E-commerce and consumer's purchasing behaviour

After its first exposure to the public in 1993, there has been a rapid increase in the use of the Internet for different purposes, particularly for electronic trade. In such a new trade area, there are a lot of issues to be addressed with regard to the consumer's purchasing behaviour. This study analyses the roles of sexual preference, primary place of online access, and online experience as well as demographic and economic factors on the consumer's purchasing decision. Moreover, this study investigates the impact of the potential and/or prevalent critical issues facing the Internet (e.g. taxation of services, privacy, censorship, etc.) on online orders. Surprisingly, sexual preferences have a large significant effect on online purchases. Gay and bisexual people are more likely to shop from the Internet than the other ones. The results, also, suggest that people with more online experiences in a more private and secure environment like home are disposed to order more from the Internet. In addition to that, only the issues of taxation of services and privacy have some statistically significant effects on online purchasing decisions. The former and latter have positive and negative impacts on online orders respectively.