Identifying Key Factors Affecting Purchase of IT&C Products by Young Consumers in the Multichannel Retailing Context

Abstract

In today’s retail environment, consumers may use printed catalogs in order to discover product’s features, search for information online, make purchases in bricks-and-mortar stores, and get their post-purchase services through call centers. In fact, most consumers are cross-shoppers, using online and offline channels in the same shopping process.

This article appears in the context of such an issue and aims both to present the increasingly multichannel nature of the shopping behaviour and to identify and understand the motivations and attitudes of the young people in the process of purchasing specific products, namely IT&C products. Through reviewing the literature, the article firstly clarifies the characteristics of the shopping experience in the case of a multi- and omni-channel strategy in retail, and then presents the results of an exploratory research carried out on a sample of 340 students of the Faculty of Business and Tourism, third year of study at undergraduate or master program. The research undertaken allowed the identification of some useful issues in the activity of companies that sell IT&C products, in terms of an important segment of their market, respectively youth with higher education. Therefore, the research indicates the main online & offline sources of information used in the decision making process of purchasing IT&C products, the features of the classic (bricks-and-mortar) and online stores that become determinants factors in the choice of the store, and the criteria used for choosing IT & C products. Results of the research are presented in a comparative approach between buying behavior of the undergraduate students and master students.