With the increasing number of online shopping in Nigeria, the need to understand the key predictors of consumers’ choice to shop online has become legitimate and urgent. While extant literatures are replete with such investigations, most emerging economy contexts are heavily under-researched. Using this as a point of departure, this paper seeks to answer the question: why do consumers shop online in such emerging economy context as Nigeria? The study was based on selected online shoppers in Awka, a growing metropolitan city in Nigeria that represents an emerging economy context. Data were collected using questionnaire based on a quota sampling of 110 respondents. Factor Analysis and Multiple Regression were used to reduce the data and test the hypotheses respectively. Analysis of the data show that online shopping experience, and impulse purchase orientation are significant in determining online shopping patronage; while online trust is not significant. The finding has serious implication for e-commerce policy formulation and web management decision among others.
Keywords: Emerging Market, Nigeria, Online Shopping, impulse purchase, internet retailing., online shopping experience, online trust
