The impact of university students’ tendency to purchase from e-commerce sites and demographic characteristics on student satisfaction in the digital era: Case of a foundation university

Abstract

This study mainly aimed to examine the impact of university students' purchasing tendency from e-commerce sites and demographic characteristics on student satisfaction through the example of a leading foundation research university in Türkiye. In the study, it was investigated whether there was a significant difference between students' purchasing tendencies from e-commerce sites and student satisfaction. It was also investigated whether there was a significant difference between demographic characteristics and student satisfaction. Methodologically, a descriptive online survey method including a questionnaire was applied to collect data. The survey was responded by 240 randomly selected students. The data were analyzed with SPSS-26. The study concluded that there was no significant difference between the average daily time spent on the internet and the type of device used to connect to e-commerce sites, which are among the criteria reflecting the tendency to purchase from e-commerce sites, and student satisfaction whereas there was a significant difference between the number of products purchased through e-commerce sites and student satisfaction. Furthermore, it was revealed that there was no significant difference between demographic characteristics such as gender, marital status, education and monthly income and student satisfaction, whereas there was a significant difference between age and student satisfaction. Accordingly, it was indicated that the difference in terms of age was especially in favor of students in the 22-25 age group. It is thought that the study will contribute to the literature by examining the impact of university students' purchasing tendency from e-commerce sites and demographic characteristics on student satisfaction, together with the example of a leading foundation research university. The study is limited by the selected sample foundation research university, the number of students responded, survey questions-answers, the applied statistical analysis methods and tests. Therefore, in order to reach more general results, it is suggested to expand the studies with more diverse and larger numbers of foundation research universities, students, survey questions and statistical methods.