E-Retailing: An assessment of the Mauritian Consumers’ Behaviour towards On-line Shopping Vanisha Oogarah-Hanuman and HOK YIN Michael Stephen Abstract This research is about the study of the Mauritian consumer behaviour and its influence on online-shopping adoption. It has been undertaken due to the hype and growing importance of E-retailing worldwide and in a view of ascertaining whether Mauritian consumers can meet the government vision to turn Mauritius into a Cyber-Island. A critical review of the literature has been conducted based on Constantinides‟ online consumer behaviour model. Data has been collected from journals, internet sources, books and research agencies findings. A questionnaire prepared based on the literature review has been administered to a sample of 150 respondents who have been chosen and segmented according to each district gender proportion. The analysis showed that most of the respondents were unaccustomed to E-shopping. The existing online-shoppers have a high intention of shopping again in the future. The non-shoppers were indifferent about E-shopping but they seemed strongly interested in its convenience benefits. Young, educated, modest income-earners and online-experienced males are the ideal target market. However, risk is a strong deterrent online while branding plays a critical role to counteract it. A good and simplified web atmosphere can ease new-shoppers online. However, the Mauritian population is not “online” ready due to the current offline-shopping culture, the lack of necessary infrastructure and connectivity and costs barriers. Recommendations have been made accordingly. The government has a major role to play in instilling this online-shopping culture, through investment in infrastructures and lowering of connectivity and costs barriers. It should also provide opportunities for the marketers to go online and promote E-commerce laws. The study results have been consistent with similar research on this domain but further analyses are needed to validate these findings and to explore this subject extensively. Keywords: E-retailing, online shopping, E-consumer behaviour Field of Study: Marketing 1.0 Introduction The benefit of the internet as a strategic tool is so phenomenal that it has been a major catalyst to boost internet retailing in the 1990s. Amidst the hype of E-retailing, the dot-com bubble-burst in 2000, veered this mirage toward organisations‟ failures, such as Webvan (Ecommerce-Land, 2004). Yet only the fittest survived and since then, E-retailing has carried its legacy in the name of Amazon or Tesco; ______________________________ Vanisha Oogarah-Hanuman (Corresponding author), Lecturer in Strategic Management and Marketing, Faculty of Law and Management, University of Mauritius, v.hanuman@uom.ac.mu, Tel: 403-7524 HOK YIN Michael Stephen Fook Chong, Senior Auditor, Deloitte Ltd Mauritius, mikastefh@yahoo.com, Tel: 799-1107.