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ABSTRACT
The study examines consumers' intentions to shop online during the information acquisition stage. Three essential variables were incorporated: price, convenience and product type. Preliminary results indicate that online shopping intention is greater when consumers perceive offline shopping as inconvenient and expect the price of the product to be high. When consumers perceive shopping offline as inconvenient, their intention to shop online is greater for experience goods than search goods.
INTRODUCTION
Never before have consumers been able to shop from anywhere at anytime within clicks oftheir fingers. In fact, online shopping, an unforeseen event only a few years ago, has continued to grow. It is predicted that by the year of 2003, online shopping would expand to $108 billion (Hof 1999). The rapid growth of online retailing has created a vibrant market space, competing with all other shopping channels. Retailers, either online or offline, are competing to attract consumers and gain a share of the total of consumer shopping budget.
For consumers, shopping is not just going to physical stores any more. The choice of shopping media could provide a continuum of shopping preference anchored by online shopping at one end and traditional shopping at the other. Most consumers could fall in between these two - shopping online and offline. The inclination to use a particular shopping channel often depends on various factors such as consumer characteristics as well as situational variables.
The fundamental difference of online shopping from traditional shopping format is the breakdown oftime and location characteristics (Sheth and Sisodia 1999). Travel time and cost are virtually eliminated for consumers and they can shop from anywhere at anytime. Specifically, the reduction of search cost has allowed shoppers to engage in comparative shopping more efficiently (Kalakota and Whinston 1997; Klein 1998; Alba et al. 1997). Based on a recent Internet shopping study by Ernst and Young (1999), the two major reasons for consumers to shop online are increased convenience and greater savings. Given the unique characteristics of Internet, these findings are not surprising. The reduced cost of search provides convenience and enables consumers to compare prices across online retailers with just a few clicks. Yet, what if consumers perceive shopping offline is as convenient as shopping online? And, what if the price offered...