08-10-2012, 11:32 AM
CONSUMER ONLINE SHOPPING ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR: AN ASSESSMENT OF RESEARCH
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Abstract
The current status of studies of online shopping attitudes and behavior is investigated through an analysis of
35 empirical articles found in nine primary Information Systems (IS) journals and three major IS conference
proceedings. A taxonomy is developed based on our analysis. A conceptual model of online shopping is
presented and discussed in light of existing empirical studies. Areas for further research are discussed.
Introduction
Electronic commerce has become one of the essential characteristics in the Internet era. According to UCLA Center for
Communication Policy (2001), online shopping has become the third most popular Internet activity, immediately following e-mail
using/instant messaging and web browsing. It is even more popular than seeking out entertainment information and news, two
commonly thought of activities when considering what Internet users do when online. Of Internet users, 48.9 percent made online
purchases in 2001, with three-quarters of purchasers indicating that they make 1-10 purchases per year (2001, p.38). When
segmented into very versus less experienced Internet users, the very experienced users average 20 online purchases per year, as
compared to four annual purchases for new users (2001, p.38).
Online shopping behavior (also called online buying behavior and Internet shopping/buying behavior) refers to the process of
purchasing products or services via the Internet. The process consists of five steps similar to those associated with traditional
shopping behavior (Liang and Lai 2000). In the typical online shopping process, when potential consumers recognize a need for
some merchandise or service, they go to the Internet and search for need-related information. However, rather than searching
actively, at times potential consumers are attracted by information about products or services associated with the felt need. They
then evaluate alternatives and choose the one that best fits their criteria for meeting the felt need. Finally, a transaction is
conducted and post-sales services provided. Online shopping attitude refers to consumers psychological state in terms of making
purchases on the Internet.
There have been intensive studies of online shopping attitudes and behavior in recent years. Most of them have attempted to
identify factors influencing or contributing to online shopping attitudes and behavior. The researchers seem to take different
perspectives and focus on different factors in different ways. For example, Case, Burns, and Dick (2001, p.873) suggest that
internet knowledge, income, and education level are especially powerful predictors of Internet purchases among university
students according to an online survey of 425 U.S. undergraduate and MBA students. Ho and Wu (1999) discover that there are
positive relationships between online shopping behavior and five categories of factors, which include e-stores logistical support,
product characteristics, websites technological characteristics, information characteristics, and homepage presentation. Schubert
and Selz (1999) examine the quality factors of electronic commerce sites in terms of information, agreement, and settlement
phases. They also review those factors related to e-commerce community
Method
As a phenomenon, online shopping became popular in the mid-1990s with the popularization of the World Wide Web (WWW).
Correspondingly, the subsequent years saw the appearance of research studies conducted to develop an understanding of users
online behavior. Given the fact that it usually takes a year or two to have a research published, we decided to restrict our search
of research articles to the period of January 1998 to February 2002. The other two criteria for selection are (1) that the articles
are empirical in nature, and (2) that the articles measure at least one of the identified factors in our taxonomy (see below).
We systematically searched the following nine primary Information Systems (IS) journals: Communications of the ACM, Decision
Support Systems, e-Service Journal, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, International Journal of Human-Computer
Studies, Information Systems Research, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of Management Information
Systems, and, Management Information Systems Quarterly. In addition, we searched three primary IS conference proceedings
volumes: International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS), Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS), and
Hawaii International Conference on Systems Science (HICSS). We also checked the reference sections of the selected articles
to identify and include additional prominent articles in this area.
A Taxonomy of Consumer Online Shopping Attitudes and Behavior
A total of 35 empirical studies are analyzed in this study. Of these, 29 of them used survey method. Other research methods such
as lab experiments and free simulation experiments are occasionally employed. Each of these studies addresses some aspect of
online shopping attitudes and behavior. Our goal is to develop a taxonomy representing factors/aspects related to online shopping
attitudes and behavior covered in the existing empirical IS literature.
For example, Bellman, Lohse and Johnson (1999) examine the relationship among demographics, personal characteristics, and
attitudes towards online shopping. These authors find that people who have a more wired lifestyle and who are more timeconstrained
tend to buy online more frequently, i.e., those who use the Internet as a routine tool and/or those who are more time
starved prefer shopping on the Internet. Bhatnagar, Misra and Rao (2000) measure how demographics, vender/service/ product
characteristics, and website quality influence the consumers attitude towards online shopping and consequently their online
buying behavior. They report that the convenience the Internet affords and the risk perceived by the consumers are related to the
two dependent variables (attitudes and behavior) positively and negatively, respectively.
Jarvenpaa, Tractinsky, and Vitale (2000) investigate how consumers perceived store size and reputation influence their trust in
the store, risk perception, attitudes, and willingness to buy at the specific store. They discover that there is a positive relationship
between consumer trust in Internet stores and the stores perceived reputation and size. Higher consumer trust also reduces
perceived risks associated with Internet shopping and generates more favorable attitudes towards shopping at a particular store,
which in turn increases willingness to purchase from that store. Jahng, Jain, and Ramamurthy (2001) propose and validate a
Technology/Product Fit Model to describe and predict the relationship between product characteristics, e-commerce environment
characteristics, and user outcomes. They classify products sold on the Internet as belonging to four categories based on social and
product presence requirements: simple, experiential, complex, or social. When a positive fit is established between the ecommerce
environment and the product requirements, favorable user outcomes are generated that include user satisfaction,
decision confidence, e-commerce acceptance, and purchase intent.
External Environment
Only two out of 35 studies discuss the influence of external environment on online shopping. External environment refers to those
contextual factors that impact consumers online shopping attitudes and behavior. It includes three dimensions. The first is the
existing legal framework that protects the consumers from any kind of loss in online transactions. The second is the system of
the Third Party Recognition in which many third party certification bodies are working to ensure the trustworthiness of online
vendors (Borchers 2001). These two factors are positively associated with consumers trust attitude to the online stores. The third
factor is the numbers of competitors, which can be defined as the number of Internet stores that provide the same service and
products (Lee et al. 2000, p.307). Lee and colleagues (2000) argue that the fewer the competing vendors, the greater the
possibility of opportunistic behavior on the part of existing vendors so as to maximize profits. This increases transaction costs
for the consumer, decreasing intention to revisit a specific online store.
Website Quality
Twenty studies investigate the relationship between website quality and consumers online shopping attitudes and behavior from
different points of view. For example, Gefen and Straub (2000) investigate the impact of perceived ease of use (PEOU) and
perceived usefulness (PU) on e-commerce adoption using 202 MBA students as subjects. They report that while PU affects
intended use when a Web site is used for a purchasing task, PEOU only has an indirect influence on online shopping behavior
by directly influencing PU. Lee et al. (2001) obtain the similar findings in their recent study of design factors affecting consumer
loyalty. In one study, Song and Zahedi (2001) classify website quality elements into five categories according to their purpose:
for promotion, service, informational influence, self-efficacy, and resources facilitation. These investigators find that each of the
five significantly and positively reinforces the consumers perceptions in these factors, which in turn positively influence
consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior.
Zhang, von Dran, Small, and Barcellos (1999, 2000), and Zhang and von Dran (2000) make an attempt to evaluate website quality
from user satisfaction and dissatisfaction perspective. Their studies show that website design features can be regarded as hygiene
and motivator factors that contribute to user dissatisfaction and satisfaction with a website. Hygiene factors are those whose
present make a website functional and serviceable, and whose absence causes user dissatisfaction. Some of the categories of
hygiene factors are: Privacy and Security, Technical Aspect, Navigation, Impartiality, and Information Content. Motivator factors
are those that add value to the website by contributing to user satisfaction. Five categories of motivation factors are: Enjoyment,
Cognitive Outcome, User Empowerment, Credibility, Visual Appearance, and Organization of Information Content. In their
continued effort, they further discover that the most important website quality factors ranked by e-commerce consumers are
hygiene factors (von Dran and Zhang 1999; Zhang et al. 2000; Zhang and von Dran 2001a, 2001b; Zhang et al. 2001). Liang and
Lai (2000) review website quality factors influencing Internet buying behavior by categorizing them into three groups, two of them
are also named motivators and hygiene factors, and third media richness factors. In their opinion, motivators are those who support
the transaction process directly while hygiene factors protect the consumers from risks or unexpected events in the transaction
process. Media richness factors add more information channels or richness in information presentation (Liang and Lai 2000,
p. 2). They suggest that providing good transaction support will help Internet venders to beat their electronic competitors, while
the hygiene factors need to be paid attention if they want to attract consumers from traditional stores.
Intention to Shop Online
Consumers intention to shop online is studied by 13 out of the 35 papers. Consumers intention to shop online refers to their
willingness to make purchases in an Internet store. Commonly, this factor is measured by consumers willingness to buy and to
return for additional purchases. The latter also contributes to customer loyalty. Jarvenpaa and colleagues (2000) assess consumers
intention to shop online by asking a series of questions assessing the likelihood of returning to a stores website, the likelihood
of purchasing from the store within the next three months, the likelihood of purchasing within the next year, and general the
likelihood of ever purchasing from a particular store again.
As is indicated in Figure 1, consumers intention to shop online is positively associated with attitude towards Internet buying, and
influences their decision-making and purchasing behavior. In addition, there is evidence of reciprocal influence between intention
to shop online and customer satisfaction.
Online Shopping Decision Making
Online shopping decision-making includes information seeking, comparison of alternatives, and choice making. The results
bearing on this factor directly influence consumers purchasing behavior. In addition, there appears to be an impact on users
satisfaction. Though it is important, there are only five studies that include it.
According to Haubl and Trifts (2000), potential consumers appear to use a two-stage process in reaching purchase decisions.
Initially, consumers typically screen a large set of products in order to identify a subset of promising alternatives that appears to
meet their needs. They then evaluate the subset in greater depth, performing relative comparisons across products based on some
desirable attributes and make a purchase decision. Using a controlled experiment, these authors discover that the interactive tools
designed to assist consumers in the initial screening of available alternatives and to facilitate in-depth comparisons among selected
alternatives in an online shopping environment may have strong favorable effects on both the quality and the efficiency of
purchase decisions (Haubl and Trifts 2000, p. 4).
Implications and Recommendations for Future Research
As Table 1 indicates, three out of the five dependent variables
(consumer attitudes, intentions, and purchasing behavior) and three
out of the five independent variables (personal characteristics, vendor/service/product characteristics, website quality) receive
the most attention. This seems to constitute the main stream of research in this area. Twenty-two studies examine the relationship
between consumers attitudes towards online shopping and other factors, thirteen measure intention to shop online, and 14
investigate the connection between online purchasing and other factors. Fourteen studies consider personal characteristics, 16
vender/service/product characteristics, and 20 website quality. It is found that personal characteristics, vender/service/product
characteristics, and website quality significantly affect online shopping attitudes, intention, and behavior. The direct implication
of these findings is that targeting more appropriate consumer groups, improving product and/or service quality, and improving
website quality can positively influence consumer attitudes and behavior, potentially leading to increased frequency of initial
purchase and repeat purchases on the part of consumers.
The role of the external environment, demographics, online shopping decision making, and consumer satisfaction are less well
represented in the IS literature. As is shown in Figure 1, consumers satisfaction is a key factor in online shopping, yet only three
studies investigate it. Any number of factors, including vender/service/product characteristics, website quality, attitude towards
online shopping, intention to online shopping, online shopping decision making, and online purchasing, may influence consumers
satisfaction. More importantly, the extent to which customers are satisfied is directly related to attitudes toward online shopping
or toward specific Internet stores. The relative importance of this factor in determining such consumer behavior as repeat
purchases suggests that further research on consumer satisfaction with online shopping needs to be conducted.
The ten factors and the diverse measures used by different studies indicate that online shopping is a multidimensional and
multidisciplinary phenomenon. Our examination shows that different studies have different ways of operationalizing seemingly
the same constructs. This methodological issue needs to be addressed in future research so that a validated instrument can be
developed for measuring consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior.