Differences in Online Shopping Behaviors : A Comparison across Gender and Age

Abstract

With the advent of the Internet in the recent decades, online shopping has become more commonplace. Many are migrating from traditional, brick-and-mortar stores to online stores. Among these shoppers, three age groups are the most identifiable: Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers. Millennials are the newest generation of consumers in the market, yet they have already show a strong presence on the online marketplace. Generation X and Baby Boomers cohorts also participate in e-commerce after slowly adapting to the Internet. Yet Internet shopping has inherent risk: like any other form of shopping, online customers are engaging in risky behaviors through their entire purchase. Risky behaviors have been shown to be predicted by the Big Five Personality Traits. In this study, the author showed that Millennials show the strongest preference for Internet shopping out of the three generations. However, Millennial cohorts are less risky behaviorally than older generations.