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Introduction
In the early days of e-commerce the central problem of online merchants was how to convert visitors into buyers. Nowadays, e-tailers do not only need to attract new customers, they must also retain them to ensure profitable repeat business ([3] Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003; [47] Reichheld and Schefter, 2000). Understanding and addressing the needs of both prospective and current online customers is thus essential for e-commerce success. By identifying consumers' evaluative criteria and determining their relative importance, marketers are looking for ways to improve their understanding of the specific needs of online customers ([57] Venkatesh and Agarwal, 2006; [60] Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2003; [44] Parasuraman et al. , 2005). In this study we investigate the differences between customers and prospective customers regarding the importance of the key determinants for online purchase intentions. Extensive research in various fields, such as psychology ([23] Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975), marketing ([61] Woodruff, 1997; [40] Parasuraman, 1997; [9] Bolton, 1998), information systems ([55] Taylor and Todd, 1995; [24] Gefen and Straub, 2000; [25] Gefen et al. , 2003), self-service technologies ([36] Meuter et al. , 2005) and e-commerce ([44] Parasuraman et al. , 2005; [57] Venkatesh and Agarwal, 2006) has indicated and shown that the relative importance of the key influencers of the buying decision varies with the consumer's level of experience.
Online shopping experience, a reflection of a consumer's familiarity with shopping through websites, has been shown to strongly influence online attitudes and subsequent behavior ([11] Bucklin and Sismeiro, 2003; [25] Gefen et al. , 2003; [38] Montoya-Weiss et al. , 2003; [45] Pavlou, 2003; [57] Venkatesh and Agarwal, 2006). Apart from its positive effect on online perceptions and attitudes (Monsuwé et al. , 2004), it has been argued that online shoppers differ widely in what they desire in an ideal website depending on their level of online shopping experience ([44] Parasuraman et al. , 2005); in other words, experienced and lesser experienced online shoppers may differ in the weights they attribute to key antecedents of online shopping ([21] Einwiller, 2003; [57] Venkatesh and Agarwal, 2006; [55] Taylor and Todd, 1995). More experience or familiarity with online shopping generally leads to greater expertise and, hence, experienced online shoppers are able to perform shopping-related tasks more efficiently ([1]...