THE ROLE OF GENDER IN ONLINE SHOPPING- A LITERATURE REVIEW

<p>&nbsp;The development of Internet has resulted in enormous business<br>prospects and opportunities and given new direction to traditional commercial<br>activities. E- Commerce emerged as the need of the hour. The business-toconsumer (B2C) is the most visible and prominent progeny of e-commerce. B2C&nbsp;<br>is a commercial process that starts with companies and ends with end consumers.&nbsp;<br>Online shopping is an emerging area in the field of E-Business and is surely<br>going to be the future of shopping in the world. The benefits of online shopping&nbsp;<br>are well known. The most common incentives for consumers to shop online are<br>convenience, competitive pricing, greater access to information, complementarily<br>of traditional stores and broader selections. Most of the companies are running<br>their online portals to selltheir products/services online. Though online shopping<br>has made enormous progressoutside India, its growth in the Indian market, which&nbsp;<br>is a large and diverse consumer market, is still not in line with the global market.<br>On-line shopping in India is significantly affected by various demographic factors&nbsp;<br>like age, gender, marital status, family size and income. Substantial amount of&nbsp;<br>research work has been carried out on all these areas. The impact of these factors<br>on online shopping behavior is fascinating to say the least. But the most&nbsp;<br>mysterious of them all is the impact of gender on the acceptance or rejection of&nbsp;<br>online shopping. Do men and women behave differently during the online&nbsp;<br>shopping processes or do they exhibit same kinds of behavior during this process?<br>This article will try to throw some light on the extremely valuable but often<br>neglected role of gender in the online shopping behavior of consumers.</p>