An Exploration of Online Shopping: Understanding the Factors for Consumer Adoption of Internet Shopping in Colombia

After the development of the internet in the 1980s, the business environment went through a revolution due to the increment of online sales among industries and products. However, electronic commerce has developed at different speeds in different regions and therefore, in this document, internet shopping adoption among Colombians is explored and the main determining factors are described. In order to understand the theory behind online shopping acceptance, five theories were explored (Theory of Planed Behaviour, Theory of Reasoned Action, Technology Acceptance Model, Transactional Cost Theory and Innovation Diffusion Theory), and a large number of empirical documents were reviewed in this research. The data was collected using qualitative and quantitative research methods and it comprises ten exploratory interviews and a survey with 126 respondents from Bogota and Cali. The results were analysed and processed using NVivo10 and SPSS 23.0. The findings suggested that the main determinants of online shopping were reliability and trustworthiness, branding, security and price. However, the main limitation was access to payment methods. There was also evidence of cultural and technological barriers. However, it was recommended that further research be conducted in this area