Consumer Online Shopping Behavior and Preferences: The Case of Middle Europe Country

The aim of this paper is to map current trends of m-commerce in global dimensions based on the secondary data and then identify consumer's online purchasing behaviour and preferences related to mobile purchasing on a sample of 250 Slovak respondents from the age 17 to 65. From the point of view of purchasing frequency, based on the survey we can note that one third of Slovaks use their smartphones for online purchases several times a year. On the contrary, every second Slovak considers viewing products on a small screen as a disadvantage. Mobile devices and integrated technologies serve not only as a means to purchase products, but they also play an important role at all stages of the purchasing process. Among other things, our survey results reveal the fact that up to 43% of the consumers always use their mobile devices when they are looking for inspiration before purchasing the product. While mobile devices have become one of the most important aspects of everyday life, their use is becoming increasingly common in retail environments. Over the last two decades, these technologies have caused not only intense change in the digital world, but also profoundly affected the changing consumer behaviour.