Does Demographics Affect Purchase Frequency in Online Retail?

Abstract

This research determines whether association exist between the demographic characteristics of online shoppers, such as education, age, gender, monthly income, occupation, marital status and their online purchase frequency. Web survey has been applied to 308 customers of four most popular e-retailers in India, who have made at least one online purchase in past six months. Based on extensive literature review hypotheses have been developed for six demographic factors i.e. education, age, income, occupation, marital status and gender. A chi-square test has been deployed to check association between demographic factors and purchase frequency. Significant association has been found between two demographic variables i.e. gender, occupation and purchase frequency. Further, a chi-square post hoc test via standard residual method confirmed that purchase frequency of 1-3 times in past six months by student customers contributes significantly to significant omnibus chi-square statistic.