Title: Exploratory tendencies in consumer behaviour in online buying across gen X, gen Y and baby boomers

Authors: Tanusree Chakraborty; Janarthanan Balakrishnan

Addresses: Thiagarajar School of Management, Pamban Swamy Nagar, Thiruparrankundram, Madurai 625005, India ' Thiagarajar School of Management, Pamban Swamy Nagar, Thiruparrankundram, Madurai 625005, India

Abstract: Online purchase is one of the most happening things across the globe. In every household there is the practice of online purchase. These purchases are sometimes influenced by the purchases of relatives, friends and other important people in a person's life. Sometimes the consumer prefers to explore the market and the variety of product before taking a buying decision. As online purchase has reached every household today, it is a matter of great interest among all the members in a family; they may belong to different generations, say gen X, gen Y and baby boomers. Each generation has its own exploratory behaviour tendency. This paper is the result from a survey conducted on a cross section of respondents, taken from the four major cities in India. The paper aims to explore the multidimensionality of exploratory behaviour tendencies across seven dimensions, namely, repetitive behaviour proneness, innovativeness, exploration through shopping information seeking, brand switching, risk taking, and interpersonal communication among a group of 595 respondents pooled stratified randomly across the three generations. Standardised as well as semi structured questionnaires were used to obtain data. Findings show that there is a difference between exploratory tendencies in consumer behaviour across the different generations.

Keywords: online consumers; internet marketing; consumer segmentation; generations; online shopping; e-shopping; exploratory tendencies; purchase behaviour.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2017.085483

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2017 Vol.8 No.2, pp.135 - 150

Received: 20 May 2016
Accepted: 18 Sep 2016
Published online: 28 Jul 2017 *

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