Abstract:

The rapid growth of internet and online socio-economic activities has changed the way consumers transact. The activity of visiting a physical store has been replaced by online shopping and retailers can now easily reach global markets from their local base, without the need for outlet space and warehousing. This enables retailer to offer more competitive pricing on their products. The retailer plays a critical role in this context. This study provides a comprehensive evaluation on the impact of retailer characteristics observed in the concept of online purchasing intention. The evaluation will lay the foundation to identify the gap in research in this regard, as well as its scope for further research. 

This study has employed a thematic analysis approach to identify, analyze and report data. This study employs forty three (n=43) leading and peer-reviewed conferences and indexed journals between year 2010 and 2015 for the evaluation. Those variables were categories to ten (n=10) sub themes based on its working definitions. The different types of relationships and their moderating and mediating effect on the relationship between independent variable and dependent variable have been considered in this analysis. 

Further studies need to focus more on retailer’ characteristics and their antecedents, which are not clear. Since, product type and price of a product are critical factors need to be explored its moderating capability. When exploring the factors effecting online purchase intention must focus on each product category separately (virtual item/ real item) and it doesn’t work together.  Future research should explore a wider range of variables with a comprehensive integrated model.