Perceived Risk in Online Buying: A Review

The tremendous increase in use of Internet and high growth of technology across the world including India has changed the business environment. Internet has become a major channel of communication. Use of smart phone has increased and has become very popular mode of accessing Internet. Online buying is growing at very fast rate in the world and India. Electronic commerce is also expanding. But the current level of online sales is a small percentage of the total retail sales in India. Amongst the many factors, perceived risk is considered to be a vital factor that affects online consumers’ buying intentions. Hence, to minimize perceived risk, understanding consumers’ online buying behavior and their risk perceptions are required. This study has been done to review and analyze available research to bring out factors influencing perceived risk, types of perceived risk and consequence of perceived risk on intention to online purchase. This will help marketers to plan the strategy to reduce consumers’ risk for online shopping and induce offline shoppers to become potential online customer, and provide suggestion to researchers.