CROSS-BORDER ONLINE SHOPPING AND TURKISH CONSUMERS’ CAUSES FOR HESITATION

Although cross-border online shopping (CBOS) provides the consumers with multiple advantages ranging from easy access for locally unavailable products to reasonably lower prices, current data reveal that individuals hesitate engaging in CBOS. Identifying the present problems causing the hesitation to buy online internationally is very important both from the aspect of businesses and the consumers. By indicating the reasons of hesitation, businesses could easily focus their marketing activities to prevent the hesitations and increase the amount of purchases from their web sites, on the other hand being aware that customers are performing a major role in marketing, finding out the factors that are essentially affecting the purchasing intentions and behaviors of Turkish consumers on international online environment is vital. Thus, the purpose of this research is to find out about the factors that prevent the consumers to engage in cross-border online shopping and moreover to figure out whether there is a difference regarding the problem perceptions of the individuals who have already engaged with the concept and the consumers who had never dealed with CBOS. Research results revealed that the problem perceptions are significantly lower for the former group, indicating that as the consumers get experienced, their hesitations regarding the concept decreases.