The article is aimed to investigate the influence of an individual’s demographic characteristics such as gender, age, income, marital status and family type on online purchase intention. For accomplishing objectives, the study has adopted a survey by questionnaire methodology for collection of data from a sample of 234 respondents in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Quota sampling technique was adopted for drawing a sample from a population of consumers with some experience and knowledge about online shopping. Hypothesis testing was performed by employing multivariate regression. The results depict that there exists a significant difference in the perception of consumers across various groups of gender, age, marital status and family structures towards online purchase intention. Young, male consumers who are single were found to have a higher score for e-shopping intention than old, female-married consumers. Further consumers belonging to joint families were found to have a positive intention towards online shopping than nuclear family consumers. Online retailers can apply present research findings to renovate their business operations, consumer support services and marketing tactics. Positioning and segmentation strategies require clear understanding about consumer’s needs, characteristic and requirements. Demographic characteristics of an individual have scarcely been studied in the internet shopping literature. Therefore, it is crucial to understand various drivers which compel Indian consumers to shop online in order to frame various marketing strategies that cater their changing needs.

PurposeThe study is aimed to identify the determinants of online buying behavior and their associations with the consequences of online buying behavior. The study adopted an e-loyalty framework and investigated causal links among functionality, usability, trust, commitment and loyalty. In addition, the study also attempted to investigate the mediating role of trust and commitment between online buying determinants and online purchasing outcomes. The demographic variables of age, gender and income are used as control variables.Design/methodology/approachAn online questionnaire survey was conducted on Internet users by adopting purposive sampling technique. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was employed for measurement development, SEM was used for testing causal links, and percentile bootstrap with 95% confidence interval was used for mediation analysis.FindingsSignificant positive relationships were found among functionality, usability, trust, commitment and loyalty. Trust was found to fully mediate the effect of functionality and usability on loyalty. It was also found that commitment fully mediates the effect of functionality on loyalty.Research limitations/implicationsHowever, caution is advised while generalizing results of this study. The study was conducted on online retailing only. The authors recommend future studies to extend the research in other e-commerce sectors and also to perform a comparative study between online and offline retailing.Practical implicationsThis study provides some practical implications to website developers in designing a web page that caters the functionality and usability aspects in understanding e-loyalty formation process so that appropriate marketing strategies and tactics can be established to accommodate customized loyalty of each customer.Originality/valueThe study demonstrates the customer loyalty formation process in online retailing. Scanty literature has witnessed mediating role of trust and commitment in the relationships among functionality, usability and loyalty along with age, gender and monthly family income as controls in Indian sub-continent.

Private-label brands (PLBs) are spreading their operations in all product categories and have marked their presence in almost all types of retail formats. They are posing stringent competition to national brands (NBs), be it offline (organized and unorganized) retail or online retail. Besides being favourites of value-conscious Indian consumers, PLBs are becoming a key focus of channel partners as well. In this context, the present research article is aimed at providing insights about how PLBs are able to garner the profit-centric interests of channel partners and how they are affecting the distribution of NBs in the unorganized retail sector. The study is based on information collected through semi-structured interviews with distributors and retailers from Haryana and Punjab. A thematic analysis was performed to draw meaningful inferences from the responses collected through the semi-structured interviews. The results reveal that channel partners’ interest in the high margins of private labels and their interest in maintaining long-term relationships with the latter make NBs vulnerable on parameters such as sales effort investment, in-store visibility, ordering quantity and frequency and numeric distribution. This study provides bases for understanding private label operations in the unorganized retail sector in India.

Much research has been devoted to understanding sustainable consumption using factors from the theory of planned behaviour. However, very few researchers have studied the role of situational factors in this context. The present study is aimed to analyse the impact of preference of retail store and transportation mode on green purchase intention, which in turn affects sustainable consumption behaviour among retail consumers. A survey by questionnaire method was used to collect data from young Indian consumers from Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi. Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, data was collected through online mode from 280 respondents by adopting quota sampling. Linear regression analysis was performed to test the proposed hypotheses. The findings of the study reveal that the preference for retail stores have a significant positive effect on green purchase intention while transportation mode has a significant negative impact on green purchase intention. The two situational factors explain more than 27% of the variance in consumers' intention to purchase green products. The study also reported a significant positive impact of green purchase intention on sustainable consumption among young retail consumers. Finally, green purchase intention explained a 63% variance in sustainable consumption.

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