Effects of Online Shopping on Small Scale Offline Trading in Some Selected Shopping Complexes in Niger State, Nigeria
ABDULRAHMAN ALI SHUAIBU & MUHAMMAD FATIMA GARINWAKE
Department of Business Administration
Faculty of Management and Social Sciences
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University Lapai, Niger State
Email: aliabdulrahman211@gmail.com & Alfateam87@yahoomail.com
ABSTRACT
Along with growth and development of technology in the world comes changes in the ways goods and services are produced as well as the expectations of the consumers from the producers or sellers. One of the most notable breakthroughs of technology in the modern era and in the world of business is the electronic commerce, hence online shopping system. Online shopping system is an alternative and highly promising system of trading characterized by absence of face to face interaction between the buyer and seller but through the intermediation of technology gadgets particularly the internet. Therefore, this research work generally seeks to determine the effects of online shopping on small scale offline trading in some selected shopping complexes in Niger state. In addition, it seeks to determine whether these effects are significant and also determine the awareness level of offline traders on online shopping. In light of this, a total of 99 small scale stores in the selected complexes (Obasanjo shopping complex Minna and Etsu-Yahaya shopping complex, Bida) were sampled, out of which only 88 responded to the structured questionnaire administered for the purpose of data collection. The null hypothesis for the study states that online shopping has no significant effect on offline small scale trading while the alternative hypothesis states that online shopping has a significant effect on offline small scale trading. The statistical tool used for this study to test this hypothesis was “Chi Square Goodness of Fit test” computed using Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. The test led to the null hypothesis being rejected. The study found that online shopping affects offline small scale trading in several ways such as price fall, decline in profitability, increased requests for discounts by customers, increased window shopping, reduced store traffic and stimulates offline traders to diversify into online trading platform or a more technology driven operation system. The study therefore, concluded that the identified effects of online shopping on small scale offline trading are partially significant as evidenced from the data analysis. Therefore, it was recommended that offline store should adopt measure which will help reduce their cost of operation in order to allow for lower prices and also develop new store formats such as Virtual showroom, Flexible formats, and Mash ups as strategies for competing favorably with online stores.