'Benefit of Exchange' as Anticedent of Online Buying Behavior among Rural Consumers in Emerging Economy

Penetration of technology in growing economies has led to a change in the dynamics of business during the last few years. A reflection on the changing dynamics of market, particularly rural market, has become imperative today. The overall growth of Indian economy has resulted into substantial rise in the purchasing power of the rural customers. A survey done by National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) shows that rise in rural incomes is keeping pace with urban incomes. The rural middle class is growing at 12% as compared to 13% in Urban area. These statistics call for understanding the consumer behaviour in rural India, the penetration of technology and e-commerce there and the factors affecting buying behaviour of rural consumers. The present study is designed keeping in view the importance of growing rural economy, in the rural setup of Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state of India. A questionnaire was thoroughly designed from existing literature and then factor analysis was applied to identify the four underlying themes in the data. The result shows that the perceived benefit of exchange is most favoured factor by respondents in the study. The next favoured factor is perceived ease of search product information followed by perceived ease of buying product and perceived ease of payment and delivery.