Privacy Security of online Shopping

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- Qualitative method:

- Interviews

- Quantitative method:

- Questionnaires

- Document reviews

Sample Design

The population of the sample was students attending Humber College, Lakeshore campus. To be more specific, the group will focus on students who conduct excessive online purchases, preferably the Fashion and Business School.

First, questionnaires were distributed at building L, H and I in the span of 7 days. Since the noon around 12-1 pm is the time the campus is most crowded, we chose this to distribute the questionnaires. Each questionnaire should be done and retrieved in less than 10 minutes. We were able to send out 40 questionnaires, in which 35 was received back. Hence, the respond rate was 87.5%. Most of the missing 5 questionnaires were given the option of returning later in the day, but never showed up.

The interview method was mentioned earlier, but in the process, the group found it almost impossible to conduct, due to the nature of the topic. Online purchase tends to be private information, and obviously people do not wish to share theirs. After consideration, the group decided the data collected from the questionnaires would be the main data for the research.

Additionally, the group investigated the resources through the library and articles as secondary research. The data collected from this served only as revision and comparison, because library and articles data tends to be biased and outdated, without any ways to verify.

Assigning roles for each team members was done by volunteering, as each member tends to have a different timetable from the others. This way, all the members should have a clear order and mindset to concentrate on the project. Although, some assignments were imperative, which requires members to make time for them. It was also the responsibility of the team leader to manage members.

Time Line

Topic

Time

Questionnaire

26 October 2015

Data Collection

10 November 2015

Analysis

17 November 2015

Report Preparation

2 December 2015

Results

The results are based on the analysis of each answer of the questionnaire using statistical techniques.

- What is your gender?

[pic 1]

The data of the first question indicates that the population of the sample was almost the same between male and female.

- How often do you perform each of the tasks online?

[pic 2]

The chart above shows that the people who buy books online are distributed almost evenly. The people who download study material, do so more every month and some even download it quarterly. But no people download it half yearly or annually. Most of the persons pay fees half yearly or quarterly and very few even pay that annually.

- Please check the approximate maximum amount of money that you would feel comfortable spending on a single online purchase.

[pic 3]

1 - $60

2- $120

3- $250

4- $500

5- $1000

The chart above shows that most of the people spent $60 on their single online purchase and least number of people spent $500. An almost equal number of people spent $250, $120 and $1000 on a single purchase.

- How often do you engage in the following activities in a month?

[pic 4]

The above chart shows that maximum number of people sometimes search online for a product and buy it in store. This number is equally high for searching sometimes online with no intention to buy and buy it online only. A very few people search online and always buy online. There are also few people who search online and never buy online.

- How important are each of the following factors in motivating you to shop online?

[pic 5]

The upper chart shows that most of the people pay importance to the ease of online shopping that they do not have to go out of the house. A large group of people find online products cheaper that they are stores and an equal number of people find it time saving. Some people think that it saves their transportation cost. There are also few people who do not give much importance to the above said aspects.

- How important are each of the following as a concern to you regarding online shopping in general?

[pic 6]

It can be easily seen that very large number of people give extreme importance to risk of identity theft, risk of loss of privacy. Almost equal number of people are concerned for mistakes in credit card transaction during online shopping. Significant number of people are concerned about no or delayed delivery of products.

- When comparing and trying to select specific vendor to shop from, how is each of the following factors to you?

[pic 7]

The above graph shows that factors like easy functionality of website, security of website, fast delivery, multiple payment options, etc. affect the people most when they shop online and compare one website with the other.

- If you become aware of a data leak at any website that you routinely use, would you suspend the use of this website?

[pic 8]

This chart shows that a large number people will stop the use of the website if they find any data leak on that website but there are few people who