Offline Vs Online Buying: An Assessment through Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach

Abstract

Based on ‘Prospect theory' proposed by Kahneman and Tversky (1979), this paper explores determinants of consumer preferences with the perspective of risks involved with the online marketing.  Hence its application in assessing the channel preference is suitable as consumers have face conflicting decision tradeoffs when deciding about the channel to buy. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been chosen for analysis of the problem. AHP (Saaty, 1980) can tackle multi-criteria problems of choice and prioritization. This paper uses it for its simplicity, ease of use, and great flexibility (Ho, 2008). It tries to establish customers' preference for online or offline buying in three product category namely Apparel, Grocery and Jewelry. This paper aims to contribute to the academia by providing the unexplored area of decision making and for practitioners it aspires to provide an insight about consumer preferences.