Convenience is one of the main reasons why consumers make online purchases (Jayawardhena et al., 2003). Males particularly find online shopping more convenient than females (Hui & Wan, 2007). However, while the aspect of convenience helps to enhance online purchases of consumers, the aspect of security prevents Internet purchases from rising. This is basically because females perceive online purchasing to be more risky than males (Garbarino & Strahilevitz, 2004). In other words, males have more confidence in online shopping than females and find it more practical and convenient (Rodgers & Harris, 2003). According to Shim et al. (2001), influences on consumers’ intention to shop online include such factors as payment security, privacy, security and product guarantees. Dennis et al. (2002) found that shoppers were still concerned about online buying. Should e-retailers operating in the online environment wish to take full advantage of e-marketing activities, they have to find ways of altering the public’s perception of their trustworthiness (Kolsaker & Payne, 2002). As the perceived risk of online buying drops, consumers’ willingness to buy rises. Therefore, while e-marketers target female consumers in particular, they should also make an effort in order to minimize females’ risk perception of online shopping (Garbarino & Strahilevitz, 2004).
In the study in which Donthu and Garcia (1999) compared the Internet shopper and nonshopper, they concluded that no gender differences existed between Internet shoppers and nonshoppers. Teo and Lim (1997) found, on the other hand, some significant gender differences in online purchasing activities in their study. According to Teo and Lim (2000), the probable reason for these differences was due to males being more experienced in computers and computing compared to females, leading to the possibility that they are better able to carry out such kinds of activities. In the online research carried out by Chang and Samuel (2004), they found some statistically significant associations between the demographic characteristics of Internet users (gender, age, income and location) and the frequency of online purchases and expenditures of the consumers. Accordingly, the percentage of males with five or more online purchases is higher than females. Moreover, the percentage of males spending 100 Aus$ and above per online transaction is higher compared to females (Chang & Samuel, 2004). According to Van den Poel and Buckinx (2005), gender is a significant demographic variable related to online purchasing behavior. According to this study, males, in comparison to females, have a greater tendency to make an online purchase in their next web site visits. In addition, Cyr and Bonanni (2005) show that males spend more time and money on online purchases than the amount of time spent by females.
Online consumers and traditional consumers follow a similar pattern of purchasing behaviors. However, they perform this faster and more thoroughly in online shopping compared to traditional purchasing (Jayawardhena et al., 2003). However, there are also some gender-based differences in online shopping behavior. For instance, if females are the fundamental purchasing agents in their families, they take more pleasure in shopping compared to males. In this sense, the positive image of in-store purchases is greater for females compared to males. On the other hand, if females are shopping merely out of necessity, their perception of online shopping is more positive compared to in-store purchases (Alreck & Setle, 2002). Females regard in-store purchases more positively in terms of hedonic benefit (Dholakia & Uusitalo, 2002). Some other research results also support this finding. For instance, according to the study of Rodgers and Harris (2003), males found the experience of online shopping more satisfying than females. In other words, the females taking part in that particular study were emotionally less satisfied with online-shopping compared to males.
One of the fundamental reasons why online purchases are not made is the preference of the consumers to browse the products (Teo, 2002). Because females particularly fail to interact physically like touching when shopping online, they dislike online shopping. In other words, they are emotionally less satisfied with online shopping (Hui & Wan, 2007). However, when it is compared with traditional shopping, there is a consensus that online shopping has attractive attributes. The attractive attributes of Internet shopping includes time and money savings; convenience and easy accessibility; access to an alternative range of products and being able to choose from a wide variety; the availability of information for making a purchase and ordering decisions (Kim & Kim, 2004).