A Comparative Study of Motivational Differences for Online Shopping

Purchasing through online retailers, electronic markets, and virtual communities has its value. Often motivations to buy online differ from those in an offline environment and these motivations may be more incongruent for online shoppers dispersed globally. In this study, motives to purchase in an electronic environment in the context of two countries are studied. Two data sets of 538 respondents (304 in Singapore and 279 in China) were collected. Results show that there is a significant difference in motivations in China and Singapore buyers, and Singapore buyers have higher positive need gratifications. These findings indicate that Singapore buyers are more positively inclined toward online shopping, and they are likely to be more gratified when buying online than respondents from China. In country specific contexts, no motivational differences for male and female respondents are observed. However, gender is significant for the combined sample indicating that overall male and female populations have different motivations for online shopping. Online retailers could benefit from focusing on aspects that address perceptions of positive need-fulfillment on their e-commerce sites for the Singapore and Chinese market segments, while also differentiating websites for online markets by gender.