Impact of Digital Payments on Consumer Buying Behavior

Table of Contents

Introduction

In the modern era of digitalization even payment methodology is digitalized by changing from cash to cashless with the introduction of digital payment. That is total Transaction Value in the "Digital Payments" segment amounts to US$2,672,420m in 2017.Many people from all over the world have started adapting to the change due to various reasons. Though some people are reluctant to this change, on the other side the benefits of the digital transaction is high to both the Government and to the people. On seeing the benefits of the digital payments Government started promoting cashless transactions, one such program is “Digital India programme” it is a flagship program initiative by the Government of India to promote the cashless economy. But, still the number of people who uses digital transaction in India on an average is less due to lack of internet facility, lack of literacy and fear of insecurity etc. The various digital payments mode in India includes Banking cards, USSD, AEPS, UPI, Mobile Wallets, Point of Sale, Internet Banking, Mobile banking, Micro ATM’s and Bank prepaid cars. So, in this report we will be discussing how all these digital payment modes affected the consumer buying behavior.

Project Research Objective

As said earlier with increasing adaption of digital payment mode we tried to understand whether this adaption is making an impact on the buying behavior of the consumer. We tried to understand this by answering the following questions

1.Whether the spending pattern has changed after using digital payment mode?

2.If there is a change then whether it is common across all ages or only to certain age limits?

3.To what extent does literacy play a role in this change?

4.Does gender make a difference in this change?

5.Does amount of money plays a vital role in this change?

We tried to answer these questions in our research through surveys, interviews, and other market research methods.

Insights from the Interview:

Questions were created in a motto to find the changes in the buying behavior of customers. The questions were asked to interviewees of age 20-30, 30-40, 50+ to get spectrum of responses based on their age difference.

The interview started with asking about average shopping expenses of the interviewee and it went onto cover what mode of payment they prefer, why do they prefer that mode of payment, had they ever used the digital payment mode if so what are the challenges they had encountered, for what range of transaction do they prefer digital transaction, in what shops do they prefer digital transaction etc.

And what we got from the interview was the response changed across the age group, usually people from the age of 20-30 used digital transaction very often than other age groups similarly people of age 30+ preferred cash when compared to digital transaction. Similarly, people who prefer cash tend to use digital payment mode only when there is an advantage of digital payment (like cash back, reward points) over cash. Some people found insecurities while using digital payments, some people said that if they pay through they need not think twice but through digital payment they be careful and should check where and in what site they are using it. Some said there spending pattern increased and for some it reminded the same again it varied across the age group.

 In the in-depth interview we found that our questions focused on changes in spending pattern along with preference of one mode over other because of which we couldn’t completely study the changes in behavior. As the results varied across different age and literacy rate we included those questions in our survey questionnaire and removed questions that focused too much on the preference of payment mode of the people. We also found that the digital payment is mean not only for shopping and so we removed the shopping expense question and added questions which shows how frequently they pay through digital payment.

Data Collection and Research Methodology

 Source of Data:

1. In depth interview was conducted for about 10 people of different age group, gender and educational back ground. The responses were studied and analyzed.  
2. Based on the in-depth interview analysis the questionnaire was made and the survey was conducted.

Research Methodology

Qualitative research

For developing the survey questionnaire, in-depth interviews were conducted for about 10 interviewees of different age group and gender. The interview is conducted in a motto to come with the proper survey questionnaire which helps us to find the changes in buying behavior. Set of questions were asked to the interviewees in the in-depth interview to understand whether we were able to measure the changes in the buying behavior. Based on the responses analysis is made to check the changes in buying behavioral change. By this process some insightful questions were added and some redundant questions were removed for the survey questionnaire.

Quantitative research

After the in-depth interview is carried out we analyzed the responses to check whether the changes in behavior was interpreted as required. Based on the results the new questionnaire was developed and survey was conducted. The survey got a response of about 149 with gender diversity of 37% and 90% of people with education level of at least under graduation . These survey responses were further taken into marketing research tools like SPSS to study the behavioral change of consumers.