The Changing trends of Airline Distribution toward Online Sales and Customer’s Intention towards Online Purchases A Case Study on Ethiopian Airlines International Passengers
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Date
2014-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The objective of this research paper is to show the changing trends of airline distribution toward online sale and customer’s intention towards online purchases through the different attributes and characters the airline’s website shows on customer’s attitude formation.
Relevant literatures were used in the area of airline marketing; distribution marketing; relationship marketing; customer loyalty and consumer behavior theories. The model adopted to develop the survey questions was the online airline tickets attitude model. The research methodology adopted for this study is descriptive research, through the use of frequency statistics, one way ANOVA and correlation as tools to describe the relationships between the different constructs. In the study, perceived risk, price perception, convenience, level of involvement, variety of choice, familiarity with the internet and security/privacy in online purchase were analyzed to see their impact on customer’s attitude towards online purchase of airline tickets.
The research findings clearly indicated that the customer’s attitude towards online purchase of tickets is affected by perceived financial risk from online purchase, price perception, and familiarity to the internet, and level of involvement, the privacy and security of purchases, the convenience of using the internet and the availability of different choices on the online site.
The significance of this research paper can be seen from the second largest operational cost the airline is facing, the cost of global distributions systems (GDS). Because of the capital intensive nature of the industry and increase in operational costs such as fuel airlines are adopting strategies towards cost reduction. Decreasing the cost with regards to GDS, having the means to reach customers first without the middle men through direct marketing plays pivotal importance for getting competitive advantage over others which enables airlines achieve their objective set and the overall success
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Keywords
online sales, customer’s intention, online purchases