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CONCEPTUAL MODEL
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the key factors which affect buying motives of consumers for online
buying or E- shopping. For this purpose different models from different research scholars
have been studied. One online consumer buying behavior motive model, (FFF Model), has
been designed and suggested on the basis of existing review of literatures. Future research
could use our suggested factors (F), filtering elements (F) and then filtered buying behavior
(F), (FFF Model) framework as a basis to empirically explore the factors affecting the online
consumer purchasing process and to test the suggested model by the interested researchers in
IntroductionThe internet is being developed rapidly since last two decades, and with relevant digital
economy that is driven by information technology also being developed worldwide. After a
long term development of internet, which rapidly increased web users and highly speed
internet connection, and some new technology also have been developed and used for
web developing, those lead to firms can promote and enhance images of product and
services through web site. Therefore, detailed product information and improved service
attracts more and more people changed their consumer behaviour from the traditional
mode to more rely on the internet shopping. On the other hand, more companies have
realized that the consumer behaviour transformation is unavoidable trend, and thus
change their marketing strategy. As the recent researches have indicated that, the internet
shopping particularly in business to consumer (B2C) has risen and online shopping
become more popular to many people. According to the report, The Emerging Digital
Economy II, published by the US Department of Commerce, in some companies, the
weight of e-commerce in total sales is quite high. For instance, the Dell computer
company have reached 18 million dollars sales through the internet during the first
quarter of 1999. As a result, about 30% of its 5.5 billion dollars total sales were achieved
through the internet (Moon, 2004). Therefore, to understand t h e b u y i n g m o t i v e s
f o r internet shopping is a must.
Key words- Consumer behaviour, Factors affecting online consumer behavior, E-Marketing,
E-commerce, Online, Internet. Literature review, framework for online consumer behavior,
intention, motives, consumer characteristics.
Review of Literature
People purchase products and services are the most based on their level of trust in this
product or services, and sellers either in the physical store or online shops. Online trust is
the basic and essential element for building a relationship with customers. A present
research shows that online trust is lower level than the face-to-face interactions in the
physical store (Cassell and Bickmore, 2000), and the result from Cheung and Lee (2006)
shows that trustworthiness of Internet merchant (perceived integrity, perceived
competence, and perceived security control) and external environment (third-party
recognition and legal framework) have considerable impact on consumer trust in Internet
shopping. The trustworthiness of E-commerce web site is very relying on the how much
privacy security can be provided. For example, a highly technical competence can be
a factor to influence the trustworthiness (Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000). As mentioned
above that the web merchant can provide third-party verification to E-commerce web site,
and while this privacy and security strategies are used, customers will think their Ecommerce transactions through Internet are secure and thus the site is more reliable to
them. Beside this point, if the E-commerce web site can provide the information about
their customer services, location of the office, contact telephone number, and a help
button on the web site, customers could also increase their trustiness as they can feel that
the online retailers is truly exist (Lohse and Spiller, 1998).
According to Li and Zhangs (2002) taxonomy that developed based on their analysis,
there are ten impacts of relevant factors on online consumer behaviours. These ten
factors could be categorized into five independent variables (external environment,
demographics, personal characteristics, vendor/service/product characteristics, and web
site quality) and five dependent variables (attitude toward online shopping, intention to
shop online, decision making, online purchasing, and consumer satisfaction). The five
independent variables are identified as antecedents, which directly determine attitudes
towards online shopping. In the antecedents, the vendor/service/product characteristics and
web site quality are directly impact on consumer satisfaction. The figure clearly shows
that the antecedents, attitude, intention, decision making, and online purchasing are
series of processing stage. Consumer satisfaction is separated and occurs among at
all possible stages depending on the consumers involvement during the Internet
shopping process, and this two ways relationship could influence each reciprocally.
Fishbeins attitudinal model has been widely used in the marketing context (Lilien et al
1992) and this paradigm provides researchers with a useful lens for examining the factors
explaining consumer purchasing intention and adoption. According to this model,
behavior is predominantly determined by intention. Other factors like attitudes,).
subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are also shown to be related to an
appropriate set of salient behavioral, normative, and control beliefs about the behavior.
However, Fishbeins model stops at the adoption level and does not capture other important
factors that explain and predict consumer continuance behavior (repurchase).
Study of models
INTERNET SHOPPING AND ITS IMPACT ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, Fayu
Zheng, 2006, The University of Nottingham Mayer, Davis, and Schoorman (1995) defined
trust as, the willingness of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based
on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor,
irrespective of the ability to monitor or control that other party (p.712) (Cheung and Lee,
2006). This definition is widely recognized and the most frequently cited (Rousseau, Sitkin,
Burt, & Camerer, 1998).
People purchase products and services are the most based on their level of trust in this
product or services, and sellers either in the physical store or online shops. Online trust is
the basic and essential element for building a relationship with customers. A present
research shows that online trust is lower level than the face-to-face interactions in the
physical store (Cassell and Bickmore, 2000), and the result from Cheung and Lee (2006)
shows that trustworthiness of Internet merchant (perceived integrity, perceived
competence, and perceived security control) and external environment (third-party
recognition and legal framework) have considerable impact on consumer trust in Internet
shopping (see figure). The trustworthiness of E-commerce web site is very relying on the
how much privacy security can be provided. For example, a highly technical competence
can be a factor to influence the trustworthiness (Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000). As
mentioned above that the web merchant can provide third-party verification to E-commerce
web site, and while this privacy and security strategies are used, customers will think their
E-commerce transactions through Internet are secure and thus the site is more reliable to
them. Beside this point, if the E-commerce web site can provide the information about
their customer services, location of the office, contact telephone number, and a help
button on the web site, customers could also increase their trustiness
as they can feel that the online retailers is truly exist (Lohse and Spiller, 1998).
In summary, the Internet offers a new way to do business and gives fresh shopping
experience to customers. So far, there are many rules and conventions need to be
improved to fit the online environment. For instance, the security must be ensured that
the transactions on the Internet are safe; the privacy must be protected by the web sites;
and the trust transference programs are needed to help engender customer trust in the
Internet shopping environment.
There are many studies of online consumer behaviours in recent years, most of them
focus on the factors influencing the online consumer behaviours, and the researchers
seems to find different factors in different way. Moreover, there is a variety of studies
which focus on comparisons between online and offline consumer behaviour in relation to
different products has been presented.
Online Consumer Behavior: A Review and Agenda for Future Research, Christy M. K.
Cheung, Lei Zhu, Timothy Kwong, Gloria W.W. Chan, Moez Limayem
A Base Model
Our literature review revealed that no prior study has attempted to link the three key
concepts of intention, adoption, and continuance and investigate the process of online
consumer purchase as a whole. By integrating Fishbeins attitudinal theoretical model
CONSUMER
CONSUMER
CONSUMER
ONLINE
ONLINE
ONLINE
PURCASE
PURCHASE
RE PURCHASE
INTENTION
INTENTION
ADOPTION
CONTINUANCE
purchasers. Age differences are assumed to be insignificant among three types of online
buying status as part of the hypothesis.
A conceptual framework that provides a better insight on factors that affect online purchase
behavior and also a summarization of all the hypotheses is shown in Figure
PROPOSED MODEL
The proposed model: factors, filtering elements and filtered buying behavior (FFF
Model), talks about the factors which affect and motivate the consumer to buy products
and services online, which are the combinations of external as well as internal factors. The
external factors are beyond control of the customer but the internal factors are the elements
of individual (human) traits, psychologies or behaviors. Just after the first step, the
customer faces certain hurdles, named in the model as, filtering elements. After getting
through the filtering elements the refined buying motives evolves. After this refined
buying behavior (motives), the customer goes ahead and shops online.
Factors (External & Internal) affecting consumer buying behavior
The influences on consumer behaviour are often made between external and internal
factors. External factors are come from the environmental conditions, and internal factors
are u s u a l l y from the consumers mind. There are many factors could influence
consumers behaviours. According to Warner, the external influences could divide into
five sectors: Demographics, socio-economics, technology and public policy; culture; subculture; reference groups; and marketing. The internal
influences are variety of
psychological processes, which include attitudes, learning, perception, motivation, self
image, and semiotics (Malcolm). In addition to these, Sheth (1983) also suggested that
the consumers have two types of motives while shopping, which are functional and nonfunctional. The functional motives are mostly about the time, shopping place and
consumers needs, which could be like one-stop shopping to save time, the environmental
of shopping place such as free parking place, lower cost of products and available to
choose from widely range of products. The non-functional motives are more related with
culture or social values, such as the brand name of the store.
Filtering elementsOnline Security, Privacy, Trust and Trustworthiness
Compare with the in-store shopping, the internet shopping has much higher risks during
the purchasing process. As internet shopping is one of the non-store shopping formats,
others such as mail order (Spence, 1970), telephone shopping (Cox and Rich, 1964),
catalogue (Reynolds, 1974) and so on, which have proved by recent studies shown that
consumers perceive a higher level of risk. Even though the internet provides many
functional advantages, but it still have some disadvantages, such as in the sections of
security, privacy, trust and trustworthiness.
Security
Due to the characteristics of internet, the information across the web could be lost or
stolen quite easily, especially the customers personal information and monetary details.
In B2C E-commerce area, there are many web merchants are offering third-party privacy
and security protection, such as encryption and password protections. The web merchants
like TRUSTe provide a third-party verification program for their customers, once a
Internet retailer joining the program, there will be a seal offered by TRUSTe shows that
their commitment to security. Therefore, because of the third party verification, the
customers considered this seal could make them more confident to provide their
information to the site.
Even some websites have secured certified by professional organisation, but still have
some customers lost their money through internet every year. These financial risks are
mostly caused by customers themselves. The reasons could be widely, some customers
have apparent sense of using credit card online in the insecurity way, such as public
credit card details to unknown people or website, leave credit card in the public place
where other people can easily reach, and internet shopping on the computer with virus. In
the Maignan and Lukass research (1997) shows that the financial risks have been cited
as a main reason to stop internet shopping, and security has become a major concern both
in online transaction relationships (Rowley, 1999).
The security treats can be made through the network and data transaction, and also
through unauthorized use. Thus, the Internet retailers have responsibility to keep
monetary and personal details of customers safety during the process of online shopping.
To improve the effectiveness of the Internet shopping environment could benefit both
sellers and buyers and make much convince to the customers.
Privacy
Another type of risk that consumer will faced is psychological risk, such as
disappointment and frustration of shopping online, which is mainly caused by the privacy
Information lost. On the Internet, the privacy information could be tracked and collected,
and then it can be used to sharing with third parties, in order to send spam mails or emails.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has statutory authority to prohibit the web site to
acquire information by unfair and deceptive trade practices (Earp and Baumer, 2001);
however, it does not have ability to comprehensively control every activity among the
Internet.
According to Earp and Baumers research, because of the lack of legal remedies, this
implies electronic customers should be aware of privacy risk and it could affect
EXTERNAL FACTORS
Demographics,
Socio-economics,
Technology and
Public policy;
FILTERING
ELEMENTS
Culture;
Sub- culture;
SECURITY
CONCERN
Reference groups;
and Marketing
BUYING
MOTIVES
INTERNAL FACTORS
Attitudes,
Learning,
Perception,
Motivation,
Self image, and
Semiotics
PRIVACY
CONCERN
TRUST &
TRUSTWORTHINESS
FILTERED
BUYING
MOTIVES
BUYING
Fig: online consumer buying behavior motive model, Factors (F), Filtering elements (F)
and Filtered buying motive (F); (FFF Model).
REFERENCES:
1. Internet shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour, Fayu Zheng, 2006, The
University of Nottingham
2. Online Consumer Behavior: A Review and Agenda for Future Research, Christy M. K.
Cheung, Lei Zhu, Timothy Kwong, Gloria W.W. Chan, Moez Limayem, 2003
Determinants of consumer behavior in an, e-commerce environment, Xiang Xue,
B.A. Nankai University, 1999, The University of Maine August, 2002
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Marketing Management, 2006, 22, 553-572
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Issue 3
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