KEY FACTORS INFLUENCING CUSTOMERS' DECISION TO BUY CORRUGATED BOXES FOR E-COMMERCE MARKET.

Abstract

E-commerce has been booming in Thailand since 2014, and it seems to be unstoppable during COVID-19 pandemic. The transaction is growing faster and faster, and to deliver the products, the packaging especially the corrugated box is required. Expanding business to E-commerce market, corrugated box sellers may face the inventory costs from keeping dead stocks. The problem is occurred due to a lack of understanding in customers’ buying decision. Thus, this research aims to identify the factors influencing customers buying decision for corrugated box in e-commerce market and to study deeply on how these affect the buying decision. The quantitative approach was applied to this paper, and the data were collected through electronic questionnaire, Google Form, with the screened respondents of 100 samples. Those respondents were the business owners who need corrugated box to pack their products. The result showed that the price of boxes is the most influential factors among other factors as it is also the cost of box customer’s side and it is found that this factor is extremely sensitive. Physical attributes is referred to strength and the water and moisture resistance, which plays a vital roles during stacking products on pallets and delivering process. Services offers customers convenience in many aspects such as on-time and free delivery, making sample before production, free box design service, defects claim, and consulting services. The design of the boxes can be a part in customer’s marketing tools and add value to the products to represent the brand. Moreover, the factor of sellers is included in this paper as the good relationship between the box buyer and the box seller can block other sellers to compete in the industry. The findings of this paper are applicable to the sellers who are looking for an opportunity to expand their business to online platform or e-commerce market. Therefore, if they understand these factors, they have high tendency to reduce the inventory cost for storing dead stocks as well as capture more customers.