Investigation of Online Consumer Purchasing Behavior

This paper is focused on examining the factors and relationships that influence the browsing and buying behavior of individuals when they shop on-line. Specifically, we are interested in individual buyers using business to consumer sites. We are also interested in examining shopping preferences based on various demographic categories that might exhibit distinct purchasing attitudes and behaviors for certain categories of products and services. We examine these behaviors in the context of both products and services.

Online Shopping

After a period of decline in recent months, online shopping is on the rise again. By some estimates, total U.S. spending on online sales increased to $5.7 billion in December 2001 (December Shopping Up, 2002) from $3.2 billion in June of 2001 (Consumers Spent, 2001). By these same estimates, the number of households shopping online increased to 18.7 million in December 2001 from 13.1 million in June 2001. Consumers spent an average of $304 per person in December 2001, compared with $247 in June 2001. According to an analyst at Forrester - “The fact that online retail remained stable during … such social and economic instability speaks volumes about how well eCommerce is positioned to stand up to a poor economy”.

What do consumers utilize the Internet for? Nie and Erbring (2000) suggest that 52% of the consumers use the Internet for product information, 42% for travel information, and 24% for buying. Recent online consumer behavior-related research refers to any Internet-related activity associated with the consumption of goods, services, and information (Freiden et al. 1998). In the definition of Internet consumption, Goldsmith and Bridges (2000) include “(1) gathering information passively via exposure to advertising; (2) shopping, which includes both browsing and deliberate information search, and (3) the selection and buying of specific goods, services, and information”. For the purposes of this study, we focus on all aspects of...