THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF CONSUMERS AND THEIR ONLINE SHOPPING HABITS

Abstract

Online shopping has been experiencing a huge increase in the recent
years due to itsnumerous advantages for consumers. Among the most often mentioned ones are: the possibility of shopping throughout the day (24/7), savings
in the time of going to the store, lower prices and a wider range of products.
On the other hand, consumers face certain obstacles in online shopping, such as
technological/security issues, mistrust, inability to try products, time consuming product selection etc. All of these changes that occurred with Internet and
online shopping have led to significant changes in consumer behavior and their
purchasing habits. To be successful today, companies need to have good offline as
well as online marketing. In order to successfully create an internet marketing strategy it is of utmost importance to explore and understand consumer habits
in online shopping. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to determine the frequency
of online purchases, the amount of money spent in online shopping, the type of
products and services that are purchased most often, and the extent to which
demographic factors influence these indicators of consumer habits. The survey
method was applied in this research. The obtained results provide important
guidelines for defining demographic profiles of consumers and creating the appropriate internet marketing strategy.