Urban Youth Attitude toward Online Shopping: Evidence from Dhaka City

The study aims to assess the attitude of urban youth toward online shopping. The study was conducted on the age bracket 18-35 who are generally the primary and secondary target market of the online shops. An organized and adaptive survey was conducted on 119 respondents using convenience sampling. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. The study reveals most of the respondents visit online sites a couple of times a week. Moreover, most of the respondents want to buy products up to BDT 4,000 but are willing to buy products up to BDT 5000 for branded products. So, there is a huge potential for branded products. There are more mobile banking users than bank cardholders. Therefore, mobile banking can add new doors for online shopping. Most popular online products are clothing, food &amp; beverage, mobile accessories, electronic goods, and beauty products. The major distress appears to be that products delivered do not match the product shown in the online shop and product’s quality. People would prefer to physically examine the products before buying them online. The study also reveals previous online buying experience and online reviews have a high influence on online buying behavior. The study supports that youth perceive online shopping is trustworthy. Though youth recognize that online shopping is convenient and think the price is cheaper but there is room for improvement.


INTRODUCTION
Bangladesh is a developing country thriving to be developed. The government is taking many initiatives for making Bangladesh a digitalized country. A rise in disposable earnings and the availability of low-priced smart devices have made the development of online business possible. In the case of purchasing from online fashion shops, the variety of goods and the reviews from online about the store, significantly affect the intention of buyers (Kaur et al., 2018). The purchase behavior of female consumers is shaped by the easiness and convenience of the site, privacy of the information, effectiveness of time, online feedback, outbound logistics, and value. Also, the system of returning the goods according to consumer preference is an important thought for a female consumer who buys form online (Rao et al., 2018). Attitudes toward online buying and trustworthiness of website work as an important factor in influencing the buying decision from an online grocery store (Loketkrawee and Bhatiasevi, 2018). Both the urban and rural consumers mostly in case of payment option prefer payment on delivery. The unfriendly position of traditional shops and the smooth and less time-consuming services of online sites have a major effect on their online purchase attitude (Vyas et al., 2017).
After launching the 4th Generation internet in 2018, Bangladesh has experienced a growth in the internet user base and the internet infrastructure is developing day by day. So, it can be expected that the number of online buyers would also increase. This indicates that more factual studies are needed to recognize buyer actions and attitudes in the online shopping landscape. As a matter of fact, any individual customer's attitude is the identifier of the extent to which he/she possesses a satisfactory or dissatisfactory consideration of the conduct to be performed (Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015). Price is the most important aspect that has an impact on an online shopping attitude, and by providing a business offer that is innovative and informative to the observant and busy youth, the seller can be benefited from the convenience (Farhana, Khan & Noor, 2017).
People use online shopping for saving time and diversities of products and services available. Both men and women show similar types of attitudes towards accepting and unaccepting factors. The facility of getting the products delivered at doorstep has a positive impact whereas the inability to touch and feel the product has a negative impact on buying behavior. Consumers collect information from websites, particularly from the social network. Most of them prefer the cash on delivery payment method. The study found that customers worry about the reliability of the transaction method, in general, over-the-internet buying contentment of them is diverse (Rahman, Islam, Esha, Sultana and Chakravorty 2018).
According to the investigation of related literature, it is justified that convenience, experience, trust, and price influence the behavior of customers towards online purchases. Online purchasers of an emerging country like Bangladesh feel a high level of ambiguity. Trust is a significant concern for them. This study discovers, people with diversified circumstances prefer online purchasing as a suitable option of buying but at the same time they are also concerned about the product price. In the first part of the paper, a short introduction to the topic is given. Then a review of pertinent literature is provided; and after which the methodology of the research is discussed with the research population, sample,

LITERATURE REVIEW
Online shopping is an emerging issue to adapt with dynamics of business and meet customers expectations. Various factors and forces shape the intention of buyers toward online shopping. The availability of numerous brands is important and can be used to inspire consumers to buy from online because buyers have deep connotations with brands and look for their preferred brands only in times of shopping (Saleem et al., 2018). Jadhav and Khanna (2017) found that the online purchasing attitudes of college students' who own debit card is different from college students' who don't have a debit card and they had a better insight of online buying than others. According to Manda and Sur (2017), buyers' attitudes toward using the internet for purchasing goods are affected by two main persuading factors-motivating and restricting factors. The motivating factors are shaped by convenience, variety of stores, design of website, utility, innovation, openness, branding, cheap price, delivery cost and mode, review from others, the system of payment (cash on delivery), information, after-sale facility experience and variety of products. On the other hand, restrictive factors are determined by the comfort of use, trustworthiness, safety risk of the transactions, perceived risk of quality, financial and non-delivery, personal data privacy, reimbursement option, and brand image. Kumar and Kashyap (2018) found that online buying behavior is affected by five important utilitarian motivating factors-availability of information, openness, availability of the products, searchable and convenience. Among these, the availability of the information is the most causal factor because it has an important impact on engaging the consumer in visiting the online store or insist them to purchase the goods or services. People generally consider the absence of a variety of products and a high-price of products in time choosing online grocery as the main source of buying. In traditional buying methods, consumers need to visit the shop physically whereas the online businesses provide t he shopper with the opportunity to reach the consumers all over the world directly (Al-Maghrabi et al., 2011). Aldhmour and Sarayrah (2016) found that buyer's intention towards online shopping depends on product involvement. Similarly, it has a positive indirect influence on intention through attitude as well. Also, it has assessed the uncomplicated way of operation and evaluated that utility has no absolute correlation with customers' attitude but has subordinate influence. The study shows that buyers' attitudes have an absolute influence on their desire of using over-theinternet shopping.
MacInnis and Folkes (2010) found that buyer attitudes have always been a key attention area for the online shoppers, which is seeing a blast over the past 50 years. Consumer behavior can be distinguished from other fields by understanding its focuses on the buyer's role, underlining the consumption, acquisition, and disposal of products and service's experiences. Consumers have shown mixed behavioral attitudes towards online shopping. The modern online purchasers seek additional convenience and pace with several choices and details. The abse nce of trust & inability to touch products before purchasing has made the consumers hesitant in the time of online buying (Katawetawaraks and Wang, 2011).
Consumer satisfaction on online purchases depends significantly on satisfaction over price and quality, emergency demand meetings and attractive arrangement of websites. Ordering a large quantity of products and other independent aspects such as free home delivery, price differentiation, availability of required information, etc. are not significant indicators of being satisfied with e-business organization (Kasem and Shamima, 2014). Customers are now directly involved in the value creation process, that's why an effective online purchasing policy should be a turnaround in recognizing the actions of purchasers in addition to their views and attitudes (Martínez-López et al., 2005).
Shareef, Kumar and Kumar (2008) found that in the developed countries, the way customers perceive operational and site security, customer care and customer value, and trustworthiness, all these together impact online buying decisions significantly. Also, the trustworthiness towards online shopping is affected by trust disposition attitude, perceived local environmental, operational and site safety of the internet. The study shows that privacy plays an important role in the online buying decision for developing countries. Web-site satisfaction and trust were affected by the two significant factors-transaction safety and personal variables. Providing transaction safety, transaction security and personal variables helps to increase web-site trust and satisfaction. Also, web-site consciousness as an intermediate variable serves a significant role in web-site valuation (Yoon, 2002).
Consumer involvement in an online shopping store is significantly related to the satisfaction of information and relational benefit, which is affected by the quality of product and services, user interface and security awareness The study shows that information of an online store is a significant factor that affects each customer's website loyalty and buying behavior (Park and Kim, 2003). Li and Zhang (2002) found that the consumer's online purchasing attitude, intention, and behavior are affected by their individual characteristics, seller's ser vice, product features, and website quality. The study shows that targeting specific customer segments, serving quality products and services, and building lucrative website help to influence buyer's intention and behavior, and also influence the first purchase and repeat purchase of the customer. Customers' satisfaction degree is directly related to the intentions towards online shopping or towards specific online stores.
The online vendors should consider women as a different segment for their product because of the growing trend of online purchase of women, change in the income level, change in the lifestyle etc. Most of the female online consumers use their mobile phones to get access to the internet at home, so a mobile approach to offer ease and flexibility is needed. Favorable factors of over-the-internet purchasing (convenience, usefulness, ease of use, and efficiency) seem to be additionally significant than the unfavorable factors, like, lack of safety, confidentiality of data and over-the-internet deception (Kumar and Singh, 2014).

Factors affecting online purchase behavior for Bangladesh
When considering the factors affecting the online purchase behavior of the youth, the element that Bangladesh is a developing country should also be reflected.
Convenience is an important factor that affects the developing economy's consumers' attitudes towards the online purchase (Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015). It also causes a decrease in the price of priced goods and more purchase volume in over-the-internet virtual stores. It is a reality that now Bangladeshi online buyers are more in favor of appreciating their online purchases.
Individuals of the developing countries are most commonly considered unwilling to take risks. The extent of trust is basic during deciding attitudes of people in terms of web-based purchasing and the above-stated trust is a component of the actions taken in the webpage or the understandings of the people close to them about the advantages and beliefs which are possible to be satisfied (Akroush and Al-Debei, 2015).
According to the aforementioned discussion, it is possible to state that convenience, trust, experience and price serve the major significant part to determine the online buying attitude.

CONVENIENCE
To shift to web-based buying from traditional buying, the customer ought to be happy with the extra advantages he/she would get from shopping online. The flexibility of time and place are the obvious advantages of online shopping (Xiaofen and Yiling, 2009). By using a device with an internet connection anyone can buy anything online at any time of the day from any place. Online purchasing helps the customers to save time, money and effort and it also provides customers more information about products and an advanced level of transpare ncy and convenience. Convenience is identified as the major persuasive factor in customers' buying attitudes in many empirical studies.

PRICE
Developing a country's consumers' price sensitivities lead the price as a significant indicator of online buying attitudes. Consumers purchase from virtual shops for the availability of various product collections, the competitiveness of price charged and uncomplicated way of operation. They are also concerned about the confidentiality of their debit/ credit card and personal information, shipping cost and the opportunity of seeing the product physically before buying. Price of the products and the ability to feel the product physica lly before buying lead to mostly value buy from online shops in Bangladesh.

TRUST
Online business is another type of web-based trade where most exchanges happen among parties that have not been introduced previously (Suhan, 2015). The idea of over-the-internet business landscape comparative to person-to-person market prompts exchange risks with skepticism about the reality of over-the-internet business entities or the true condition of the products. Consumers' perceived security regarding the use of their personal information influence the trust in the internet (Flavian et al., 2006). Consumers always try to ensure their transaction's safety and look for safe platforms from which they can get additional benefits in contrast to purchasing in person to person buying mechanism (Reichheld and Schefter, 2000).

EXPERIENCE
Demographic factors such as education, income and age modestly affect the choice of whether to purchase on the web, though the most significant determinant of web-based shopping was the past purchase behavior (Ozkisi and Topaloglu, 2016). Customers' perceived satisfaction on online shopping is influenced by the previous online purchase experience. A person who has previously purchased products online, realizes that his/her action in the over-the-internet landscape is pleasant and also satisfying in terms of looking for information about products or easiness of giving orders. Contrarily, a new user in online purchasing may discover difficulties in the mechanism (Milovan, 2 012). Communal influencer, including welcoming data or guidance coming out from an individual who is considered not more than an acquaintance, plays a role to impact customer's over-the-internet purchasing participation.

Study population and sample
The population of the study is the urban youth who reside in Dhaka, Bangladesh and are in the age group of 18-35 years. Anyone who purchased products/services online is included in the sampling structure of this study. Since we have not found any database of online shoppers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, we have used convenience sampling which is a non-probability sampling method. The convenience sampling method was used and recognized in previous researches for quantifying the attitude towards online shopping (Akroush and Debei, 2015;Hsiao et al., 2010). The basic filtering process of the sample respondents was that they could use the internet and also bought products/service online more than once.
The survey was conducted in two ways: 1. Face to face (using a hard copy of the questionnaire) 2. Online to reach a greater dynamic of the population. Physical questionnaire copies were given to the participants after giving them a short overview of the research objective. For the online part, the link of the research questionnaire was given to acquaintances, faculties and associates, who further forwarded it to their associates upon our request. The unit for research was "online shoppers in Dhaka", the individuals' purchased products or services online more than once. To understand the effect of the indicators on the various demographic variables, we have performed a cross-tab study.

Questionnaire Construction & Data Gathering
To complete the study, an adaptive survey questionnaire was formed. The items of the questionnaire were used in past researches to quantify the assumption towards online purchasing. Few items were added by the researchers analyzing the trend of online shoppers in Dhaka, Bangladesh. There were 32 questions, among those 16 were five-point Likert scale statements. The factors -convenience, price, trust and experience were quantified with five, four, three and four statements chronologically. Total hard copies of the questionnaire were 60 and total sample questionnaires forwarded online were 80. Total responses received were 119 with a response rate of 85%.

Data Analysis Tools and Technique
To collect data, Google form was used then the result was exported as comma-separated values (CSV) format. Descriptive statistics, frequency table and bar chart was used to analyze the data. Microsoft Excel was used to do basic structuring and statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the data. Table 1 contains the demographic profile of respondents. Table 1 shows 59.4% of respondents are from the age group of 23-32 years, the ones who are generally the target market for online product sellers. A significant portion of them are completing their undergraduate degree. When they will enter the workforce, their monthly income will rise up and they will be a very attractive market in the near future. The demography suggests, there can be different segmentations based on gender. Table 1 also shows us that students and service holders can be the most prospective customer base. Table 2 gives an idea about the general attitudes towards online shopping in Bangladesh amid the youth. A significant number of respondents visit online shops a couple of times a week. It indicates that people are very eager to buy products online. Half of the respondents have a credit or debit card. Most interestingly around 72% of the respondents have mobile banking accounts. We can say mobile banking has enabled a lot of scopes for online shopping. Online shoppers can focus on these mobile banking account holders because mobile banking can be a very sustainable payment option for online shopping. This finding will make the online sellers rethink about their payment method strategy. Table 2 shows that 44.9% of the respondents did not buy anything online or bought products/services less than BDT 1,000 which shows us the struggle of this sector. The result reveals that only 5.9% is interested to buy products of more than BDT 12,000 whereas 50% of the respondents want to verify the products physically before buying the products online. Figure 1 shows a very good prospect for selling branded products online because 26.1% of the respondents are eager to spend an amount more than BDT 10,000 for the products which are from well-known brands. From Figure 2 we can understand most of the people visit online shops to collect information but the number of people visiting to buy products is very hopeful. Figure 3 shows the most popular online products are clothing, food & beverage, mobile accessories, electronic goods and beauty products. From Figure 4, the challenges of online shopping can be found. The major distress identified is that products delivered do not match products shown in the online shop. The second major distress is the product quality. Lack of branded online shops is another major concern of the respondents. From the study, it is clear that the lack of online shops for branded products is slowing the growth of the industry. This also shows the opportunity for the development of onli ne shops focused on branded products. The table 1 demonstrates that online shopping is more popular to the age bracket 23-27 and both male & female are equally interested. Most of the respondents have H.S.C or higher education qualification. Among students who are working part-time like to shop online as they have an earning source. Most of the people visit online sites once or a couple of times a week. Half of the people have a debit or credit card. Though a more significant amount of people owns mobile banking accounts. As opening a mobile bank account is very convenient, there are more and more mobile banking users. Most of the people bought products worth BDT 1,000-BDT 3,000 in the last two months. People want to buy products in the range between BDT 2000 to BDT 4,000. This shows people still fear to buy expensive products online. A significant amount of people would like to physically see the product before buying it.  Figure 1 shows that youth are highly interested and ready to buy more expensive products which are branded. People visit online sites for mainly collecting information and to purchase a product. Before purchasing a product, they tend to compare the price on different sites. A good number of people visit online shops after watching advertisements. The most popular items of online sites are clothing, food & beverage, mobile accessories, beauty products. It was assumed previously that people like to buy bus tickets, train tickets and air tickets physically. However, due to the availability of purchasing tickets online, a significant amount of people are now buying bus/train/air tickets over the internet. The major distress appears to be products delivered do not match the product shown in the online shop and product's quality. Lack of branded online shop is another major concern of the respondents This study focused on concluding whether the target group finds online shopping to be convenient, trustworthy and cheaper. Additionally, it is done to extract information about whether or not previous experience and online reviews influence decision making while purchasing online. All these were measured through a set of questions and the table below shows the average result of each segment. "Convenience of online shopping" was measured with these questions: 

Descriptive Statistics
Online shopping ensures my privacy.


It is possible to purchase according to my convenient time from an online shop.  More detailed and elaborated information on products is available in Online shops.  We can easily compare products online.  Shopping on the internet saves time.
"Trustworthiness of online shopping" was measured with these questions:  The delivered product will not be different than shown on the website.


It is safe to prepay the amount and complete the transaction on online shops.  It is not risky to provide credit/debit card information online.  Delivery time is less in online purchases.
"Product available online is cheaper" was measured with these questions:  Products on the internet are cheaper than instore.  The fee for receiving products at the doorstep is fair.  Paying when while receiving the product in cash is a convenient procedure for online buying.
"Previous experience and online review influence online shopping" was measured with these questions:  My peers and family influence my online purchasing decision.  Reviews of the over the internet shops influence my online purchasing decision.  Social media influencers influence my online purchasing decision.  My previous online shopping experience influences my online purchasing decision. From Table 3 shows that 30% of the respondents strongly agree and 28.8% agree that online shopping is convenient. 66.10% of respondents agree or strongly agree that online shopping is trustworthy though 25.4% is neutral about it. A total of 59.3% agree or strongly agree that prices in online shops are cheaper though 30.5% are neutral about the matter. 39% of the respondents strongly agree and 31.4% agree on the fact that previous experience and online reviews influence online buying.

Findings
According to our study, 46% of the respondents visit online shops a couple of times a week. It indicates that people are very eager to buy products online. Half of the respondents have a credit or debit card. Most interestingly around 72% of the respondent have mobile banking accounts. So mobile payment can be a very attractive payment method for online shopping. Around 50% of the respondents willing to check the products ahead of buying it online. Most of the respondents bought products/services less than BDT 1,000 in the last two months. Many are interested to pay more for the branded products which shows the potential for online shopping. The majority of the respondents visit online shops to collect information and buy products. Most popular online products are clothing, food & beverage, mobile accessories, electronic goods and beauty products. The major distress appears to be products delivered do not match the product shown in the online shop and product's quality. Lack of branded online shop is another major concern of the respondents. The majority of the respondents agree that online shopping is convenient and that the product's price in an online shop is less compared to physical stores. People think online shops are trustworthy. Online shopping saw growth in 2009 when Bangladesh Bank (The central bank) approved online payment and in 2013 Bangladesh bank approved the use of debit and credit card for online payment. Buying products online is still a new concept because it is here in Bangladesh for not very long. So, people are still not very comfortable with buying products online. That is why the previous buying experience of individuals plays a huge part in the future online buying. Also, reviews of close people and existing online reviews of online sites and Facebook groups play a critical role in the online product buying decision.

CONSTRAINS OF THE RESEARCH AND FURTHER RESEARCH SCOPES
Around eight million people reside in the capital city, Dhaka among the country's one hundred sixty million population. Thus, the outcomes gathered from this research, which was conducted based on Dhaka city, might not be applicable to other geographical areas of Bangladesh. Aside from the age group 18 to 36, there are individuals from other age groups, who were not a component of the sampling structure of the study. Nevertheless, they might have an influence on the online shopping landscape of Bangladesh. More challenges could be found using interview methods and focus group discussions with online buyers. Quantitative analysis like regression and SEM can be used in future research to find the causal relationship. Further studies can be conducted to analyze the impact age, education, gender, marital status and income on the attitude toward online shopping. The role of social media marketing can be used as a mediating variable to assess the relationship between demographic characteristics of buyers and attitudes towards online shopping.

CONCLUSION
To ensure the economic development of a developing country like Bangladesh trade and business play an important role. Improving internet infrastructure, increasing the use of mobile and other internet devices shifted the consumer to the e-business platform. From a conceptual viewpoint, this study adds with the current group of information through building up a conceptual structure of the drivers of attitudes towards online purchasing in the developing countries. This study indicates that most of the people agree that online shopping is convenient, and the price is also reasonable. They can rely on online shops and think of these as trustworthy. Past buying experience and review of others about the products influence their buying decision. More scholars in the field of behavioral science are hence supported to apply the ideas to get additional discoveries of the buyers' attitude towards online purchasing.