CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION
The Title of the study is “A Study on Customer Satisfaction towards the Online Shopping
in Mangalore City” the study is to know about the customer satisfaction of the online
shopping customers in Mangalore city.

Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy
goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser. Consumers find a
product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly. In other words online
shopping can defined as purchasing of goods via internet by using electronic devices such as
smart phone, laptop, and many more. In short, the tagline more suit for online shopping is
“anything, anytime, anywhere”. Customers can purchasing any kind of product and services
with the availability of 24 hours and wherever there are located by access to internet.
Basically, customer using three types of payment methods for completes their online
shopping, there are credit or debit card, e-wallet and cash on delivery. Online shopping create
new opportunity for both customer and organization where it changing the way of doing
business all over the world.

The wide use of internet and the rapid growth of technology have created a new market for
both the customers and business. Now day’s internet is not just another medium to get in
touch with customers, but it is also an important channel to find potential customers as well
as channel to continue relationship with existing customers. Today, internet probably is a key
contributor to the expansion of online shopping where most of customer prefers to shop
through online. By the way, shopping through online shopping were build easier and
convenience life for the customers. Online shopping be the best for the shopping since
nowadays customers are more materialistic and running for their life and career with the
limited of time.

Online shopping was totally dissimilar with the physical retail store where it save the time
and cost of the customers. For instance, customers who are going to consume goods through
physical retail store must have to set up a time for shopping, need to prepare transportation
fee other than the payment for the goods, search for the parking lot in conventional store, then
stressed with crowded environment and lastly wait in the long queue for end the shopping
process. However, online shopping is too easy and more efficient where customers can
purchase goods whenever they free and wherever they are and they can enjoy window
shopping without any buying pressure. In short online shopping enhance the life of customer
by formulate easier simpler and happier life of shopping.

Consumer Behaviour:

Consumer behaviour is the complex and dynamic processes of deciding what product to buy,
when to buy, how to buy, from where to buy, how to secure, how to use, or how to dispose to
satisfy individuals, groups, or organisations' needs. Consumer behaviour is a decision process
and physical activity individuals, groups, or organisations engage in when evaluating,
acquiring, using, or disposing of goods and services.

Consumer behaviour has two aspects - final purchase behaviour and decision making process.
Purchase behaviour is visible to us, but the decision making process involves number of
complex variables which are not visible to us. Purchase behaviour is the end result of long
decision making process. Study of consumer behaviour attempt to understand the decision
making processes of buyers. Product quality, price, service, consumer emotion, personal
factors, situational factors, product features these are some of the factors that influence the
customer satisfaction.

Factors influences consumer behaviour:

CULTURAL SOCIAL PERSONAL PSYCOLOGICAL

B
Culture Reference Groups Age Motivations
U
Sub Culture Family Occupation Perception
Y
Social Class Roles and Status Economic Situation Beliefs and
Lifestyle attitudes E
Personality R

Figure 1: Factors Influencing Consumer Behaviour

1. CULTURAL FACTORS

Consumer behaviour is deeply influenced by cultural factors, such as buyer’s culture,

subculture and social class.

• Culture: Cultural factors comprise of set of values and ideologies of a particular

community or group of individuals. It is the culture of an individual which decides the way
he/she behaves. Cultural factors have a significant effect on an individual’s buying decision.
Every individual has different sets of habits, beliefs and principles which he/she develops
from his family status and background.

• Sub Culture: Each culture has different subcultures, such as religions, nationalities,
geographical regions; racial, etc. marketing groups may use these groups, segmenting the
market in several small portions. For example, marketers can design products according to
the needs of a specific geographical group.

• Social Class: Every society has some kind of social class is important for marketing
because the buying behaviour of people in a particular social class is similar. Thus marketing
activities could be adapted to different social classes. Here we should note that social class is
not only determined by income, but there are several other factors such as wealth, education,
occupation etc.

2. SOCIAL FACTORS

Social factors also influence the purchasing behaviour of consumers. Social factors are: the
reference groups, family, the role and status.

• Reference groups: Reference groups have the potential for the formation of an attitude or
behaviour of the individual. The impact of reference groups vary across products and brands.
For example, if the product is visible as clothing, shoes, car etc., the influence of reference
groups will be high. Reference groups also include opinion leader (a person who influences
others by his special skill, knowledge or other characteristics).

• Family: buyer behaviour is strongly influenced by a family member. So vendors are trying
to find the roles and influence of the husband, wife and children. If the decision to purchase a
particular product is influenced by the wife of then sellers will try to target women in their ad.
Here we should note that the purchase of roles change with changing lifestyles of consumers.
• Roles and Status: Each person has different roles and status in society in terms of groups,
clubs, family, etc. organization to which it belongs. For example a woman working as a
finance manager in an organization, now she is playing two roles, one of the chief financial
officer and the mother. Therefore, purchasing decisions will be influenced by their role and
status.

3. PERSONAL FACTORS

Personal factors may also affect consumer behaviour. Some of the important factors that
influence personal buying behaviour are: lifestyle, economic status, occupation, age,
personality and self esteem.

• Age: Age and life cycle have a potential impact on the purchasing behaviour of consumers.
It is obvious that consumers change the purchase of goods and services over time. Family life
cycle consists of different stages as young singles, married couples, and unmarried couples
etc that help marketers to develop suitable products for each stage.

• Occupation: The occupation of a person has a significant impact on their buying behaviour.
For example, a marketing manager of an organization is trying to buy business suits, while
low level workers in the same organization buy-resistant clothing work.

• Economic situation: economic situation of the consumer has a great influence on their
buying behaviour. If income and savings a customer is high, then going to buy more
expensive products. Moreover, a person with low income and savings buy cheap products.

• Lifestyle: Lifestyle is another factor that affecting purchasing behaviour of consumers.

Lifestyle refers to the way a person lives in a society and express things in their environment.
People who are from the similar social class, culture or from same occupation may have very
different lifestyles.

• Personality: Personality changes from person to person, time to time and place to place.
Therefore, it can greatly influence the buying behaviour of customers. In fact, personality is
not what one has, but is the totality of the conduct of a man in different circumstances. Has a
different characteristic, such as dominance, aggression, confidence etc that may be useful to
determine the behaviour of consumers to the product or service.
4. PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

There are four major psychological factors that affect the purchasing behaviour of consumers.
These are: perception, motivation, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

• Motivation: The level of motivation also affects the purchasing behaviour of customers.
Each person has different needs, such as physiological needs, biological needs, social needs,
etc. The nature of the requirements is that some are more urgent, while others are less
pressing. Therefore, a need becomes a motive when it is most urgent to lead the individual to
seek satisfaction.

• Perception: Select, organize and interpret information in a way to produce a meaningful

experience of the world is called perception. There are three different perceptual processes
which are selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention. In the case of
selective attention, sellers try to attract the attention of the customer. Whereas in case of
selective distortion, customers try to interpret the information in a way that supports what
customers already believe. Similarly, in the case of selective retention, marketers try to retain
information that supports their beliefs.

• Beliefs and Attitudes: Consumer has specific beliefs and attitudes towards different
products. Because such beliefs and attitudes shape the brand image and affect consumer
buying behaviour so traders are interested in them. Marketers can change beliefs and attitudes
of customers with special campaigns in this regard.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Customer Satisfaction is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company

meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of
customers, or percentage of total customers, whose reported experience with a firm, its
products, or its services (ratings) exceeds specified satisfaction goals."(Farris, Paul W.2010)

Customer satisfaction has been one of the top tools for a successful business. Customer
satisfaction is defined as an overall evaluation based on the total purchase and consumption
experience with the good or service over time (Fornell, Johnson, Anderson, Cha & Bryant
1996). With marketing, customer satisfaction also comes along with it which means it
ascertains the expectation of the customer on how the goods and services are being facilitated
by the companies. Actionable information on how to make customers further satisfied is
therefore, a crucial outcome (Oliver 1999.)

At a glance, customer satisfaction is a crucial component of a business strategy as well as

customer retention and product repurchase. To maximize the customer satisfaction companies
should sell ideas and methods after the completion with all the necessary documents. As for
example, customers will buy a car after taking a closer look at it such as how is the engine,
what is its model, how many kilometres it has been travelling, and is there any cracks or not.
Therefore, they do not feel disappointed after purchasing it. Otherwise, if the company uses
only their sell and build method customers might expect that the car is exactly the same as
what they see in the pictures or during the exhibition and later on the company might receive
complaint if anything is wrong. Customer satisfaction is a barometer that predicts the future
customer behaviour (Hill, Roche & Allen 2007.)

Customer satisfaction is influenced by specific product or service features and perceptions of

quality. Satisfaction is also influenced by customer’s emotional responses, their attributions
and their perception of equity (Zeithal & Bitner. 2003, 87-89.) Increased customer
satisfaction can provide company benefits like customer loyalty, extending the life cycle of a
customer expanding the life of merchandise the customer purchase and increases customers
positive word of mouth communication. When the customer is satisfied with the product or
service of the company, it can make the customer to purchase frequently and to recommend
products or services to potential customers. It is impossible for a business organization to
grow up in case the company ignores or disregards the needs of customers (Tao 2014.).

The organization should make sure that they are providing full service, equivalent to their
monetary value. This will increase the number of customers and holds the long-term
relationship between the customer and the organization. And the existing customer will help
to attract the new customers by providing or sharing the information about the products and
services of the companies. Satisfaction means to feel content after what the person desired or
wanted. It is difficult to know whether the customers are satisfied with the availability of the
product or services. So, giving satisfaction to the customers is not an easy task, for this
different factor is needed to be taken into consideration. Nowadays, competition can be
noticed between the business organizations and marketplaces everywhere and has been one of
the challenging tasks for the competitors. Though it seems to be tough in the growing market,
competitors are developing their marketing channels effectively.

One of the important aspects to ensure the attention of the customers is to provide the best
and the most favourable products at this competing market. If a customer’s satisfaction is
earned, then it is sure that customer loyalty will also come along with it. Moreover, in the
absence of the customer, a business organization would not exist. In order to increase the
number of the customers, development of customer’s satisfaction is very important.

Factors influences customer satisfaction on online shopping:

WESITE DESIGN

SECURITY

INFORMATION QUALITY

PAYMENT METHODS CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION
E-SERVICE QUALITY

PRODUCT QUALITY

PRODUCT VARIETY

DELEVERY SERVICE

Figure 2: Factors Influences Customer satisfaction on online shopping

Objectives of the Study:

 To know the customer satisfaction level towards the online shopping.

 To know the specific reasons for which purpose Customers purchase in online.
 To know about online consumer buying behaviour towards online shopping users in
Mangalore city.
Scope of the Study:

 To know about which type purchase people prefer most in online shopping.
 To find out the reason for buying products in online.
 To Identify the Respondents perception about online shopping.
 To find out various attitude of online customers in Mangalore city.

Methodology Of the study

The nature of this research is descriptive and the goal of this research is to explore the
customer satisfaction towards online shopping and to measure how these factors are
extensive. For this reason, a survey was conducted in Mangalore city to collect primary data
by using questionnaire; this contains few relevant questions regarding online shopping.

Research design:

A research design is the set of methods and procedures used in collecting and analyzing
measures of the variables specified in the research problem. The design of a study defines the
study type (descriptive, correlation, semi-experimental, experimental, review, meta-analytic)
and sub-type (e.g., descriptive- case study or survey), research problem, hypotheses,
independent and dependent variables, experimental design, and, if applicable, data collection
methods and a statistical analysis plan. A research design is a framework that has been
created to find answers to research questions (Creswell, John W 2014).

Source of Information:

Primary data: it is the data which is collected for the first time. In this study it will
conducted by questionnaires. The information was collected on the base of age, gender and
group.

Secondary data: Secondary data is the data that have been already collected by and readily
available from other sources. Like internet, books, journals, articles, newspaper, company
reports and magazines.

Area profile: Mangaluru city

Mangalore, officially known as Mangaluru, is the chief port city and a major educational,
commercial centre of the Indian state of Karnataka & Western Coast. It is located about 352
km (219 mi) west of the state capital, Bangalore, between the Arabian Sea and the Western
Ghats mountain range. It is the only city in Karnataka to have all modes of transport — Air,
Road, Rail and Sea along with 5 other major cities in India. Mangalore is the second best
business destination in Karnataka after Bangalore & 13th best in India. This coastal city was
rated as the safest city in India by the Chicago Tribune in 2019. The population of the urban
agglomeration was 623,841, according to the provisional results of the 2011 national census
of India. Mangalore developed as a port in the Arabian Sea during ancient times and became
a major port of India. This port handles 75 per cent of India's coffee and cashew exports. The
port is used as a staging point for sea traffic along the Malabar Coast. This coastal city was
ruled by several major powers, including the Kadambas, Alupas, Vijayanagar Empire, Keladi
Nayaks and the Portuguese. The city was a source of contention between the Britishand
the Mysore rulers, Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan.

Mangalore is the largest city and administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada
district, and is one of the most multicultural non-metro cities of India. It is also the largest
city in the Coastal and Malnad regions of Karnataka, besides being a commercial, industrial,
educational and healthcare hub on the West Coast of India. This port city has the second
largest airport in Karnataka. Mangalore city urban agglomeration extends from Ullal in the
south to Surathkal in the north, covering a distance of over 30 km (19 mi). The city has
extended in the eastward direction up to Vamanjoor and Padil. Mangalore is also included in
the Smart Cities Mission list and one among the 100 smart cities to be developed in India.

Research Instrument Questionnaire

Sample Unit Online shopping customers in Mangalore

city

Sampling method Random Sampling

Sampling Size 100

Area of Research Mangalore city

Limitations:
 The research was conducted in Mangalore city only. The analysis of data was
applicable to Mangalore city only. may not applicable to other cities
 Survey was carried out only on 100 customers.
 Some customers gave incomplete data.
 The questionnaire contains only 18 questions.

Chapter Scheme:

Chapter 1: Introduction: This chapter presents the Introduction to the topic, objectives of
the research, scope of the research, research methodology and chapter scheme.

Chapter 2: Literature Review: This chapter provides an overview of previous research on

based research topic.

Chapter 3: Company Profile and Industry Profile: This chapter provides the company
profile and industry profile.

Chapter 4: Analysis and Interpretation of Data: this chapter provides analysis and
interpretation of the data which are collected through survey.

Chapter 5: Findings, Suggestion and conclusion: This chapter presents the result and
discussion given in the project and also conclusion and suggestion.

Bibliography: It provides name of the journals, books, websites which are referred to this
project.