Exploring Gender Disparities in Online Shopping Attitudes Among University Students in Developing Nations

Until recently, online shopping has emerged as the future trend in developing countries, even though it has long been well-established in most developed nations. Nonetheless, the impact of gender on attitudes towards online purchasing and the factors influencing university students’ inclination to shop online in developing countries have largely been disregarded. This paper aims to propose a model based on the results confirmed from the interviews that could help to fill this gap in knowledge. For this purpose, a qualitative study was conducted through semi-structured interviews and focus groups and a back and forth between the literature and the field results had allowed us to propose a preliminary model that integrates attributes from theory of reasoned action, the perceived risk factors and the diffusion of innovation theory. This three-factor framework had helped us in understanding the perceptions and the attitudes of university students while shopping online and could possibly ease the ground for a larger scale study in developing countries in the future.