An Analysis of Online Consumer Behavior Between Different Generations

Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Sociology - Consumption and Advertising, grade: 4, ¿zmir University of Economics, course: Online consumer behavior, language: English, abstract: As a result of the internet comes into our lives fast around the world, the shopping habits of individuals' have started to change. Technological developments bring forth the idea of the continuous change. This paper is focused on online consumer behavior between Gen Ys, Gen Xs and baby boomers. The importance of this study is to analyze and make evident of the reasons behind online shopping between different generations. Since the online shopping activities are increasing nowadays, it is necessary to understand the leading reasons behind individuals' online shopping activities in order to develop better choices for consumers in a competitive market.

The paper builds on the relevant literature and it examines the consumer behavior of individuals by questionnaires. Furthermore, the hedonic and utilitarian motivational functions and their sub-dimensions will be measured in order to understand the online consumer behavior. To reach those objectives, non-random/ convenience sampling method is applied in Izmir to 384 sample sizes to identify all aspects of the online shopping and impact on consumer behavior. The data results obtained revealed in the paper to support the research questions.

It is determined that there are significant levels of hedonic and utilitarian motivations on online shopping between generations. The differences are particularly observed between Gen Ys and baby boomers within the scope of utilitarian and between Gen Ys and older generations (Gen Xs and baby boomers) within the scope of hedonic motivations.

As a result of the evaluations according to questionnaire, the results show that marketers need to focus on marketing campaigns to Gen Xs and baby boomers about utilitarian motivations. Beside this, they should concentrate on more hedonic motivations for Gen Ys and develop new marketing strategies.