These days, it seems as though you can buy just about anything online. Bizarre items, such as a can of uranium, a wedding chapel, and a UFO detector, are all up for grabs on Amazon.com. While these products may not be in the online shopping cart of the average consumer, most of us feel comfortable buying a wide range of products online, from textbooks to concert tickets to clothing. Online shopping offers a huge benefit to consumers: convenience. Why drive to the mall and spend hours searching for the perfect outfit in the correct size when you can simply visit your favorite store’s website, click on an outfit, and choose the desired size in less than ten minutes? Online shopping has made the consumer’s world easier and more time efficient.
While I rarely think twice about buying an outfit online, I recently came across a product that I was not so comfortable purchasing on the Internet. I had just moved into my first unfurnished apartment, and I was searching for the perfect set of chairs to match a table that I had previously bought. I had several requirements for these chairs: they had to be the perfect height, the cushions had to be comfortable and made out of the perfect material, and the legs had to be the perfect color of wood. Of course, the real kicker was that all of this perfection had to be affordable-I am a college student on a budget, after all.
The search for the perfect set of chairs turned out to be more challenging than I had anticipated. After spending countless hours searching fruitlessly for these chairs, the thought of turning to the Internet to quickly find and purchase a set of chairs became very attractive. I eagerly opened my laptop. A few hours after browsing several websites, I found what I thought to be my dream set of chairs. But when it came down to the wire and I was faced with the prominent “CHECKOUT” button on the screen in front of me, I hesitated. This was one of my first significant purchases on my own, and I was afraid to purchase online. The convenience that online furniture shopping offered did not abate the fear that the chairs that I would receive might not match up to the chairs that were pictured online. I was very weary of purchasing these chairs, especially since I had been having so much trouble finding good chairs in person. So much could go wrong: the chairs could be a few inches higher than the description on the website listed, the color could be off from the picture, the customers who raved about how comfortable the chairs were in their user reviews may not have the same standards of comfort as me. Ultimately, the inability to physically see and feel the chairs before purchase overrode the convenience offered to me by online shopping. After making this decision to forgo purchasing my dream chairs on the Internet, I wondered if other consumers had similar experiences with online furniture shopping. After reading a consumer behavior report published by mr.pricegrabber.com, I discovered that other consumers were just as hesitant as me about buying furniture online. In this report, 74% of consumers said that they research furniture online before making a purchase, but only 9% of consumers actually make the purchase online. Of the consumers that would not purchase furniture online, 70% said that they needed to see the actual product first and 7% admitted that they are afraid to make large purchases online. Both of these reasons were factors in my decision to decline from purchasing furniture online. Of the consumers that said they would purchase online, 34% reported price as their reason while 21% said convenience was the major factor in their decision. As we live in a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on the Internet, I wonder how furniture retailers can find a way to raise online furniture sales. Should they play up the convenience and price benefits, or should they focus on finding an innovative way to weaken the need to see the actual product before purchase?
In the end, I did find a perfect set of chairs that I bought in person from a local store. While this purchase will hopefully put me out of the chair market for a long time, I wonder if, by the time I need to buy a new set of chairs, consumers will have more confidence in online furniture shopping.
Erica DeBrock is a double major in BEM (with a concentration in Marketing) and Spanish.
Erica DeBrock is a double major in BEM (with a concentration in Marketing) and Spanish.
Are you a "One-Click" Amazon purchaser? What I find is that when I decide I want to buy something and go through the process of purchasing it (entering in my address, credit card information, shipping preferences, etc.) doubt starts to enter my mind. It is very difficult to get myself to make up my mind as I go through this phase, and I am just like you - I begin to doubt my future purchase. However, I am much more quick to press the "One-click" button, because I don't want to go through the emotional battle I have when I go through the ~ 5 page checkout screens. It would be interesting to see if there are different purchase patterns and habits between those users who use "One-click" and those who use the traditional method of checking out.
ReplyDeleteOf course, purchasing furniture is a big-ticket item that I would not want to mess up. Was there anything specific holding you back like return policy or shipping costs? It would be interesting for Amazon to uncover the concerns that consumers have at that last step in the process and see what they could do to push them to click "Submit."
-TFL