Content area
Full Text
1. Introduction
1.1 Research motivation
Online retailing has attracted a lot of attention because of its high growth potential ([18] Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick, 2010). According to forecasts from IMRG and Capgemini, the online retail market size will grow 12 per cent by the end of 2013 and the growth rate of mobile sales is expected to reach 260 per cent at the same time ([57] The Retail Bulletin Report, 2013). Although many issues related to online shopping have been examined in the literature, the key success factors with regard its promotion still remain unclear.
[13] Carroll (2012) indicated that the retailing atmosphere is one of the key success factors with regard to online stores, because it enables customers to be incorporated into the same virtual community. [42] Lorenzo-Romero et al. (2011) further claimed that atmospheric cues may be more influential than other marketing inputs at the point of online purchase. The online shopping atmosphere and layout design formed by both the content and structure of the information provided by websites affect the willingness of consumers to make purchases ([90] Chen et al. , 2012; [22] Eroglu et al. , 2001; [91] Liu et al. , 2008; [35] Karimov et al. , 2011; [37] Koo and Ju, 2009; [52] Mummalaneni, 2005; [74] Yen and Lu, 2008). That is, the shopper's perceptions of the store layout design and atmosphere on an online website may elicit positive or negative emotions that will impact their subsequent attitudes, purchase intention, and behaviours.
1.2 Research objectives and conceptual framework
Although previous studies have indicated the importance of antecedent variables with regard to online shopping, a more comprehensive framework is yet to be established. The authors adopted the concept of the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework ([49] Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), which provides a structure to identify the relationships among the stimuli of the environment, organism and response, and to develop a conceptual model for online store shopping.
The first stage, stimulus (S), involves store layout design and atmosphere. This study will discuss the visual factors and atmosphere of website, which may influence the consumer emotional arousal and attitude toward the sample site. In the questionnaire, sample websites with different layout designs and atmospheres will be tested and analysed. In the organism (O) stage,...