Risk in Contemporary Economy (May 2015)
THE STUDY OF COMPULSIVE BEHAVIOR IN ONLINE SHOPPING
Abstract
Despite the prevalence of Internet in our everyday life, little is known about consumer buying behavior in on-line purchases. Moreover, consumer buying disorder (CBD), one of the new addictions of the era, is poorly researched in the Romanian literature. This study aimed at identifying whether this disorder is present among Romanian students that purchase on-line through a questionnaire applied to 100 students attending the University „Dunarea de Jos” of Galati. An analysis of the responses yields that a 13% of the studied sample indeed presents characteristics of this disorder and confirms previous global studies that the compulsive buyers are majoritarian women. This work increases our understanding of on-line consumer buying behavior and will contribute to future research on similar topics.