2000).

In this study primary data was collected by using a questionnaire and thus validity is impor-tant because the intention is to investigate women in the ages between 40 to 55 years and their online buying behavior. When compiling the questionnaire many sources were used as support to ensure that right questions were included in the questionnaire. Scientific articles, factors from the modified TAM‟s and reports from government agencies were used as a base for the questions. Using these types of credible sources adds validity both to the study and the questionnaire, which is one the instrument that the researchers‟ are utilizing to measure. The other instrument used to finding factors that can increase the target groups

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usage of Internet as a purchasing channel for home textile and decorations was a focus group interview. During the interview the moderator used predetermined questions that were based on scientific articles, the modified TAMs and the empirical findings from de-rived from the survey. When using the predetermined questions as a guideline it enables the instrument in this case, the focus group interview, to measure what it is intended to be measured. However, both the focus group and the questionnaire conducted in Swedish and had to be translated into English which could affect the validity due to translations errors.

To enhance the content validity in the study data was collected through numerous sources such as databases, articles, books and reports. Further primary data was also collected by using questionnaires and a focus group interview. The researchers‟ have tried to use sources and data that are relevant for the concept that is investigated in this study.

3.10 Reliability

Reliability means how accurate and consistent a measurement or instrument is. If you per-form a test ten times and acquire the same findings every time, this means that you have perfect reliability. When the result is consistent, a conclusion can be drawn that chance did not affect the results (Saunders et al, 2007).

There are four threats to reliability. The first one is subject or participant error, meaning that depending on for example when a questionnaire was completed during the week can affect the results. A person that completed the questionnaire on a Monday may have ans-wered in a different way than a person that completed a questionnaire on a Friday. Second, subject or participant bias means that the participants were not being truthfully about their opinions concerning a specific matter but have answered in a way that was expected of them by the management. Third, observer error means that when conducting research the number of observers can affect the results due to the manner that the questions were asked. If the questions were not phrased in the same way by the researchers‟ this can affect the findings due to inconsistency. Last, observer bias means that the interpretation of the collected data may differ between the researchers‟ (Saunders et al, 2007).

The data collection consisted of both primary and secondary data. The secondary data was gathered from databases that contain scientific articles, reports from the government were also used. These sources can be argued to have high reliability and are trustworthy, since the articles and reports are screened and processed before they are published.

The primary data on the other hand are derived from interviewer-administered question-naires and a focus group, and can be a threat to the reliability. The survey was conducted during a two week period at A6, a shopping mall in Jönköping. According to Saunders et al. (2007) the results from a questionnaire can be affected by the respondents depending on when the survey was conducted. A person that completed the questionnaire on a Monday may have answered in a different way than a person that completed a questionnaire on a Friday. The survey and the results can therefore have been affected by participant error. However, the researchers‟ tried to minimize the participant error by not conducting the survey during one day or a special time of the day, instead the survey was conducted during all weekdays and at different times of the day. This ensured the researchers‟ that the opi-nions of the respondents were not affected by their mood that they were feeling on a par-ticular day of the week, since the survey had been conducted throughout the week.

The observer error was also minimized in the study by having predetermined interview questions and areas to discuss for the focus group and by using a standardized question-

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naire in the survey. The questionnaire was interviewer-administered and could have af-fected the reliability, however since the researchers‟ used a standardized questionnaire the questions were posed in the same manner by all researchers‟ and thus the observer error was reduced. Before the focus group was conducted the researchers‟ had made a predeter-mined interview guide, which included a list of questions and areas to discuss. This can add reliability to the study because when using this method, the framework for the focus group can be re-created again if needed. However, the predetermined questions worked as a guideline, follow up questions were asked when needed so the focus group was semi-structured and this can threaten the reliability, since it is not possible to exactly replicate the focus group discussion. Further, to reduce observer error, the focus group was lead by a moderator, meaning that only one person posed the questions to the members. Using only one moderator will decrease the possibility of the observers to pose the questions different-ly which can affect the members of the group and threaten the reliability. In this study one of the researchers‟ acted as a moderator while the two other researchers‟ took notes.

The focus group conversation was taped and transcribed, by doing so observer bias can be reduced. Observer bias means that the collected data can be interpreted differently among the researchers‟. By having a transcript and the taped conversations, the researchers‟ can go back and investigate the material when needed thus minimizing interpretation error.

3.11 Trustworthiness and dependability

According to Lincoln and Guba (1985) trustworthiness is conveyed when the researchers‟ findings are consistent to what the respondents have said in the study (cited in Lietz, Lan-ger, & Furman, 2006). Padgett (1998) explains that there are several threats to trustworthi-ness and problems can occur if the findings are biased by the participant or the researcher. (cited in Lietz et al, 2006). Various researchers‟; Creswell (1998; 2003), Horsburg (2003), Lincoln and Guba (1985) and Padgett (1998), claim that one way of coping with these threats is that the researchers‟ must find strategies that allow them to describe the findings in such a way so that the meanings that are conveyed by the respondents are accurately represented. Strategies like prolonged engagement, triangulation, peer debriefing, audit trail and reflexivity can be used to enhance the trustworthiness in a study (cited in Lietz et al, 2006).

In this study the researchers‟ have used the audit trail as a strategy to enhance the trustwor-thiness in the findings that were derived from the respondents. Audit trail can be defined as “The sequence of documents, computer files, and other records examined during an audit, showing how a transaction has been dealt with by an organization from start to finish. Documents will require cross-referencing so the trail is not broken” (Oxford Reference Online, 2008). When the focus group was conducted the entire conversation was taped. Furthermore, two of the researchers‟ took notes during the interview as a precaution me-thod in case an error with the tape recorder would occur. The taped conversation was tran-scribed word for word in a document, and is available if needed. The most important quo-tations were taken from the transcript and written in cohesive text in the empirical findings. The researchers‟ did not alter the findings instead tried to keep it as consistent to what the respondent had said in the focus group interview.

Triangulation is a strategy to enhance the trustworthiness, by comparing the results from the study conducted with previous research on the same subject to make sure they corres-pond (Morgan, 1998). In this study, the researchers‟ conducted a focus group to be able to see if the results that was found in the survey could be confirmed or rejected by the focus




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group. By using only one focus group and not relate it to any previous findings, would not have generated enough information for the researchers‟ to be able to make any conclu-sions. Therefore, in this study a survey was performed and the results from this was tested to be true or not in the focus group. This was a way for the researchers‟ to use the triangu-lation strategy.

Dependability refers to that what is being stated in a study may not be consistent, standard or reliable. When performing a study on people, it is crucial to keep in mind that people may not always be consistent. Due to the complex nature and minds of people, they can change their opinion from one day to another (O‟Leary, 2004). The results in this study are based on survey material and a focus group discussion. That is, to say that the results are very much dependent on the consistency as well as the inconsistency of the people taking part in the study. Dependability of the results is affected by who was asking the questions, what type of questions that were posted and the mood of the participants (O‟Leary, 2004). The respondents taking part in the survey, were volunteering to participate and this implies that their opinions were unbiased, since they had no connection to either Hemtex or the researchers‟. During the focus group discussion the participants were allowed to discuss and express their opinions freely on the subject discussed. The moderator posed questions in order to make sure the discussion was kept to the subject, but in general the participants led the discussion themselves. Due to the fact that the respondents were volunteering to participate, and that the focus group discussion was held in an informal manner, this is like-ly to have had some positive effect on the dependability of the results in this study. How-ever, the issue of dependability will always have an impact on the results of the study if people are involved as a base for the results. The consistency and inconsistency of respon-dents is difficult for the researcher to affect.

3.12 Limitations

The models used to build the analysis of this thesis were modified versions of the TAM (Davis et al, 1989), which is a well-established model and are therefore reliable to utilize in the E-commerce context. However, Dellaert et al. (2004), developed the „framework for consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ to adapt the original TAM by Davis et al. (1989) to the E-commerce context. The modified model by Dellaert et al. is a literature review of theories concerning influential factors affecting a consumer‟s attitude towards online shop-ping, which mean that the model is not tested in a real life context. This relates to the valid-ity of this study, since the model constitute a large part of the analysis of this thesis, and an inaccurate model would decrease the validity of the findings of this thesis. Although, the model by Dellaert et al. (2004) is based on the original TAM, which increases the validity of the model. Furthermore, the other influential factors mentioned in the „framework for con-sumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ are findings made by other researchers‟ and only com-piled by Dellaert et al. Also, the intention of the researchers‟ has not been to test the validi-ty of the model, but to utilize it to interpret own research findings. To further increase the validity of the analysis of this thesis another modified TAM has been applied as a comple-ment.

The findings from this thesis cannot be generalized on the whole population due to the customization of the investigation which has focused middle-aged women and the home textile industry. However, the intention of the thesis was never to generalize to the whole population, instead this thesis has investigated customers in a specific industry as a critical case. This allows the findings to be generalized on a smaller population within the home textile industry.

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A more thorough statistical analysis of the survey data could have been conducted, which would have yielded different findings. This would however, required a differently posed purpose. The purpose of this thesis consisted of two parts, one descriptive and one expla-natory, and in order to achieve this, there was no need for an advanced statistical analysis of the survey data.

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4 Empirical findings

The two following sections describe the empirical findings from the survey and the focus group. All graphs are not included, since they would take up too much space, they are however available in the appendix.

4.1 Empirical findings of survey

This survey was answered by 93 respondents, which were divided into three predetermined age groups. The age groups and the number of respondents in each was; 40-45 years 30 respondents, 46-50 years 33 respondents and 51-55 years 30 respondents. The reason for dividing the respondents in three age groups was to investigate if there was a significant difference in their online shopping behavior (Figure 1 appendix).

Respondents were also asked which was their highest level of completed education, and could answer „elementary school‟, „high school‟ or „university‟. In the survey, the term „high school‟ refers to the Swedish education forms, „gymnasiet‟ and „komvux‟. The term „univer-sity‟ refer to all education completed after high school, equivalent to the Swedish term „ef-tergymnasiala utbildningar‟. This question was included to be able to find differences in on-line shopping behavior based on the level of education of the respondents. Education level was included in the questionnaire since it was mentioned in the modified TAM in consum-er traits; the notion was that a higher education level could result in higher level of online purchases. This since a higher education often mean a more frequent use of computer in the daily work, which could yield a more frequent online purchasing behavior, due to knowledge about how to use a computer and the Internet (Dellaert et al, 2004). Higher education level can also indicate a higher salary, thus higher purchasing power. However, only 4,3 percent of the respondents ticked „elementary school‟ as their highest level of edu-cation, and due to the small number of respondents, this result cannot be used to draw any conclusions of the group‟s behavior. 47,31 percent and 48,39 each represented „High school and university‟. Analyzes of the results based on education level had therefore to exclude „elementary school‟ (Figure 2 appendix).

4.1.1 Computer and Internet experience

Respondents were asked to determine their level of computer experience on a five point Likert scale. Altogether 89,2 percent of the respondents estimated their experience to „me-dium‟, „good‟ or „very good‟ (Figure 3 appendix). To test whether the assumption of higher education would yield higher level of computer experience, a chart was constructed and it is visible that respondents with a university degree rate their computer experience level higher than respondents with high school degree (Figure 4 appendix). When looking at computer experience divided in age groups, there are no large differences. However, only in the two upper age groups, respondents rated their computer experience as „poor‟ or „very poor‟ (Figure 5 appendix).

When comparing shoppers and non-shoppers rated computer experience, it can be seen that shoppers rate their experience higher than non-shoppers do. Almost 30 percent of non-shoppers rate their computer experience as „very poor‟ or „poor‟, whereas only 1, 6 percent of the shoppers did so (Figure 4).

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The answers concerning frequency of computer and Internet use is fairly similar. Approx-imately 80 percent say they use the computer and the Internet every day (Figure 6 & 7 ap-pendix).

The questionnaire included one open question, asking for the respondents‟ main usage of Internet and the respondents could give as many usage areas as they wished. Below is a bar chart showing the first area of usage that they mentioned. The main usage of all respon-dents are clearly to use it for „information search‟, secondly are „read and watch news‟, third „work‟, fourth use an Internet bank (Figure 5).

Figure 4 Computer experience level of shoppers and non-shoppers

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Figure 5 Main use of Internet

As can be seen below in Figure 6, approximately two thirds of the respondents have made an online purchase, whereas one third has not. This division will allow further analyzes to be divided in shoppers and non-shoppers, to find differences in attitudes concerning Inter-net shopping.

Figure 6 Shoppers and non-shoppers

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The main reason (43,3 percent) for non-shoppers, not to make a purchase over the Inter-net is that the respondent cannot examine the product before purchase, followed by that they do not want to pay over the Internet (30 percent) (Figure 7). Two of the alternatives were not chosen at all by the respondents as the main reason not to shop online. These two alternatives were; „No access to computer or Internet‟ and „Fear that my personal informa-tion will be misused‟.

Of the respondents that shop online, 30,2 percent do it twice a year, while 27 percent shop every other month. 11,1 percent shop online once a month or two-three times per month. 17,5 percent shop online once year or more seldom, and 3,2 percent shop online every week (Figure 8 appendix). 91,9 percent say they intend to shop online within the next six months (Figure 9 appendix). 81 percent say that shopping online is fun, while 19 percent find it boring (Figure 10 appendix). The most common online purchases are books, movies and CD‟s with 24,5 percent, and clothing and sport articles with 24,5 percent. The second largest online purchase is tickets to events, with 23,8 percent (Figure 11).

Did education level influence online purchasing? Alternatively, did age group influence it? Respondents with a university degree are slightly more probable to shop online than res-pondents with a high school degree (Figure 12 appendix). However, the difference is too small to make it interesting to analyze the results further, based on education level.

There is a large difference in purchasing habits between the age groups. 80 percent of par-ticipants in the age group 40-45 have shopped online, 69,7 percent from the middle age group and 53,3 percent from the upper age group (Figure 8). The older age group is mak-ing fewer purchases on the Internet than the younger age group. The difference between the lower and upper age group is fairly substantial and it could be interesting to analyze if this difference in purchasing behavior affects the attitudes of the respondents in other areas of the report.

Figure 7 Main reason for not shopping online

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Figure 8 Shoppers and non-shoppers divided in age group

4.1.2 Difficulties concerning online purchases

This section is divided in shoppers and non-shoppers, since the section consisted of state-ments posed differently to shoppers and non-shoppers. Shoppers rated how well they agreed to statements concerning experienced difficulties with Internet shopping, while non-shoppers rated the statements concerning how they estimated the difficulties with In-ternet shopping. Example; Question 12; Shoppers; I feel uneasy when paying with my cre-dit card online. Non-shoppers; I would feel uneasy if paying with my credit card online.

Question 12 concerned how worried shoppers and non-shoppers are about paying with their credit card online. The result shows that the non-shoppers are more worried about paying with their credit card, than shoppers are (Figure 9, below). 60 percent of the non-shoppers completely agree to the statement, whereas only approximately 25 percent of the shoppers completely agree. The shoppers are distributed over the five-point scale fairly equally, while the non-shoppers show a steep increase in anxiety.

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Question 13, concern return policies of web shops. The graph (Figure 13 appendix) show 45 percent of Internet shoppers to completely disagree to the statement, and approximately 20 percent answered „somewhat agree‟ or „neither agree nor disagree‟ each. The non-shoppers on the other hand, showed opposite results; 35 percent completely agreed to the statement, 15 percent somewhat agreed and approximately 38 percent answered „neither agree nor disagree‟.

Question 14 brought up concerns about the product not fitting the description made on the Internet. Shoppers seem to be indifferent to or disagree to the statement, whereas non-shoppers agreed to the statement to a larger degree (Figure 14 appendix).

Question 15 stated that the respondent felt more secure if the purchase was made from a company that has an offline store or if the purchase was a well known brand. There are no significant difference between shoppers and non-shoppers (Figure 15 appendix), therefore the two groups are examined together (Figure 16 appendix). „Completely agree‟ and „somewhat agree‟ make up 72 percent of the total responses, which indicate this statement to be of great importance.

For question 16, which state less risk to be experienced if a web shop is recommended by a friend, there is no trend in the difference between shoppers and non-shoppers (Figure 17 appendix). For the graph showing the answers in total (Figure 18 appendix), it can be seen that the respondents are fairly indifferent to the influence of word of mouth when it comes to Internet shopping. 30 percent answered „neither agree nor disagree‟ and that the rest are

Figure 9 Extent of payment discomfort for shopper and non-shoppers

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almost equally distributed over the scale, with a slight tendency of being of some impor-tance rather than no importance.

Question 17 asked to what extent respondents find it inconvenient to pick up a parcel they have ordered. Non-shoppers are slightly more negative (figure 19 appendix) but as can be seen (figure 20 appendix) 54,8 percent „completely disagree‟ to the statement, and 12,9 per-cent „somewhat disagree‟.

Question 18 stated the respondents have too little technical knowledge to complete an on-line purchase. (Figure 21 appendix) Here there is a large difference between shoppers and non-shoppers. More than 80 percent of the shoppers „completely disagree‟ to the state-ment, while only 40 percent of the non-shoppers chose that alternative. Instead, 30 percent of non-shoppers „completely agreed‟ to the statement, and the rest were equally distributed.

Question 19 asked to what extent participant worry that their personal information might be used for inappropriate purposes (Figure 22 appendix). Shoppers have a fairly equal dis-tribution in their responses, ranging from approximately 17-27 percent on each of the five points, whereas non-shoppers show a much higher anxiety. Their answers are more con-centrated on the right side of the scale, 70 percent either „somewhat agree‟ or „completely agree‟. Question 20, which dealt with Internet fraud give a similar picture, as can be seen in figure 23 in the appendix.

Chart 10, below, show the mean values of all the difficulties with Internet shopping. The respondents had to answer how well they agreed to the statements and they could answer on a 1-5 point scale. The mean values range from 1,73 to 3,98, where „lack of knowledge‟ is the lowest and therefore the statement that the respondents agreed the least to. „Sense of security if known brand‟ scored the highest of all the mean values, which indicate that the respondents agreed mostly with the statement ‟I feel more secure if my online purchase is a well-known brand or from a company with an offline store‟. This chart include nine per-ceived difficulties, but two of them „sense if security if known brand‟ and „less risk if word of mouth‟ somewhat differs from the other difficulties. This since, they are not pure diffi-culties; instead they rather entail a way for the respondent to perceive Internet shopping as less risky. Therefore, these two will be discussed separate from the others, even though in-cluded in the same bar chart. So when excluding for „sense if security if known brand‟, the highest ranked difficulty is „payment discomfort‟ with a mean value of 3,49.

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4.1.3 Advantages concerning Internet shopping

The respondents were asked to indicate what they perceived as the main advantage of In-ternet shopping, and it is clear that the main advantage is convenience, followed by saving time (Figure 11, below). 14,3 percent answered that their main reason to shop online was that it is cheaper, equally many answered that the ability to buy products that cannot be ob-tained in their geographical area was the main reason.

Figure 10 Difficulties of Internet shopping

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Figure 11 Main advantage of online shopping

The following six questions investigated how important each individual factor was for the respondents to shop online. The main question was; how important are the following fac-tors for you, in order to shop online? The respondents indicated their answer on a 5-point likert scale, ranging from „very unimportant‟ to „very important‟. Question 22 stated; if the price is lower. Both shoppers and non-shoppers stated that a lower price was important for convincing them to make purchases online. It was somewhat more important for non-shoppers than shoppers (Figure 24 appendix). Question 23 stated; ease of product comparison (Figure 25 appendix). For the majority of Internet shoppers the ease of product comparison was rated as important. For the non-shoppers the answers where distributed evenly across the scale with a slightly higher per-centage for more important or very more important. Question 24 stated; it is more convenient to shop online than to shop in offline stores (Figure 26 appendix). The majority of Internet shoppers stated that they were indifferent to the statement or that it was important. The non-shoppers had similar opinions, except that 20 percent found it „very unimportant‟. Question 25 stated; that the online store has a broader supply (Figure 27 appendix). The majority of both shoppers and non-shoppers stated that broader supply was „neither im-portant nor unimportant‟. Question 26 stated; the store I want to purchase from is not available where I live (Figure 28 appendix). Here the trend is clear, both shoppers and non-shoppers perceive this factor to be „important‟ or „very important‟.

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Question 27 stated saving time is important in order to shop online (Figure 29 appendix). Even here, the trend is clear, where the majority of both shoppers and non-shoppers perceive saving time as „very important‟. Below is a chart (Figure 12, below) summarizing the six questions. The chart shows a mean value for each factor, for example „lower price‟. The factors were rated by the respondents on a five-point scale and the intergroup ranking of the factors are shown in the graph. „Save time‟ is with the mean value of 3,892, the most important factor, followed closely by „not available on my location‟. Least important was „broader supply‟. However, the result in this graph does not correspond to the result in the „main advantage of online shopping‟ presented above, where „convenience‟ was rated as the main reason to shop online.

Figure 12 Importance of various factors for online shopping

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4.2 Empirical findings of focus group

The conversation in the focus group was recorded with a tape recorder, which afterwards was written down word by word in a transcript. The empirical findings presented below are derived from selected quotations from the transcript which have been re-written into fluent text.

Research question 1- How does the level of computer and Internet experience of the target group relate to the level of Internet purchases? The discussion started by discussing if women are more afraid to shop online if they do not have the adequate computer knowledge, and one of the focus group members said; “Fear is born from ignorance” and many of the others agreed. Someone mentioned that it could be a bit scary the first time you make a purchase online. The group also discussed the relev-ance of having kids or teenagers living at home; when the kids have bought something on-line, they themselves are more likely to try it.

The group was asked if people that are afraid of purchasing online can overcome their fear, and they said that they probably could, but it would take time. They also discussed that it exists other reasons for why some people do not purchase online. “The fear might not be the reason for why they do not shop, maybe they have other reasons.”

One group member said that many of her friends lack the essential computer knowledge, as a reason for why she thought that the age group 51-55 shopped the least on the Internet. Some of the members agreed and added that due to the recent rapid development in tech-nology, this group might lack the essential computer knowledge, since they have not kept up with the development of computers. One of the participants added; “…this is my age group, and I think many people choose stores, you go with a girlfriend because it is some-thing you have always done. So I think, no, we want to keep that.” When asked if the small shopping frequency of 51-55 year olds could depend on that they do not see Internet as a source to look for product information, they first agreed, then added that not everyone in this age group has a computer at home. Another one said that they have not discovered the opportunities with Internet, how good it is as a tool for product information search. One member stated; “…but we aren‟t grown up with it, the computer entered into our lives much later.”

Research question 2- Which factors does the target group perceive as the most im-portant obstacles regarding Internet shopping and why?

The group discussed several difficulties within various areas concerning the online purchas-ing process, but focus of the discussion was the insecurity concerning payment. They were reluctant to disclose their credit card number and personal information, however one of the participant said; “But if you start shopping, it becomes easier after a while, regarding credit card number and stuff, but it is a barrier to overcome.”

They also brought up the difficulty concerning purchasing clothing on the Internet, due to the inability to touch it, see it and try it on. These factors concerns size, fit, color and ma-terial. Several of the participants claimed that the inability to touch a good has in the past prevented them from conducting an online purchase. One member said “But it also the feeling of touching it, and feeling the weight, that is important to me…” The insecurity about how to complain on a good and return policies was also discussed as a difficulty. One participant said that she has a need to talk to someone if a product she has bought is

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defective, and she felt that this would be more complicated if the good was purchased on-line. As a follow up question for this statement, the group was asked if they missed a physi-cal person in other occasions online, and one agreed to the stated difficulty and said she wanted a person to interact with if something would be wrong with the product. Another member mentioned the possibility of calling a customer service, as one way to overcome the interaction problem. Yet another woman said, “No, sometimes I feel it is a relief not to have someone after me…” and thus implied that she found it more comfortable to not have a sales clerk available.

When asked to discuss the question of what difficulties their own age group in particular faces when it comes to Internet shopping, they said that it might be some women that can-not use a computer. Another worry about Internet purchasing was stated by one partici-pant with the following statement; “…in comparison to how easy it is to shop online, it is very complicated when something goes wrong.”

According to the group, the main difference between shopping online and in regular stores is the lack of being able to touch and try on goods. They also mentioned the problem of differences in sizes for clothing between brands; it is a risk that the clothing would not fit. One member demonstrated this by saying; “A size 40 on H&M is not the same as a size 40 on Lindex…” and thus also indicated the difficulty of purchasing a product from an un-known brand when it comes to size. The group members were also asked if they missed social interaction with friends while shopping online, and one respondent said that she pre-fers to shop alone. Another said that it was important to shop with friends when she was in her twenties. She added; “Today I prioritize to shop efficiently, I don‟t have time for leisure shopping.”

The non-shoppers in the focus group were asked why they did not make purchases online and two answers were given; no need and lack of the essential computer knowledge. The focus group was informed of a result from the survey that found non-shoppers to be more afraid than shoppers concerning fraud and misuse of personal information, and their first reaction was to say that, “Some people are just afraid of everything”. Some people always suspect that someone tries to fool them. One member said that one reason for why they do not shop might be that they have had bad previous experiences. Another participant said that not everyone is interested in shopping online, and some women do not like to use a computer.

In the survey the difficulty “I feel more safe if my online purchase is a known brand or from a company with an offline store” got the highest mean value, the focus group was asked why they thought it was rated so high. One member answered that it is easier to get a refund from a known company if anything concerning the product is defective. Another said that she would feel more secure to purchase from a known company, since then she would be more certain that the company was not included in an online scam. This was ex-pressed specifically by one participant; “You buy something, pay for it, and then the com-pany disappears.” This indicates that you pay, but do not receive a good and then the com-pany is gone and you cannot complain. One participant added that she wants to recognize the name or have good recommendations from friends.

Several group members mentioned „Råd och Rön‟ (a magazine) and Konsumentverket (a governmental agency lobbying for consumer interests), as reliable sources to read reviews from. They also mentioned that they would reconsider purchasing a product if it was poor-ly rated in an online review. Several participants agreed that if people in their surroundings

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shop online, it affects them to be more positive towards it themselves, since “...if it works for them security wise, why wouldn‟t it work for me?...”

Discussion about online payment discomfort

When discussing difficulties concerning online shopping, the focus group brought up the payment issue several times. The participants agreed that they and many others are uncom-fortable to pay with their credit card online, and they thought that the company should communicate that their payment system is safe. The banks offer different secure online payment methods, but some of the respondents had never heard of this. One participant expressed her worries concerning paying online if a problem arose; “But if it is a problem with the payment, then you feel vulnerable, Internet is vulnerable, I mean, what do you do? If someone is in the cash register he can fix it.”

One participant said she is worried about purchasing online, even though neither she nor anyone she knows has ever been a victim of online payment fraud. She also said “...the fear is embedded in ones consciousness...” Another participant said she feels more safe when-making purchases from a well-known store. One group member claimed that she is not worried about it, but somehow a sense of fear is sometimes present, especially when she has a lot of money on her account, since she fears that someone might steal her money. She is not as concerned when she has a small amount on her account, which several partic-ipants agreed with. Another participant said it is possible to pay by invoice or that the company can withdraw the payment, once you have received the product. Everyone agreed to that one felt less insecure if people in their surroundings paid on the Internet, and it worked for them.

When the discussion was turned towards purchasing home textiles online, one participant mentioned that home textiles would be easier to shop online than in a regular store. The main difficulties mentioned in the focus group concerning home textiles was an insecurity about the color and quality not corresponding to the product description. Some partici-pants mentioned that sometimes the product description is too vague. Someone added that sometimes it is possible to get product samples sent home to you, whereafter you can make your decision about purchasing or not. The group thought this would facilitate to make on-line purchases of home textiles, since you then could see what the product looks like and if it fits with the interior you have planned to place it next to.

Research question 3 - Which are the most important benefits according to the tar-get group regarding Internet shopping, and why?

The focus group found many opportunities with shopping online; to find the lowest price, buy goods from all over the world, save time, avoid shopping in regular stores, and to buy products otherwise unavailable. The group also elaborated on some of the points; Internet as a tool is incredible and much faster when comparing prices. One participant mentioned the ability to prepare for a purchase before visiting a regular store, by searching informa-tion for example by reviews. Another benefit was to not have a sales clerk present while shopping, since some find this inconvenient.

Several participants perceive it as fun to shop on the Internet; they also find it fun just to browse. Some group members find it especially fun when it is cheaper to make purchases online than in regular stores. They also mentioned that persons that use online auctions, buys jewelry, clothing and shoes online must enjoy it. One participant explained that shop-ping on the Internet is, in her case, more time consuming than shopping in regular stores,

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because she finds it easy to get stuck on the Internet while browsing. The reason for her to get stuck is that she really enjoys using the Internet.

The survey showed „save time‟ and „convenience‟ as the main advantages with online shop-ping, and the group was asked to discuss the reason behind this. One participant said; “But look at us; we are women! We are busy! The other participants agreed. They mentioned several advantages with the convenience of Internet; that you can use it any time of the day, and that you do not have to run between stores. The word convenience can entail many features and the focus group was asked to define what it meant to them. They ans-wered; to save time, to be able to use it after regular shop closes, you can do it any time you want, you do not have to find a parking lot, stand in line, put on makeup, get dressed. “… convenience is pleasant”. Another benefit with online shopping is that many group mem-bers found it to be cheaper.

Research question 4- Which factors could increase the target groups Internet shop-ping

When asked what could induce them to increase their online purchases, the respondents mentioned several factors; campaigns, discounts, free delivery, home delivery, lower price, special offers to first time shoppers. One participant mentioned the desire to buy groceries online; she thought it would simplify her everyday life. One participant elaborated on why she thought the web shop should be cheaper; “…the web shop should be much cheaper, because they don‟t have the same personal cost and rent…”

The focus group was also asked what companies could do to get the attention of the ages 40-55, and they had many suggestions. Firstly, advertisements that clearly inform the viewer about the web shop were mentioned, for example TV commercials. Another feature dis-cussed was the importance of a catalog, it should refer to the web site and that more prod-ucts can be found there. This is often included in catalogs today however, many members said it could be done more clearly. Many participants wanted the web shop to have special offers and campaigns, and to keep lower prices, or to offer first time customers an amount to purchase for. Another feature they would appreciate would be to access inspiration ad-vice through the web shop.

The idea of a company using a catalog for the web shop in their marketing was further dis-cussed, and one participant mentioned that in one way it is easier to look at products in a catalog, and that you can take it with you. Several participants like the idea to look in a cata-log and afterwards place the order online. They also said that a catalog remind them of new products and give them inspiration. One participant said; “They have to remind us middle aged that we should shop online. They have to nag on us.” This was further described by one of the women; “earlier I always bought the newspaper, but as my kids began to read the news online, I first was hesitant. But after while I got use to the new way of reading news. It takes some time for us middle aged before it sinks in (…) one can‟t change imme-diately.” The participants perceive a catalog as a transition to shopping online.

Mail order related questions

Shopping online and mail ordering is fairly similar concerning both advantages and disad-vantages, and the focus group members said they did not perceive them as very different. They did however see some differences; one advantage of shopping online is the direct feedback loop, the buyer get information about if the product is in stock and status of deli-very immediately, by logging on to the web site. That feedback is not available in ordinary mail ordering. Many respondents described the use of a catalog as an advantage for mail

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ordering, since they find it fun, and cozy to browse in a catalog. One participant high-lighted that a catalog makes the purchase process more tangible.

The survey found that women purchase clothing as much as they purchase books, CD‟s and music online, one reason brought up in the focus group for this result was that they are accustomed to mail ordering. Another participant explained this by saying that she basically perceives mail ordering and online shopping as idem.

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5 Analysis

5.1 Research question 1

How does the level of computer and Internet experience of the target group relate to the level of Internet purchases?

The researchers‟ assumption was that a high level of computer and Internet usage would mean that the respondent would also rate their computer experience high, which in turn would lead to a higher probability of conducting purchases on the Internet. Shoppers use the computer and the Internet more frequently than non-shoppers do (Figure 30 & 31 ap-pendix). For example, the Internet usage frequency chart, show that 90 percent of shoppers use the Internet every day, whereas only 60 percent of non-shoppers use it every day. From these charts (Figure 30 & 31 appendix) a conclusion can be drawn; a higher frequency of computer and Internet use, seems to yield to a higher level of online purchases, since shoppers use the computer and the Internet more frequently than non-shoppers do.

The survey also measured the level of respondents computer experience on a five-point scale, this measure could also, if divided on shoppers and non-shoppers, indicate if com-puter experience affects online purchasing behavior. The results from the survey show that shoppers rated their computer experience higher than non-shoppers did (Figure 32 appen-dix). An example is; 30 percent of non-shoppers perceive their computer experience as „very poor‟ or „poor‟, whereas only 1,6 percent of shoppers rate their experience as „very poor‟ and „poor‟. This can be interpreted as consumers who have an online purchasing be-havior do have a better experience in computers, than consumers who do not shop online have. That is, it might be argued that, computer experience have a positive effect on pur-chasing online for women between 40-55 years. A higher knowledge in computers yields a higher probability of purchasing online. However, it might only be a matter of how the respondents perceive their computer experience, since they rate their computer knowledge themselves, which is a subjective approach. To get a more accurate and objective measure of the respondents‟ computer and Internet knowledge, a computerized test could have been conducted. This is however neither possible to achieve by conducting a survey, nor is it the focus of this study. Further, shoppers might be more confident in general and there-fore rate their experience higher, than non-shoppers do. The possible lack of confidence of non-shoppers could further also affect their online shopping behavior negatively, and result in fewer purchases.

The focus group was informed of the result of the survey; that non-shoppers are more anx-ious than shoppers concerning fraud and possible misuse of their personal information (seen when interpreting the figure 34 & 35 in the appendix together), and the reaction of the focus group was to discuss the notion that some people always are afraid of the un-known. They elaborated and one participant said; “Fear is born from ignorance”, which can be interpreted in multiple ways. Firstly, when a person is not familiar with a new pro-cedure, he or she is often more anxious. Secondly, the quotation also implies that lack of computer knowledge can yield a fear of using the Internet. Thirdly, by using the word „fear‟ the focus group member implied that non-shoppers are actually afraid of completing online purchases. It seems plausible that many factors can affect ones attitude towards Internet shopping, two examples that the focus group mentioned was Internet fraud and payment fraud. From the researchers‟ point of view, these issues have been frequently covered by the media in Sweden, which might affect non-shoppers to become anxious of using the Internet to conduct purchases. One participant in the focus group stated that it was scary

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the first time she made an online purchase. Another participant mentioned the relevance of having kids or teenagers at home that could show her how to conduct purchases, and to learn that purchasing on the Internet worked for her kids, which decreased her own anxi-ety. To have kids at home makes one more plausible to make online purchases, which was something that everyone in the focus group agreed upon. It seem very plausible that women with kids and teengares at home are more willing to purchase online since she has someone who can show her how it is done. If that is true, it might mean that women in the age 40-55 years would find it easier to start shopping online if someone could show them how it is done. Perhaps is a way to increase online sales for companies targeting women in this age range, to simply educate their staff in regular stores to show customers how to browse on their web site and use the company web shop. This would require a specific computer in the store and that staff would be available to show and educate the customers. The focus group believed that non-shoppers can overcome their fear concerning Internet shopping, but it will take time. They also perceive other reasons than fear of the technology to why some women do not shop online. These other reasons could be the ones derived from the survey which found the most common reasons for non-shoppers to not shop online. The results were, in order of importance; „Can not examine the product before pur-chase‟, „Do not want to pay over the Internet‟, „Lack computer knowledge‟ (Figure 42 ap-pendix). In the focus group, two women represented the non-shoppers, their reasons for not shopping online was no need to do so, and lack of computer and Internet knowledge. Other mentioned reasons for why not shopping online were that not everyone has an in-terest in shopping online, and some do not like to use a computer, even if they have the es-sential knowledge. Concludingly; the findings in the survey are to some degree confirmed by the focus group. Computer experience can be argued to have an impact on a woman‟s attitude towards mak-ing an online purchase or not. Higher computer experience seems to relate to a higher probability of purchasing online. The issues discussed in this research question can well be related to the variables „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ in the TAM. These variables are also included in the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ as well as the „framework of consumers' intentions to shop online‟, which were discussed in the frame of reference. In the first model, „ease of use‟ and „use-fulness‟ of online shopping, has an impact on „user‟s adoption intentions of online shop-ping‟. In the second model „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ affect the consumers‟ attitudes to online shopping, which in turn have an impact on the „consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟. The two variables „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ are thus included in both models and have similar impact on the intentions of consumers to shop online. They will therefore be discussed together. The variable „ease of use‟ refers to how easy a consumer perceives it to be to use a computer and the Internet as a purchasing tool. „Usefulness‟, refers to what degree the consumer perceive Internet to be an efficient tool for shopping (Dellaert et al, 2004; Li & Qiu, 2008). Those women in the focus group who had made online purchases, all had the essential computer knowledge since none of them perceived using a computer difficult, which relate to the variable „ease of use‟. They also perceived Internet shopping to entail several bene-fits, which relate to „usefulness‟. For example, one woman mentioned she dislikes to shop in crowded stores, why she instead prefer online stores, this notion can be interpreted as that she entails Internet shopping with a fairly high level of „usefulness‟.

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Two women in the focus group had never completed an online purchase, and had two dif-ferent reasons for this. The first woman‟s reason relates to „usefulness‟; she lives and works in the city centre and said she had no need to shop online since she can do her shopping whenever she likes anyway. Therefore her answer can be interpreted as that she perceives the level of usefulness for her to shop online as low. The other woman had a very low ex-perience in computers and could barely start one up. This can be interpreted as using the Internet for her is not easy and therefore „ease of use‟ for online shopping for her is low. When interpreting the variables „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ together, it can from this re-search be concluded that these variables do seem to have an impact on attitudes towards shopping online and intentions to shop online. So far, the analysis of research question one has dealt with if computer experience affects Internet shopping of the whole target group. The rest of the analysis on this research ques-tion will concern the same discussion, but applied to the three age groups in the target group. During the literature review for this thesis, the researchers‟ found indications that older people generally shop less on the Internet than younger ones (HUI, 2008). When de-signing the survey, the target group was divided into three age groups, since a span of 15 years is too broad to be considered a homogenous group. Another implication for dividing the main target group in these three age groups was to find variations between the age groups concerning attitudes towards for example difficulties concerning Internet shopping. Due to the findings in the literature review, the researchers‟ expected a slight difference in whether the respondents had ever made an online purchase or not, between the age groups. However, when interpreting the survey material (Figure 41 appendix) this differ-ence appeared to be larger than expected, the increase between each age group was more than 10 percent. Every fifth respondent in the age group 40-45 had never made an online purchase, compared to nearly every second in the age group 51-55. From this, a conclusion can be drawn; the older a woman is, the less purchases she makes online, since there is an increase of over 10 percent between each age category.

Some possible underlying reasons for this distribution were discussed in the focus group. One member said many women in the age group 51-55 lack the essential computer know-ledge to place an Internet order, which is probably due to the recent rapid development in technology the past years. This opinion relates back to the earlier discussion about comput-er experience as a determinant of online purchasing. It also once again, confirms the im-portance of „ease of use‟ when discussing online shopping. According to the focus group, one reason for this might be that the computers entered into the lives of women in this age at a later stage. They are therefore not accustomed to using Internet as a tool for product information search and purchasing. A third reason concerns the nature of a person‟s habits; this age group is used to visiting the store accompanied by a friend, and they are satisfied with this way of shopping, and might not be willing to change. The focus group made one last remark; some women in the age group might not own or have access to a computer. This seems however not very plausible, since this was not found to be one of top four rea-sons to why non-shoppers do not shop online (Figure 42 appendix). Of the 30 non-shoppers in the survey, none of the respondents chose not having access to a computer as their main reason for not shopping online, which probably at least one respondent should have chosen as her main reason if that was true (Figure 42 appendix).

The discussion above about age, and age as a determinant of level of online shopping is supported by the „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟, Woods (2002), where it is included in the variable „consumer traits‟. This variable is however not included

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in the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ from the frame of reference, and will therefore only be discussed from the view of the framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online.

The upper age category, 51-55 years, was the one that performed the least amount of online shopping. The researchers‟ could also see that there was a significant difference be-tween the upper and the lower age categories in level of online shopping. From the „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟, it is clear that consumer traits, for ex-ample age, has an effect on how the consumer perceive the variables ‟ease of use‟ and ‟use-fulness‟. The question is how consumer traits, in this case age, affect the two variables. The age group 51-55 years, rated their experience in computers lower than the women in the age group 40-45 years (Figure 5, appendix). Level of computer experience influence how easy the consumer perceives it to shop online, which relates to ‟ease of use‟. Since the age group 51-55 rated their computer experience as lower than the other age groups did, and also completed fewer online purchases than the age group 40-45 years (Figure 41, appen-dix), it can be argued that age of the consumer has an effect on ‟ease of use‟. From the „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟, ‟ease of use‟ also has an impact on the perceived ‟usefulness‟, and together they both influence ‟attitude towards shopping online‟. It can be argued that the women in the upper age category did perceive „ease of use‟ of computers and Internet better than they did perceive „usefulness‟ of computers and Internet. This since they were able to use the computer and Internet, but they did not con-duct online purchases to the same extent as the age group 40-45. Due to this, it can be de-termined that „perceived ease of use‟ and „perceived usefulness‟ are important factors af-fecting the attitudes towards online shopping for the group women in the ages 40-55 years. „Consumer traits‟, in terms of age, also affect the attitudes to a significant extent.

Conclusion of research question 1

The first research question was: „How does the level of computer and Internet experience of the target group relate to the level of Internet purchases?‟ From the survey it was found that shoppers use a computer and the Internet more frequently than non-shoppers do. This can be interpreted as higher frequency of computer and Internet use seem to yield to a higher frequency of online purchases. It was also found in the survey that shoppers rated their computer experience higher than non-shoppers did, which can be interpreted as if a higher level of computer experience relate to a higher level of Internet purchases. Fear of the technology and lack of essential computer knowledge was mentioned in the focus group as the reasons for why some women do not shop online. In the study, the research-ers‟ also found a difference whether the respondent has ever made a purchases online or not between the age categories. The upper age category, 51-55, was found to have the least frequency of online purchases, which, according to the focus group, was due to difficulties in adapting themselves to the new technology and insufficient computer skills. To be able to make a valid conclusion, whether there is a strong correlation between computer and In-ternet experience or not, a correlation analysis would be a relevant method to determine this. However, when considering the results from the survey and the discussion in the fo-cus group, the researchers‟ can state that the level of computer and Internet experience have an impact on the frequency of conducted online purchases for the group women be-tween 40-55 years.

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Which factors does the target group perceive as the most important obstacles re-garding Internet shopping and why?

Since the results from the survey concerning the obstacles with Internet shopping differed quite much between shoppers and non-shoppers, it is relevant for further analysis to sepa-rate the findings between the two groups. This section also includes an analysis of the per-ceived difficulties of all respondents in the survey concerning Internet shopping (Figure 44 appendix), note that this dicussion exclude the two varaiables „sense of security if known brand‟ and „less risk if word of mouth‟, which will be analyzed separately later on in the analysis. This since the two variables is not considered to be difficulties in the same sense as the other variables in this question, but rather a solution for difficulties. They are how-ever, still included in the same bar charts, and since excluding them would decrease the consistency between the survey and the empirical findings.

When discussing difficulties concerning Internet shopping it can be interesting to look at why some women do not shop online. The researchers‟ had assumed that lack of computer experience would rank high among the respondents as the major reason for why they do not make purchases online. The survey posed that particular question to the non-shoppers taking part in the survey (Figure 42 appendix). The bar chart show a surprising result; the major reason for why 43,3 percent of non-shoppers do not shop online is the inability to examine the product before purchase. Lack of computer knowledge is merely the third largest reason for not purchasing online. This indicates there exists a great resistance to-wards purchasing items that require examination before purchase, such as clothing, textiles or perfumes. In turn, this imply a difficulty to market home textiles online.

To analyze the rated difficulties from the survey, it is important to note how the questions concerning difficulties in the survey were posed, and how the respondent could rate them. The questions were made as statements, which the respondents should rate on a scale from 1-5, where 1 corresponded to „completely disagree‟ and 5 to „completely agree‟. From the survey, an internal rating between the various difficulties was derived, and it could be con-cluded what the respondents perceived as the largest obstacle for Internet shopping. An individual rating of each difficulty could also be derived.

The non-shoppers tended to be more concerned about the mentioned obstacles in general than did those women who had a shopping behavior on the Internet, as can be seen by comparing the two figures 34 and 35 (appendix). On all questions concerning difficulties, non-shoppers rated the difficulty higher than shoppers did. This can be interpreted as non-shoppers having more concerns and worries about shopping on the Internet than shoppers do. A reason for this might be the fact that they have never actually conducted a purchase over the Internet, and therefore overestimated the dangers concerned with it.

Non-shoppers were most worried about (in order of importance) payment discomfort, In-ternet fraud and misuse of personal information. Shoppers three main worries are the same as non-shoppers, and in the same order, although to a much lesser degree (Figure 34 & 35 appendix) (Note that the difficulties „sense of security if known brand‟ and „less risk if word of mouth‟ in the charts, are excluded from this first section and will be analyzed later on in the analysis). These similarities in the result are very interesting, since it might be plausible to believe they would have different fears, since the non-shoppers do not shop online. This similarity in rating of differences indicate that shoppers and non-shoppers can be viewed as a homogenous group when it comes to what issues they perceive as difficulties with Inter-

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net shopping. They do however, differ in the intensity of the experienced difficulty; non-shoppers are more worried than shoppers are. For five of the seven difficulties, non-shoppers agreed to the statement compared to shoppers with over, or nearly, one whole point in the mean value scale. These difficulties are; Payment discomfort, worry about In-ternet fraud, anxiety about return policies, anxiety about product features, and misuse of personal information. Are these findings accurate? Or are they a result of how the ques-tions were posed? Shoppers were asked to rate how well they agreed with the statements concerning their experiences when shopping on the Internet. The non-shoppers had to, in some questions, estimate their worries concerning shopping on the Internet. That is, they had to estimate something they had never experienced, and thus could have overestimated the perceived difficulties, as some people sometimes do when it comes to the unknown.

The main difficulties are as mentioned above; Payment discomfort, worry about Internet fraud and misuse of personal information. The ratings were similar for both shoppers and non-shoppers, however, it is important to especially note the mean values of shoppers (Figure 34, appendix); 3,11; 3,10 and 3,05, respectively for the above-mentioned difficulties. As the scale range from 1-5, the value 3 is considered the mean value of the scale and the mean values of the shoppers are only slightly above this value. When interpreting these mean values, it should mean that the shoppers are indifferent to the statements; this can be a result of using the mean value as an indicator. Mean value is a good measurement when there is a central tendency of the distribution. For this case; mean value is only an accurate method to use if the majority of the respondents had actually rated the statements as the value 3. To check the validity of using the mean value in this case, SPSS was used to view the distribution over the range of the scale of shoppers, by calculating mode, median and mean and comparing these against one another (Figure 46 appendix).

The mode, that is, the value rated most frequently, was for shoppers concerning payment discomfort „5‟ (Figure 47 appendix). If this would be an accurate measure, it would entail that the mean 3,11 cannot give an accurate view of the distribution. However, when scruti-nizing how the answers from the shoppers were distributed over the whole scale, it was found that 3,11 can be an accurate mean value (Figure 48 appendix). This since, it was an even distribution over the whole range of the scale; mode could as well have been the value 2 as 5, since 14 respondents rated the statement as „2‟ and 15 respondents rated it as „5‟. This means that concerning payment discomfort shoppers can be seen as a heterogeneous group, since there is no pattern in their responses. They are evenly distributed over the scale, which imply various level of discomfort concerning paying over the Internet for this group. Consequently, the shoppers are not at all indifferent to payment discomfort, as the mean value 3,11 might indicate, instead the discomfort of paying online varies from person to person. This distribution over the scale was also checked for „misuse of personal infor-mation‟ and „worry about Internet fraud‟ and in both these cases the mode was „3‟ which correspond well to the mean value of these difficulties which were close to 3 (Figure 49 & 50 appendix). In these cases, mode was also a relevant indicator of the distribution over the scale, since the shoppers were evenly distributed around the value 3, with a peak at 3.

The distribution for the three main difficulties of non-shoppers was also calculated (Figure 47 appendix), and seemed to correspond well to the mean values. This is because the dis-tribution was clearly concentrated to the higher ratings. For non-shoppers the mode was 5 on Payment discomfort, worry about Internet fraud and misuse of personal information.

Both non-shoppers and shoppers rated payment discomfort as the largest difficulty con-cerning Internet shopping, and this was confirmed in the focus group in various ways. Firstly, the group members mentioned payment discomfort several times throughout the

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discussion, and kept returning to the subject even when discussing other questions. This can be interpreted as that they were truly concerned about payment on the Internet and wanted to express and discuss this. Secondly, the group members mentioned several inter-esting issues related to online payment, which will be analyzed below.

One woman said she was somewhat worried about paying online, even though neither she nor anyone she knows has had bad experiences from this. This opinion rules out personal past experiences, and word of mouth as the influence of this fear, since neither she nor her friends have had bad experiences. Remaining possible influential factors are either psycho-logical, which cannot be explained in the scope of this thesis, or external factors, such as for example media coverage. Perhaps does frequent media coverage on this issue enhance fear of online payment more than necessary? Two of the focus group members are em-ployed at a bank, and informed the rest of the group of different ways to make safe online payments. Many of the group members were not aware of the different options of safe on-line payment, and perhaps is this due to poor information from banks and web shops. When comparing bar charts 34 and 35 in the appendix, concerning „payment discomfort‟ it can be seen that shoppers mean value is 3,11 and non-shoppers is 4,3. This difference indi-cates that women who do not shop on the Internet are more concerned about payment is-sues than those who do shop. The reasons for this can be interpreted in different ways. Firstly, non-shoppers might have overestimated the discomfort of paying online, since they have less experience with computers than shoppers do. Their low experience might result in a higher anxiety concerning computers and the Internet. Secondly, shoppers might be accustomed to paying online and therefore rate the difficulty concerning payment lower. This was implied by one member of the focus group who perceives the initial discomfort with paying online as a barrier to overcome, and afterwards it is easier. The focus group al-so discussed that the fear concerning paying online is higher when they had more money on their account, since someone then can steal a larger amount of their money. Generally, the focus group participant seemed to be more willing to make payments online if they had less money on their account.

The second largest difficulty of both shoppers and non-shoppers was „worry about Internet fraud‟, according to the comparison of mean values in the survey (Figure 34 & 35 appen-dix). This difficulty was also discussed in the focus group. They discussed that one might make a purchase and payment online, and then not receive the good. When wanting to complain, the company does not exist anymore or cannot be made contact with. Further, the focus group discussed that they feel more secure against Internet fraud when they only purchase from larger well-known companies. This correspond well with the statement; „Sense of security if well-known brand or company with offline store‟, which got a high mean value on the scale between 1-5 from both shoppers and non-shoppers in the survey; 3,87 and 4,2 respectively, concerning how well they agreed with the statement. This indi-cates that both shoppers and non-shoppers feel more secure if their online purchase is from a known brand or from a company with a physical store. Non-shoppers perceive it as even more important if they were to make a purchase online, than shoppers do. The focus group could confirm the importance of sense of security when purchasing from a known brand or company with a physical store, concerning payment. This since they feel more se-cure to make a payment to a company they recognize, which can be interpreted as an issue of trust. They seem to place more trust on a known company or brand, compared to an unknown. „Less risk if word of mouth‟ got a more average mean value from shoppers and non-shoppers, 2,94 and 3,2 respectively. Since the respondents rated word of mouth lower than known brand, it might be perceived as that „sense of security if known brand‟ is more

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likely to reduce the sense of risk for the respondents than word of mouth would, when purchasing online.

The third largest difficulty concerning Internet shopping was according to the survey „mi-suse of personal information‟, which scored the mean values of all respondents of 4,00 of non-shoppers and 3,05 of shoppers. This was discussed in the focus group, combined with the discussion of fraud and they said they sometimes were reluctant to reveal their credit card number on the Internet. This reluctance concerns fear of personal information being misused as well as fraud and payment discomfort, the three difficulties are intertwined in this particular question.

When the focus group discussed the difficulties concerning Internet shopping, they mainly expressed worries about payment. However, they connected the payment discomfort term closely to the issues of fraud and misuse of personal information. The three terms were perceived as intertwined parts of one whole, larger issue, which can be argued to funda-mentally be based on the issue of trust. The variable „trust‟ is included in both the models from the frame of reference. In the „extended TAM for online shopping‟, „trust‟ influences „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟. „Trust‟ is in turn influenced by „social presence‟, which will be discussed further on. The „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟ include „trust‟ as a small factor that together with many other factors affect intention to shop on-line, and does not affect „ease of use‟ nor „usefulness‟ as it does in the „extended TAM for online shopping‟. That is, „trust‟ has a stronger influential role in the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ than the other model, which is perceived to be plausible in a real life situa-tion, since this research has shown result that indicate trust to be a central issue for wom-en‟s intentions to shop online. The survey indicated a discomfort of the respondents con-cerning payment online, fraud and misuse of personal information, as discussed earlier. This was confirmed by the focus group in the sense that they kept bringing up the subject over and over again. They said they feel vulnerable on the Internet when something does not work as it should. They also mentioned discomfort of using credit card online, since it means revealing personal information. How to avoid sense of distrust was also discussed; to only shop at known companies, to read reviews or get recommendations from friends were some methods mentioned. Therefore, it is the researchers‟ interpretation that „trust‟ can be considered to be an important variable affecting the attitude towards online shop-ping. It can also be interpreted as trust can be developed when a consumer becomes famili-ar with the technology and realizes the usefulness with Internet and online shopping. This since shoppers have a higher computer experience than non- shoppers do (Figure 32 ap-pendix), and that the shoppers rated lower mean values for perceived difficulties than did the non-shoppers (Figure 34 & 35, appendix). The issue of trust is important in all relation-ships, and it can be argued that it is difficult to develop as well as to maintain trust in an online relationship between companies and consumers. This since the relationship is devel-oped by the use of a computer, and lack personal interaction between consumer and com-pany. It can be interpreted as this study confirms the importance of trust, which is included in both modified TAMs‟ in the frame of reference.

Besides the trust issue, the focus group mentioned three other difficulties. Mostly elabo-rated on was the inability to see, touch, test and try on a product before purchase, when purchasing on the Internet. These factors are important since they let the customers de-termine the right size and fit for clothing, color and quality of the fabric, when it comes to clothing and textiles, and other factor such as weight of an object. This was measured in the survey as „anxiety of product features‟, and was rated to the mean value 2,63 by shop-pers and 3,83 by non-shoppers (Figure 34 and 35, appendix). If interpreting the scale as the

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value 3 is indifferent, then shoppers perceive these factors as somewhat unimportant, and non-shoppers as somewhat important. Although, in the focus group, both shoppers and non-shoppers stated that these features are important and that an anxiety concerning prod-uct feature have in the past prevented them from buying a particular good. Vague product descriptions was one factor mentioned that could be improved in web shops. The „frame-work for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟ include „product characteristics‟ as one vari-able that directly influence the consumer‟s intention to shop online. However, it is some-what obvious when it comes to online shopping that one cannot examine the product be-fore purchase and this affects some types of products more than others. In the survey „an-xiety about product features‟ was not rated particularly high, which would indicate that it is not very important to the target group, which can be seen by a mean value of all respon-dents of 3,02 (Figure 44, appendix). Altough, the inability to examine the good before pur-chase was the main reason for why non-shoppers do not shop online (Figure 42 appendix). However, the focus group elaborated fairly extensively upon this matter. Several women said they had purchased capital goods, such as TV and computers. Another woman said she would never purchase an expensive good like that on the Internet, due to the risk and hassle if the product would need to be repaired or returned. They also discussed the diffi-culty of buying clothing and textiles on the Internet, due to uncertainty about size, fit, fa-bric and color. Although, when comparing mail ordering clothing with purchasing it on the Internet, they came to the conclusion that it is basically the same thing.

Another insecurity mentioned by the focus group members was return policies, which mainly concerned worries about whom to contact if needed and that returning products purchased online is more complicated than if it would be bought in a regular shop. The survey showed a mean value of 2,61 in agreement about anxiety about return policies, which indicate that the survey respondents were not very anxious about how to return their products bought on the Internet. However, several group members expressed the need for interaction when a purchase should be returned. This can be interpreted as that the web shop should be equipped with a highly available customer‟s service. This insecurity can be related to the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ where the variable „social presence‟ in-fluence „trust‟ and „users adoption intention of online shopping‟. According to Li and Qiu (2008), social presence is crucial for the consumer to develop trust towards the company and thereby complete a purchase. The discussion in the focus group had two dimensions. Firstly, some of the focus members seemed to prefer the privacy of shopping on the Inter-net, since they are not interrupted by sales clerks. Secondly, some participants expressed a need for social interaction in cases there was a problem with the product or returning a product. It can be interpreted as some women appreciate to sit at home making purchases online but also values the importance of social interaction in cases needed.


This section will summarize the findings concerning the second research question, which aimed at finding what the target group perceived as the main obstacles to shopping online and why these particular obstacles were important. From the survey, three main difficulties concerning Internet shopping for all respondents, both shoppers and non-shoppers, was determined. They were, in order of importance; payment discomfort, worry about Internet fraud and worry about misuse of personal information. Payment discomfort was the high-est rated difficulty, although the difference in comparison to the others was not large enough to state with certainty that it indeed is the major difficulty of this group. That was however not the aim of the research question and therefore the discussion continued to merely discuss the three main difficulties without comparing them to one another.

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Payment discomfort was according to the survey the main difficulty, however only slightly above the second and third difficulty. This was confirmed by the focus group in both what they did and what they said. Throughout the focus group discussion, the members kept re-turning to the subject of feeling uneasy when paying online. One reason for the target groups‟ anxiety about online payment might be intense media coverage. Another, to some extent linked to the previous, seems to be insufficient information from banks and web shops about alternatives for safe online payment.

The second largest difficulty concerning Internet shopping was according to the survey, worry about Internet fraud. The focus group mentioned two underlying reasons for this is-sue; to pay for a good which is never delivered, or to discover that the company from which a purchase has been made suddenly has disappeared.

Worry about personal information being used for wrong purposes was the thirdly highest rated difficulty in the survey. According to the focus group this fear is related to reluctance of revealing ones credit card number online, which can simplify for criminals to drain the funds from an account. This worry is therefore related to the payment discomfort issue. The three major difficulties can all be perceived as intertwined and can be argued to relate to the issue of trust.

In the focus group, the women tended to combine the three difficulties mentioned to one central issue, which they discussed extensively, perhaps due to its intertwined nature. The common issue can be the issue of trust that is included in the two modified TAM‟s. The focus group perceived another difficulty from the survey, which was not included in the top three, as very important; the inability to see, touch, test, and try on a product. This is of great importance in especially two industries; clothing and textiles.

This research question was also discussed from the perspective of shoppers and non-shoppers. One interesting finding was that the two groups rated the difficulties in the same order (the order mentioned above), which might be interpreted as if they perceive the same difficulties to be the major issues. When comparing how shoppers and non-shoppers rated the mean values for all the difficulties, it was concluded that non-shoppers rated the diffi-culties higher than shoppers did. One possible interpretation of this is that non-shoppers are more worried about the measured difficulties than shoppers are.


Which are the most important benefits, according to the target group, regarding In-ternet shopping, and why?

Also in this part, the analysis is divided on shoppers and non-shoppers.

Altogether, the respondents rated „more convenient‟ as the main advantage of shopping online with 44,57 percent (Figure 40 appendix). The word convenience is a broad term, and the focus group was asked to define it; save time, can use it after regular shop close, you can do it any time you want, you do not have to find a parking lot, stand in line, put on makeup, get dressed. “…convenience is pleasant”, was mentioned. The second largest ben-efit was to „save time‟, and the third was equally divided between „cheaper‟ and „store is not available where I live‟ and lastly „ease of comparing products between stores‟ (Figure 40 appendix). There were no contradictory results of perceived benefits in the findings from survey and the focus group, which can be interpreted as these results being accurate. The group added two benefits concerning Internet shopping. First, the possibility to search for

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information about products, and in that way prepare for a purchase. Secondly, the benefit of not having a sales clerk, since not everyone always enjoys having a sales clerk present. Many of the benefits brought up in the survey and in the focus group, are included within the variable „situational factors‟, in the „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop on-line‟.

The focus group was asked why just convenience and save time were rated as the two most important benefits for the women included in the survey. Their answer was; “But look at us; we are women! We are busy!” The whole group agreed and explained that using the In-ternet for shopping can help them to save time and is convenient, since they can use it any time, do not need to leave the house and much more. From interpreting the role of „situa-tional factors‟ in the „framework for consumers‟ intention to shop online‟, it can be argued that convenience and accessibility of shopping on the Internet yield time saving (Wolfin-barger & Gilly, 2001). The relation between convenience and accessibility that in turn create time saving, seems from the view of the focus group very plausible. This since they in several ways perceived the three terms to be somewhat similar and intertwined. In figure 36 and 37, appendix, there are three benefits that can be related to the „situational factors‟; convenience, save time and that the store is not available where I live. If adding the percen-tages up for each of the situational factors included in the graphs, 80 percent of shoppers end up rating a situational factor as the main benefit with purchasing on the Internet, and 70 percent of non-shoppers did the same. According to the „framework for consumers‟ in-tention to shop online‟, „situational factors‟ affect the consumers‟ intentions to shop online. In this case, there is a small indication that this can be true, since shoppers in the survey to a larger extent rated a situational factor as the main benefit of online shopping, than non-shoppers did.

The survey also investigated the individual importance of each benefit for the respondents (Figure 45 appendix). The result show the mean value among all respondents for each measured benefit, and the interesting part here, is that when comparing the individual rat-ings, the benefit with the highest mean is not the same as the factor that was superiorly rated as the most important one in the question of main online shopping advantage (Figure 40 appendix). Instead, figure 45 (appendix) show „save time‟ to be the most important fac-tor for online shopping, although closely followed by „not available at my location‟. These results are inconsequent; respondents that rated „more convenient‟ as the main advantage of online shopping, did not rate „convenience‟ high in the question of individual impor-tance in order for them to shop online. When on the other hand looking at the second largest advantage, „save time‟, it was in the comparison of the individual mean values rated the highest. Perhaps the respondents of the survey were confused with the different factors and considered some of them to be intertwined, such as convenience, save time and ease of product comparison. The multiple ways of interpreting „convenience‟ might have affected the respondents to interpret the term from their individual perspective, which could have resulted in the inconsistency in the findings. The focus group mentioned several different interpretations of the word „convenience‟ which indeed indicate that some respondents of the survey might have been confused about the meaning of the word.

When comparing the same result, but divided for shoppers and non-shoppers (Figure 36 & 37 appendix), it is clear that the two groups differ in their answering distribution. Figure 36 (appendix), describing shoppers, show a consistence with the result for all respondents (Figure 40 appendix) of the main advantage of online shopping, there is only some small changes in percentage distribution. Non-shoppers on the other hand (Figure 37 appendix), see four large advantages with shopping online; „more convenient‟, „cheaper‟, „save time‟,

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„store is not available where I live‟. They rated them somewhat similar, approximately 20 percent each, with „more convenient‟ as the largest with 31,03 percent. The two main dif-ferences between shoppers and non-shoppers are that „cheaper‟ and „store is not available where I live‟ are rated as large advantages by non-shoppers. 24,14 percent of non-shoppers rated „cheaper‟ as the main benefit with shopping online (Figure 36 appendix) and 9,52 percent of the shoppers rated „cheaper‟ as the main benefit (Figure 37 apendix). This indi-cate that non-shoppers believe Internet prices are often lower than in offline stores, and rate it as important for them to start shopping online. Since they do not shop online, their rating of „cheaper‟ might mean that to induce them into purchasing online, prices must be lower. This idea might be of importance for companies targeting this specific age group on-line. The women who do not shop seem to believe prices online are lower than they are in reality. That is, assuming the shoppers has the correct estimation of the price differences. It this case, it would be more difficult to induce non-shoppers in this age group to shop on-line if the prices online would not be lower than in regular stores. Non-shoppers also rate „store is not available where I live‟ as important and the reason for this might be that many non-shoppers do not have any interest at all to shop online, but would do so, if the good they wanted to purchase was only available online. The survey was conducted at A6 Centre, which is a big mall outside of Jönköping, where many residents from other districts come to do their shopping on weekends. The researcher got the impression when asking if the respondents could take part in a focus group but declined due to geographical distance, that many of the respondents of the survey lived outside the Jönköping region. Therefore, another reason might be that many of the respondents‟ lived on the countryside and it would therefore facilitate for them if they could purchase goods on the Internet that are not available where they live. However, that many respondents seemed to live on the coun-tryside is merely an assumption from the researchers‟; there is no information about the home district of the respondents in the survey.

Concerning the mean values of the benefits (Figure 38 & 39 appendix), shoppers and non-shoppers answer fairly equally on all the statements. This can be interpreted as shoppers and non-shoppers perceive the individual importance of the factors equally. This is howev-er, a bit curious, since they have completely different online shopping behavior. Perhaps, the difficulties concerning Internet shopping are larger than the benefits from it and there-fore non-shoppers are still hesitant to shop online.

One additional benefit of shopping on the Internet was derived from the discussion in the focus group. Several of the participants enjoyed browsing and making purchases online, especially when buying items considered as fun or exciting, such as jewelry, clothing or use online auctions. One factor for them to enjoy Internet is not having to stress and visit crowded stores. „Enjoyment‟ is included as a variable in both the modified TAMs‟, but make up a more important part in the „extended TAM for online shopping‟. In this model, „enjoyment‟ influence „ease of use‟ and „usefulness‟ indirectly and the consumer‟s intention to purchase directly. The „enjoyment‟ variable is also included in the „framework for con-sumers‟ intention to shop online‟, where it influences the consumers‟ attitudes toward shopping online. This factor was not extensively discussed in the focus group and neither included in the survey. However, it seemed as if the women in the focus group who en-joyed using the Internet also were the ones that purchased the most on the Internet. This is also in line with common sense; if you enjoy doing something then you do it more fre-quently.

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It can be concluded that the most important benefits regarding Internet shopping derived from the survey was „more convenient‟, followed by „save time‟ and last, which was equally dived, „cheaper‟ and „store is not available where I live‟ (Figure 40 appendix). The focus group members elaborated why these benefits are important and explained that due to their busy schedule they perceive Internet shopping as a great tool for shopping since it allows them to save time and to place a purchasing order in the comfort of their homes. The fo-cus group also added two other benefits, firstly the ability to collect information about a specific product such as price or read reviews as a preparation when wanting to purchase a product. Secondly, the advantage of not having to interact with a sales clerk, since some people do not like having a contact with a sales clerk while shopping.

There was a discrepancy between the most important benefits regarding Internet shopping that was rated individually and what was stated as the main online shopping advantage in a previous question. „More convenient‟ was the factor that received the highest score as the main online shopping advantage while individual importance concerning the benefits with online shopping rated „save time‟ to be the most important factor. A reason for this discre-pancy can be that the respondents were confused with the term „convenience‟ and thought that some of the other factor such as „save time‟ were included in the concept of „conveni-ence‟.

When comparing the shoppers and non-shoppers and how they rated the main advantage of online shopping, there was a considerable difference between the groups. While shop-pers rated the advantages similar to what all respondents had answered as the main advan-tage of online shopping, the non-shoppers saw four areas that they perceived to be some-what equally beneficial with online shopping: „more convenient‟, „cheaper‟, „save time‟ and „store is not available where I live‟. However, shoppers and non-shoppers rated the indi-vidual importance concerning the benefits with online shopping fairly equally.

Some findings indicated that to induce non-shoppers to make online purchases the prices must be lower online than in regular stores. It also seemed as if the only way to get some non-shoppers to shop online would be if that was the only way they could purchase the good.


Which factors could increase the target groups Internet shopping?

Concerning research question four, the focus group mentioned many different factors that could increase their online shopping behavior. When scrutinizing the empirical data, the re-searchers could distinguish three broad areas to categorize the factors within. The areas were; „price related factors‟, „catalog related factors‟, and „advertisement related factors‟. The three areas are all connected to marketing in different ways, and are as well intertwined with one another, and will be discussed in turn.

Many focus group members mentioned several factors for increasing their online shopping, that in one way or another is related to price. They mentioned campaigns for promoting the web shop and discounts when shopping there. One feature many of them would like was that a company should offer their first time web shop customers an amount of money, for example 200 SEK, to make purchases for in the web shop. This to provide them with a reason to use the web shop and to show new customers the simplicity of shopping online.

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Another factor the group perceived as highly beneficial would be free delivery of the or-dered products.

The group also argued that web shops should always offer lower prices than regular stores, since they do not have the same costs, for instance concerning rent and personnel costs. From the focus group and the pre-study it is possible to further discuss this argument. Some of the women interviewed in the pre-study or included in the focus group seem to perceive shopping on the Internet as a hassle, and to take it for granted that web shops should offer lower prices. There seems to be a two folded reason behind this. Firstly, they realize that companies which only have an online shop, incur less costly expenses, and have therefore a higher profit margin. This since the companies has no need to pay an expensive rent for a luxurious store location and interior, as well as can reduce their personnel costs. This line of thoughts lead to what might be the second argument behind their reasoning; as the company has a higher profit margin, the customers should be able to reap a piece of the profit, since by ordering through the Internet they are what makes this increased profit margin possible. For the sacrifice of ordering on the Internet they should be rewarded by paying a lower price in the web shop. If the web shop would have a similar price as a regu-lar store, the shoppers would not perceive it as beneficial enough to make the purchase online, when they instead could go to a regular store and obtain the good immediately and with less amount of hassle. It can be argued if the discussion of the focus group is true or not, but in any case, they make an interesting point.

The payment issue was the major difficulty concerning Internet shopping, to solve the problem, several ways exist. Web shops and banks must inform their customers about the existence of safe alternatives for online payment. It is also crucial to reach the non-shoppers, since they are not actively seeking this information, to induce them to overcome their fear and start shopping online. Women might be influenced from media coverage about online payments, and therefore it is important for companies using a web shop as a sales channel to work proactively with safety, to avoid media scandals, and to inform the public by using company information channels.

Further, the focus group discussed the many ways a catalog could be useful to induce them to purchase online. They began by explaining that it is easier and more fun to look at prod-ucts in a catalog, than on a screen. This because, they can sit where ever they want to in the house and bring it with them. Something else the focus group mentioned, concerning a dif-ferent matter, was that their kids often occupy the computer and if they themselves want to use it, they must wait for their turn. When they are using it the kids are constantly asking when they will be done, so they get no peace and quiet to actually sit by the computer to for example look at products. This can be interpreted as companies targeting women with kids, might find it useful to send their target group a catalog, since that would allow the women to look at the products whenever they want to in peace and quiet. The focus group participants also associated positive feelings towards flipping the pages in a catalog, and catch the scent of the pages. These features can be argued to be connected to a sense of tangibility that the web shop cannot provide. Some focus group members that usually do not purchase much on the Internet, said they enjoy looking in a catalog, but would place the order online. They find placing the order online more efficient than mailing, since they do not have to post it, they get instant feedback if the product is in stock or not, and how many days it would take to get it delivered. In this sense, using a catalog, can be seen as a transition for this age group to place online orders, since there is a tangible dimension in the purchasing process.

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Two other benefits of the usage of a catalog, was according to the focus group, its ability to remind them of a company or the arrival of the new collection for the season. Important is also the inspiration of recent trends the women can receive through the catalog, which might induce them to shop.

The third and last area is „advertisement related factors‟, which factors were derived from the focus group. The women in the focus group are aware that most companies have a web site, but they are rarely conscious of the possibility of purchasing through a particular com-pany„s web site. This relates to the issue of women in this age group have yet not realized all the possibilities Internet can provide them with when it comes to purchasing products and comparing prices. They still perceive visiting stores as the main tool for this. To be able to catch the attention of the target group, marketers must constantly remind this group of the existence of a web shop, in all marketing communication channels. For exam-ple by having a clear message of directing customers to the web shop in catalogs, TV commercials, and ads. This message needs to be repeated over and over again to make it stick in the consumers‟ minds. Something else that might induce the target group to visit the web shop could be to publish inspiration advice of how to mix and match different items on the web site.

The focus group members talked in several contexts about the importance of online re-views. Perhaps, could the web shop include a possibility for the customers to rate the products they have purchased online as well as writing a motivation for how and why they rated the product in a certain way. This would be available for other customers to read, and could be helpful when wanting to make an online purchase, since this can be a way for a potential customer to get the experience of the product concerning quality, fabric, size, color, customer satisfaction and other features. This could be a complement to the product description, and an objective source of information since it comes from people not paid to promote the company, which increases the credibility. This would also help to adress the problem of many web shops having vague product descriptions which was mentioned in the focus group.


Three main areas were found to have an ability to increase the target group‟s level of Inter-net shopping; „Price related‟, „catalog related‟ and „advertisement related factors‟. „The price related factors‟ concerns issues such as that the web shop should constantly offer lower prices than regular stores, campaigns, discounts and free delivery to their customers. It is the researchers‟ interpretation from the focus group discussion that the web shops should offer lower prices since this target group expects this from the online companies.

„Catalog related factors‟ were also considered to have an important impact to increase the online shopping for this particular group. This group prefers to look at products in a cata-log rather than on a screen. The positive features concerning the catalog is connected to a sense of tangibility that the online shopping context cannot other ways provide, and using the catalog can be seen as a transition for adapting to the online purchasing environment for these women. According to the participants in the focus group, they feel a need to be reminded and inspired from the companies and this can also be accomplished through the use of a catalog.

Last is the „advertisement related factors‟ which mean that the women in this group feel a need to be reminded of the web shop‟s existence by for example TV commercials and ads. This could be done by using messages in the catalog directing customers to the web shop.

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Inspiration advice and possibilities to rate and make statements about products as a com-plement to regular product descriptions on the web site were also mentioned to be appre-ciated by the target group.

5.5 Concluding analysis with a focus on the modified TAM’s

The „extended TAM for online shopping‟ and the „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ are two models which aim at explaining what factors can influence consumers‟ intentions to make purchases on the Internet. The analysis in this thesis has discussed the various variables in these two models and their possible implication on the target groups‟ intention as well as experience of shopping online. Some of the factors in the two models are the same or very similar but others are only included in one of the models. This thesis has found suggestions that all the factors brought up in the two models are affecting the women‟s intention to shop online, although to differing extents compared to their impor-tance in the model. „Usefulness‟, „ease of use‟ and „enjoyment‟ are included in both models and seem to be important determinants of a woman‟s attitudes towards shopping online, as this thesis has found several findings supporting these. No further discussion about these factors will be done, since „usefulness‟ and „ease of use‟ are derived from the well-known TAM and can be considered to be accurate. Enjoyment is included in both models and some result indicates its importance as an influential factor of online shopping, this is how-ever only based on the focus group discussion.

The three major difficulties concerning Internet shopping from the survey were all deter-mined to relate to the issue of trust. The variable „trust‟ is also included in both models and has been showed to be of importance when it comes to if women in the age range 40-55 years will make online purchases or not. Trust was found to be important in both the sur-vey and the focus group, and due to this the researchers‟ believe that the trust issue is a ma-jor influential factor in this specific age group concerning Internet purchases. It can also be argued that „trust‟ influence both „attitude toward online shopping‟ and „intention to shop online‟, and not only the latter as the „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ suggest. This since media coverage might have an influential role of women‟s attitudes to-wards online purchasing. However, this is only an opinion of the researchers‟, there is no evidence supporting this idea in this thesis. Trust has through this thesis been found to in some ways be influenced by „social precense‟ since the focus group expressed concerns of whom to turn to if a product purchased online is defective. Previous online experience can also be argued to influence the level of trust a woman feel toward online shopping, as the focus group indicated a feeling of experiencing less distrust the more purchases they have made online.

The „extended TAM for online shopping‟ includes the factor „social presence‟, which is not included in the „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟. The support for the importance of social presence in the online environment for the age group 40-55 years has been contradictory, evidence pointing in both directions have been discovered. The term relates to the existence of other humans to interact with while shopping, such as cashiers or shopping friends. Some focus group members claimed they prefer shopping without being accompanied by friends since shopping alone allows them to be more time efficient. They also described a sense of relief about not having a cashier around to interrupt them in their shopping if they do it online instead of in regular stores. However, the focus group ex-pressed a need for interaction with a counterpart when their purchase has a defect and they need to complain and get a refund. Considering these findings it not possible to determine

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if „social presence‟ is an important determinant of the intention of whether to shop online or not for the age group 40-55 years.

If merely comparing the two models it is evident that the „framework of consumers‟ inten-tions to shop online‟ is much more detailed and extensive than the „extended TAM for on-line shopping‟. When analyzing the findings from the perspective of the „extended TAM for online shopping‟ it is indeed evident that it lacks some essential influential factors on online shopping behavior that the „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ does include. These are; consumer traits, situational factors, product characteristics and previous online experience. This thesis has found indications that all these factors have an influence on women‟s intention to shop online.

Consumer traits included four factors; age, gender, education and income. This thesis was based on the belief that gender and age are determinants of online shopping behavior. In the analysis of the first research question it was shown that there seem to be a difference between the age groups even in the fairly small range investigated in this report; older women shop less online than younger women. Education and income can be considered to be closely interrelated and therefore the survey only asked the respondents of their educa-tion level. Asking respondents of their income can also be considered private information, which some respondents might not want to disclose. The survey investigated three educa-tion levels; elementary school, high school and university. No significant difference was discovered between the respondents with a highest completed education level of high school versus university. However, a slight indication was discovered that respondents which only had completed elementary school shopped less on the Internet than the other groups, but this was not focused upon as the group was made up by too few respondents to be statistically significant.

Situational factors include factors such as geographical distance, need for special items and convenience. The two first was not brought up in the survey but was discussed in the focus group, which seemed to attribute geographical distance and need for special items with some significance. The latter was in the analysis of the survey discovered to be the main benefit all respondents perceived online shopping to have.

Product characteristics were extensively discussed in the focus group, which elaborated es-pecially on the difficulty of purchasing clothing online, due to inability to be certain about the size, as well as inability to touch the fabric and see the actual color. These implications were the same for home textiles, were the focus group members perceived it as difficult products to purchase online since they want to be able to determine the quality and color before the purchase. Based on this discussion, it seems plausible to say that product charac-teristics do have an impact on women‟s intention to shop online.

The first research question discussed the influence of frequency of computer and Internet use on women‟s intention to shop online. It also brought up the influence of computer ex-perience on intentions to shop online and found that a higher level of computer experience related to a higher probability of shopping online. The focus group discussed that they were worried about making online purchases at first, but as they have become used to it, the fear and anxiety has decreased. Therefore it seems plausible to argue that previous on-line experience does have an influence on the intentions of women to make online pur-chases.

Concluding, if intertwining these models to find a more accurate model describing the in-tentions of women in the age 40-55 years to shop online, the following can be suggested;

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The new model would be based on Dellaert et al‟s model (2004) the „framework of con-sumers‟ intentions to shop online‟, but the variable „trust‟ would be of greater importance than it has in the model (Figure 13, below). A new variable, „social presence‟ (derived from the „extended TAM for online shopping‟, Li and Qiu, 2008) should be added to the model, although it is uncertain to what extent it influences the intention to shop online. Also, sev-eral internal connections between the factors in the model have been added. However, this modified model is merely a suggestion based on this one study and further investigations are needed to determine the accuracy of the suggestions.

Figure 13 The framework for women's intention to shop online. Based on the Framework of consumers' in-tention to shop online (Dellaert et al, 2004)

5.6 Recommendations for marketers

One aim of this thesis was to yield recommendations of how marketers could customize their marketing of online shopping as a sales channel, to fit with women in the age 40-55 years. Through the result from the survey as well as through the discussion in the focus group, some important aspects has been discovered that marketers need to pay attention to concerning women in this specific age group.

Since the research in this thesis indicates that the intention of women to shop online seems to relate to their level of computer and Internet experience it is essential for marketers to realize this relationship. Older women tend to have less experience in computers and are thus less probable to shop on the Internet. This problem might be difficult for marketers to influence, but some ways can exist. One way for companies with offline locations might be to present the web site in the regular shop by showing customers how to use the web

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site and the web shop. This could help to reduce the anxiety and insecurity some women connect with computers and the Internet and make them easier to affect by using market-ing campaigns with an aim of increasing their level of online shopping.

One large aspect to take into consideration, especially for marketers within textile and clothing industries, are that according to this thesis, the main reason for non-shoppers to not shop online is the inability to examine the product before purchase. This is of great importance in these particular industries since features such as color, size, quality and fit are basic determinants when purchasing goods of that kind. One way to circle the problem, at least in the textile industry, might be to be able to send small patches of textile to custom-ers who plan to place an online order, to facilitate for the decision whether the textile is of good quality or color. Another way could be to show video sequences of a person wearing the clothing to demonstrate the fit, color and the movement of the fabric.

The main difficulty for women in this age group concerning Internet shopping is according to the survey and focus group, the insecurity of online payment. Both shoppers and non-shopper were anxious about this issue. A way to decrease their anxiety and facilitate for an increase in their online shopping might be to inform customers about ways to make safe payments online. To achieve this, collaboration between the company managing a web shop and different banks is needed. The fear of purchasing online would also be reduced if the customers could choose to pay with a free of charge invoice.

Convenience where the largest benefit of shopping online for women in the investigated age range. The term „convenience‟ can be interpreted in various ways, and women in the age 40-55 related the following benefits to „convenience‟; save time, no need to leave the house and ability to shop at any time of day. Therefore it might be relevant for marketers to highlight these benefits of the online shopping experience when marketing online shop-ping as an alternative way of purchasing for women in the age 40-55.

The focus group members made it clear that since a web shop can have lower costs than a regular store, it should also offer lower prices. In particular non-shoppers seem to believe that it should be cheaper to make purchases online compared to regular stores, and would probably be resistant to make purchases online to the same price as in regular stores. Therefore marketers must carefully consider what pricing strategy they should use to price their products for sale in the web shop. Other aspects relating to price in addition to the price level are also important in order to get women to start purchasing online. Such activi-ties might be to offer first time customers in the web shop a voucher of 200 SEK to shop for in the web shop, to influence them to actually go through with an online purchase. If the women could try the process of making an online purchase perhaps their anxiety would decrease and they would also realize the simplicity of shopping online. When the women have used the web shop once, they will be less anxious and more likely to use it again. Another price related factor that could increase women‟s intention to shop online could be to offer free delivery and a possibility of home delivery.

Since some women in the investigated age group do not seem to have realized the potential of online shopping as a tool for shopping, a catalog might be a good instrument to use. By reading a catalog the women get inspired and reminded of new seasonal products, as well as, if clearly stated, directed to making their order online. The usage of a catalog for women in the age 40-55 would facilitate for placing an online order since it combines a sense of tangibility with the speed and comfort of online shopping. Due to these reasons the re-searcher would recommend marketers focusing this particular group to use a catalog pre-senting the products available in the web shop in their marketing.

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The web site where the web shop is situated on need to be easy to navigate and should be fun to visit. Several ways for a company to make their web site attractive for women be-tween 40-55 years exist and will be further discussed. For companies within certain indus-tries, such as clothing and textiles, it could be a useful tool to include a possibility for browsers and shoppers to receive inspiration and advice of how to mix and match different products on the web site. Another feature could be to start a forum where the shoppers can interact with one another by posting messages, which could decrease the sense of being alone when shopping online. It should also be easy for the shopper to contact a customer service if difficulties arise. A potential complaint should be effortless for the customers to conduct, in order to avoid unnecessary hassle for the customer. These two factors are very important for the investigated age group since they were very anxious about return policies.

Some results indicate that some women in this age do not perceive Internet as a shopping tool. Therefore there is a need for marketers to constantly remind them of the ability to make purchases online by having a clear, consistent message in various communication channels. It is important that the message is actually realized by the target group and that it make them aware of the existence of a web shop. In some industries it would be appropri-ate to have a place on the web shop that gives the women inspiration advice of how to mix and match different products from the web shop. Of importance is also word of mouth, findings have indicated that women feel more secure and willing to make online purchases if friends have done it successfully. Word of mouth is difficult to affect but one way to use it to the advantage of the company might be to let customers rate the products they have purchased through the web shop on the web site. This would allow potential web shop customers to read the reviews and feel they have received an objective opinion, which might help them decide what to buy. The online customer reviews would be a complement to the product descriptions. These also need to be improved and should include as much information as possible about the product, in order to provide a detailed description that could outweigh the shortcoming of making purchases online, such as intangability.

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6 Conclusion

This thesis has found evidence suggesting that frequency of computer and Internet use as well as computer experience relate to the probability of making purchases online for wom-en in the age 40-55 years. Higher frequency of computer and Internet use as well as com-puter experience correlate to a higher probability of making purchases online. The inten-tion of women to shop online was also discovered to relate to age even in this fairly narrow age range; women in the age category 50-55 years made fewer online purchases than wom-en in the age group 40-45 years.

The three most important obstacles regarding Internet shopping for women was in order of importance; payment discomfort, worry about Internet fraud and worry about misuse of personal information. These three obstacles can be perceived as intertwined and the under-lying reasons for their influential roles as difficulties are multiple. The discomfort concern-ing the three obstacles is derived from worries about losing money from ones bank account and not receiving the ordered product. These fears might be overestimated and can be a re-sult of intense media coverage, as well as failure of banks and online companies to present safe payment methods to their consumers.

Convenience along with an ability to save time was in this study attributed as the most im-portant benefits women perceived Internet shopping to entail. Other important benefits were that online stores offer lower prices, as well as Internet allows women to make pur-chases from stores not available in their residential area. The reason for convenience and time saving to be the largest benefits of online shopping is the pressed time schedules of women in the age 40-55 years.

Several factors were discovered which could have an ability of increasing the target group‟s level of Internet shopping. These were categorized into three areas, and the first area was „price related factors‟. These factors related to price level of products sold in the web shop and marketing activities which aimed at offering lower prices. The second area was „catalog related factors‟ which indicated an increase of online shopping if a catalog would be distri-buted from the company managing a web shop. The third area was „advertisement related factors‟, which brought up the importance of extensive advertising to remind the women in the investigated age range of the existence and the possibilities connected to making pur-chases online.

Another result of this thesis was the modification the „framework of consumers‟ intentions to shop online‟ (Dellaert et al., 2004) which generated a modified model concerning wom-en‟s intention to shop online, based on the findings in this thesis.

The online purchasing behavior of middle-aged women is an interesting area for research since it is a large demographic group, with a large purchasing power and is a group which increases their amount of Internet purchases every year. Further research could consider a different industry for the research or a wider age group. The research could entail a na-tionwide quantitative study with an aim of yielding extensive information about the habits and attitudes women have concerning shopping on the Internet. This research could in turn be the foundation for more in-depth research focusing the underlying reasons why the women have certain habits and attitudes. The aspiration would be to find methods to cus-tomize marketing strategies to further increase the online shopping behavior of women in the selected age group.

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Hemtex (2008b). Förvaltningsberättelse 2008. Retrieved 2009-01-06 from http://www.hemtex.com/sv/ir/Arsredovisning-0708/Forvaltningsberattelse/

New Wave Group. (2008). Retrieved 2008-12-08, from (http://www.nwg.se/index.php?id=83&L=1

Oxford Reference Online. (2008) Definition: Likert scale. Retrieved 2009-01-02, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?entry=t88.e1274&srn=1&ssid=621332759#FIRSTHIT

Oxford Reference Online. (2008) Definition: electronic shopping. Retrieved 2009-01-03, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=e-shop-ping&authstatuscode=202&category=&ssid=746840422&scope=global&time=0.438518756213846

Oxford Reference Online. (2008) Definition: web site. Retrieved 2009-01-03, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=web%20site&category=&ssid=42739233&scope=global&time=0.485523828930287

Oxford Reference Online. (2008) Definition: audit trail. Retrieved 2009-01-06, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=audit%20trail&authstatuscode=202&category=&ssid=976815919&scope=global&time=0.243318332941946

Statistiska Centralbyrån. (2007, April). Andel personer I åldern 16-74 år som har tillgång till Inter-net på olika sätt i hemmet. Retrieved 2008-09-26, from http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____187901.asp

http://search.eb.com.bibl.proxy.hj.se/search?query=e-commerce

http://www.hui.se/

http://www.hui.se/

http://www.hemtex.com/sv/ir/

http://www.hemtex.com/sv/ir/Arsredovisning-0708/Forvaltningsberattelse/

http://www.nwg.se/index.php?id=83&L=1





http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=e-shopping&authstatuscode=202&category=&ssid=746840422&scope=global&time=0.438518756213846





http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=web%20site&category=&ssid=42739233&scope=global&time=0.485523828930287

http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=web%20site&category=&ssid=42739233&scope=global&time=0.485523828930287


http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=audit%20trail&authstatuscode=202&category=&ssid=976815919&scope=global&time=0.243318332941946

http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/SEARCH_RESULTS.html?q=audit%20trail&authstatuscode=202&category=&ssid=976815919&scope=global&time=0.243318332941946

http://www.scb.se/templates/tableOrChart____187901.asp

71

Appendix

Pre study:

Summary of respondents in pre study. Further down is their answers in Swedish. Their main arguments, feelings and ideas will be translated to the final version of the appendix.

Age; Date;

Woman 52 years 2008-10-25





Kvinna, 52 år. “M” 2008-10-25 Computer experience

Varje dag inom jobbet.

Privat mail 2 ggr/vecka pga job mail Internet experience

Tanke med Internetbesöket; (ej impuls)

Hemnet, inredning, textilier, blocket, prykar, aftonbladet, söka information (av sa-ker man får reda på via offline) duka, apoteket, öppetider, hudoteket, elgiganten etc, ex köpa TV. Presentideér

Internet shopping experience

Har köpt; Resor, evenemang, biljetter. Reasons for why not buying online?

Vill se och ta på varan, även om bara eletronik.

Kan ej se kvalité på kläder. Fasta stabila saker som glas, inrdeningsprykar, kökssaker går bra, men ej textilier- vill känna kvalitén. Men tex Hemtex kan vara okej om det är deras märke ”living” eftersom man vet hur den är.

Färgåtergivelse på websidan. Stämmer den?

Obehag med Internetbetalning.

Osäkerhet med Internetshopping generellt, ser ej datorn och Internet som ett na-turligt sätt att handla.

Factors that may increase online shopping

Billigare pris. Avgörande faktor.

Tidvinst om hemleverans. Slipper besöka affär dubbelt.

Hemfaktura, om en faktura avgift.

Returrätt och innehåll. Kostnad för att skicka tillbaka.

Hemsidan kan locka till sej kunder till affären = fyller funktion.

Ha websidan säsongsbaserad.

72

Ha med ytterligare info om produkt. Att locka till köp. Som istället för annonser.

Katalog. Lite som ellos osv.. Locka till köp.

Heminredning tänker efter länge innan köp. Är ej så socialt som kläder.

Kvinna; 40 ”L” 2008-11-04 Datavana

Varje dag i jobbet, spcs bokföring, fakturering m.m. Betälla via nätet osv till jobbet.

Skriver hemma.

Internetvana

Både planerat och nöjessurfa.

Facebook, Internetbank, blocket, ikea, fitness- kampsport både tidningar och fo-rum, tävlingar, försäkringskassan, ärenden, apoteket, eniro, vägbeskrivningar, in-formationsök, skolor information, Pricerunner, recensioner, kolla produkter innan besöka butiken.

Köpvanor på Internet

Böcker

Gainomax

kläder(Både H&M och postorder)

festtillbehör

TV

Evenemangsbiljetter

Tågbiljetter

Fruktlåda med grönsaker frukt och recept.

Svårigheter med att handla via Internet

Problematiskt om utomlands, språkmässigt, hur frakta.

Svårt med storlek på kläder och skor eftersom svårt att passa. Och kvalité

Hur retunera? Mest tidsmässigt…

Betalningen att de får pengarna å jag inte får grejerna. Fördelar med att handla via Internet

24 timmar om dygnet= smidigt.

Överskådligt, kan jämföra mellan säljare enkelt

Sparar tid. Faktorer som skulle kunna på dej att handla mer på Internet

Tycker frågan är svårt at besvara

Kunna beställa mat vore guld värt!

Att försäljaren hämtar upp varor som ej är bra vid dörren!

Katalog kan förenkla e-handel, ett skäl som påminnelse av nya varor.

73

Kvinna; 50 ”R” 2008-11-04 Datavana

Kolla mail på jobbet.

Vill gå datakurs

Om använda dator är det för att använda Internet

Skriva lite på datorn i word.

Internetvana

Betala räkningar, kolla mail, chatta, prata på skype och msn.

Behöver hjälp med allting.

Bra att kunna söka info men behöver hjälp Köpvanor på Internet

Nej.

(Kan bli kolla priser, köpa biljetter, boka resor, evenemang.) Svårigheter med att handla via Internet

Behärskar ej teknik

Ej kunskap om att man kan handla, har ej insett att det är en köpkanal

Oro för betalning; att de drar extra, eller att nån snor dem på vägen, Också person-uppgifter.

Storlekar och färger på kläder

Har beställning kommit fram?

Lättare i affär, där man kan se alt.

Inte min grej! Fördelar med att handla via Internet

Spara tid- smidigt, slippa parkera, stå i kö , slippa prova osv… Faktorer som skulle kunna på dej att handla mer/börja handla på Internet

Gå en data/ Internet kurs

Någon som visar mej hur hemsidan och beställning går till.

Kvinna 50 år 2008-10-29 Hur bekväm är du med en dator och Internet?

Använder dagligen. Vad gör du när du surfar?

Läser nyheter (Aftonbladet)

Söker information

Tittar på heminredning och present sajter, sy-mönster,

Internetbanken

74

Handlar du på Internet?

Ja, mer än en gång. Ett par gånger i månaden. Vad handlar du?

På Ellos (textilier) böcker, Känner du dig någonsin osäker när du handlar på Internet?

Nej, känner mig ganska säker.

Kvinna, 45 2008-10-29 How would you describe your computer literacy? /Internet habits

I have a basic knowledge of how a computer works.

I use the computer when I am working

At home I hardly ever use the computer.

I find it difficult to use the computer, I feel insecure of my knowledge especially when I am online.

Aftonbladet or other news sites

Recipes.

Msn messenger

I hardly ever surf around just to look at clothes or other products since I do not have time or find it that interesting.

Shop online

I would probably not purchase a product online because I would not know how to do it.

Im afraif of making purchases online since I have read many stories about fraud and other problems that have occurred.

I do not feel comfortable paying or using my visa card online either, I am afraid that someone could steel the card number or my personal information.

I prefer to shop in a physical store where I can touch and see the product.

I think it is also much easier to buy a product in a physical store because I go in the store, pick a product, then buy it and then I am finished.

I do not perceive it as it is more easy to buy something online, on the contrary I find it more difficult. You have to order the product, then wait for it to arrive and then pick it up from the post office.

Factors that could make me buy more online

To increase the security online

Make the shopping process online more user friendly.

75

Empirical findings appendix

Figure 1

Figure 2

76

Figure 3

Figure 4

77

Figure 5

Figure 6

The alternative „Less than 1 occasion/month‟ was not chosen by any of the respondents.

78

Figure 7


Figure 8

79

Figure 9

Figure 10

80

Figure 11

The alternatives „Food and grocery products‟, „Household items‟, „Computers and comput-er items‟, „Stocks or insurances‟, „Lotto, games etc‟, and „Home textiles‟ were not chosen by any of the respondents.

Figure 12

81

Figure 13

Figure 14

82

Figure 15

Figure 16

83

Figure 17

Figure 18

84

Figure 19

Figure 20

85

Figure 21

Figure 22

86

Figure 23

Figure 24

87

Figure 25

Figure 26

88

Figure 27

Figure 28

89

Figure 29

Figure 30

90

Figure 31


Figure 32

91

Figure 34

Figure 35

92

Figure 36

Figure 37

The alternative „Ease of comparing products between stores‟ was not chosen by any of the respondents.

93

Figure 38

Figure 39

94

Figure 40

Figure 41

95

Figure 42

The alternatives „No access to a computer or Internet‟ and „Fear that my personal informa-tion will be misused‟ were not chosen by any of the respondents.

Figure 43

96

Figure 44

Figure 45

97

Figure 46

Statistics

Payment discomfort

Misuse of personal

info

Worry about Internet

fraud

N Valid 93 93 93

Missing 0 0 0

Mean 3,4946 3,3548 3,4409

Median 4,0000 3,0000 4,0000

Mode 5,00 3,00a 3,00

a

a. Multiple modes exist. The smallest value is shown

Figure 47

Statistics

Ever purchased over Internet Payment discomfort

Misuse of personal

info

Worry about Internet

fraud

Yes N Valid 63 63 63

Missing 0 0 0

Mean 3,1111 3,0476 3,0952

Median 3,0000 3,0000 3,0000

Mode 5,00 3,00 3,00

No N Valid 30 30 30

Missing 0 0 0

Mean 4,3000 4,0000 4,1667

Median 5,0000 4,0000 4,0000

Mode 5,00 5,00 5,00

98

Figure 48

Payment discomfort

Ever purchased over Internet Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent

Yes Valid Completely disagree 10 15,9 15,9 15,9

Somewhat disagree 14 22,2 22,2 38,1

Neither agree nor disag-

ree 13 20,6 20,6 58,7

Somewhat agree 11 17,5 17,5 76,2

Completely agree 15 23,8 23,8 100,0

Total 63 100,0 100,0

No Valid Completely disagree 1 3,3 3,3 3,3



ree 4 13,3 13,3 20,0



Total 30 100,0 100,0

Figure 49

Misuse of personal info




Neither agree nor disagree 18 28,6 28,6 60,3



Total 63 100,0 100,0



Neither agree nor disagree 7 23,3 23,3 30,0



Total 30 100,0 100,0

99

Figure 50

Worry about Internet fraud





ree 19 30,2 30,2 60,3



Total 63 100,0 100,0



ree 6 20,0 20,0 23,3



Total 30 100,0 100,0

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