Physical Evidence in Virtual Online Market: A Study on Consumer Online Buying Decisions

Abstract

Physical evidence in case of services refers to something associated with service, which can be seen, touched or experienced by the customer. In case of online shopping of goods, which basically involves dominance of services, there are few areas where physical evidence is involved like suitable packaging of the product at the time of delivery or physical stores of such online service providers. Recent scholars have classified physical evidence related to e-tail industry under two categories- traditional physical evidence and virtual physical evidence. In the present research work physical evidence related four factors have been selected and consumer preferences regarding such evidences have been collected. It is analysed that among those four factors which factor/s have been preferred by consumers. Consumer's actual online purchase related data has also been collected and its relationship with consumer's preferences towards physical evidence related factors has been analysed in the research work. For analysis purposes reliability analysis, central tendencies, correlation and regression analysis have been applied in the related data.