A study of Chinese consumers' online purchase intention based on Technology Acceptance Model and perceived risk

The widespread use of the Internet has promoted the development of e�commerce and electronic markets all around the world. The number of Internet users has increased rapidly in recent years, but the development of online shopping in China is not as good as expected. Hence, it is necessary to investigate the factors that impact Chinese consumers’ online shopping behavior. Consumers’ personal characteristics and perceived risks of online shopping are regarded as important influencing factors, as they may directly and indirectly influence consumers’ online purchasing behavior. However, few previous studies focused on investigating whether these factors impact Chinese consumers’ online shopping behavior simultaneously based on a reliable model. To analyze the impact that perceived risk in online shopping and characteristics has on the Chinese consumers’ online shopping behavior, the study develops an Extended Technology Acceptance Model that contains six dimensions of perceived risk, including social risk, psychological risk, performance risk, time risk, privacy risk, and financial risk, and three characteristics, which are gender, age, and the length of time on the Internet every week. The empirical analysis based on the results of 271 valid questionnaires show that perceived ease of use positively impacts perceived usefulness and attitude towards shopping online, perceived usefulness has a positive impact on attitude and intention to shop online, and attitude also positive influences shopping online intention. Regarding the perceived risk, six dimensions of it negatively impact perceived usefulness, attitude, and intention. Besides, it can be found that gender shows differences in perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social risk, and time risk. People who spend different time online every week vary in perceiving perceived usefulness, social risk, privacy risk, and performance risk. People of different ages perceive different levels of perceived usefulness, privacy risk, time risk, and financial risk. Furthermore, the study also provides Chinese online stores and relevant organizations with management implications and recommendations

Investigating marketing of children's food stuff and methods of advertising in Iran

Marketing of food stuff to increase sale is possible with different methods. Capillary marketing is one of the most influential techniques in the issue of more sales in organizations especially in terms of selling food stuff. Food stuff should be sold in a short time due to the short durability. People who make better use of capillary marketing to supply their products and services can sell better and faster. Dependency of Iran's economy on oil incomes and affectability of such incomes from political, economic and international issues cause vulnerability and fragility of the economy. One of the ways of coping with this situation is developing new products that improves inland economic condition and causes an increase in non oil exports. Meanwhile, in addition to the role of food stuff in inland economic development, it can have a determining role in non oil export. Most of the families don't have financial ability to respond steamy needs of their children. Such children are just happy with watching colorful food and being influenced by messages they don't tend to traditional food. In fact, advertisements tell children what to wear play and eat. In this study we are going to discuss marketing of children's food stuff and its advertising methods in Iran. Mitra Zarea Nemati "Investigating marketing of children's food stuff and methods of advertising in Iran" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-4 , June 201

Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Channels, consumers and communication: online and offline communication in service consumption

This paper reports on a study that investigated consumer use of e-services in a multichannel context. To develop a deeper understanding of what makes consumers decide to use the online channel, and contrary to most HCI studies on the use of e-services that focus on the use of the online channel in relative isolation, this study examined consumer channel-choice beyond the instances of internet use. The consumption behaviour of its participants was investigated across channels in an in-depth qualitative study. The analysis of the elicited rich data focused specifically on the investigation of voluntary consumer movements between online and offline channels during the course of a consumption process. The results indicate that participants often use multiple channels in parallel and frequently switch between channels. Literature from marketing and consumer research was used as the perspective to explore the rationale for the complex and dynamic reported consumer behaviour

Factors Influencing Perceptions Toward Social Networking Websites in China

Based on an online national survey of 503 respondents, this study empirically investigates factors influencing perceptions toward social networking websites (SNWs) in China. More specifically, user demographics and media\ud characteristics were examined. While income was found to be a significant predictor of users’ attitude toward SNWs, gender, age, educational level and marital status were insignificant, suggesting that demographic divides may be\ud diminishing when it comes to online social media in China. Both perceived risk and enjoyment were found to have significant positive effects. Managerial implications were discussed

Business-to-consumer e-commerce in Nigeria: Prospects and challenges

The growth of Internet usage in Nigeria continues to increase, recording over 90% growth rate between 2000 and 2008. While businesses in Nigeria are reported to have online access with opportunity for ecommercial activities, customers in the country however access business websites only to source for information but make purchases the traditional way. This paper aims at assessing the prospects and challenges of Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce implementation in Nigeria from the consumers’ perspective. Survey research was adopted for this study. Research hypotheses were formulated and questionnaire designed and administered randomly to 900 respondents. Collected data was used to evaluate the acceptance of B2C e-commerce using the extended technology acceptance model (TAM). The extended TAM combines task-technology fit, relationship related construct: trust and risk, and the two TAM constructs to determine factors influencing consumer acceptance of B2C e-commerce in Nigeria. Findings revealed that there are significant relationships between the model variables. Tasktechnology fit and perceived usefulness have significant relationships with intentions to use, having a correlation coefficient of 0.2623 and 0.2002 respectively. Similarly, the interrelationship among trust, perceived risk, and behavioral intention are significant. The effect of risk on trust was statistically showing that risk is a predictor of trust. Risk has a high significant on trust and trust in turn has low significant effect on behavioral intention. Adding TTF and its relationships to the TAM also fit the data. The relationship between task-technology fit, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention are significant

A conceptual model of channel choice: measuring online and offline shopping value perceptions

This study tries to understand how consumers evaluate channels for their purchasing. Specifically, it develops a conceptual model that addresses consumer value perceptions of using the Internet versus the traditional (physical) channel. Previous research showed that perceptions of price, product quality, service quality and risk strongly influence perceived value and purchase intentions in the offline and online channel. Perceptions of online and offline buyers can be analyzed to see how value is constructed in both channels. This model enables comparisons between online and offline shoppers perceptions. As such, it is possible to determine the factors that encourage or prevent consumers to engage in online shopping.

Secure webs and buying intention: the moderating role of usability

El presente trabajo ha planteado un modelo conceptual a fin de mostrar como los antecedentes de la intención de compra se ven reforzados en contextos de Webs altamente usables. Específicamente, el trabajo analiza en profundidad el rol moderador de la usabilidad en la explicación de la conexión entre seguridad de una Web e intención de compra. Entre ambos extremos (seguridad e intención de compra), se han incluido diversas variables para explicar mejor su conexión. Para ello, ha sido diseñada una Web ficticia de ropa dirigida al segmento joven de clase media. A fin de alterar la usabilidad de la Web se han realizado dos tipos de manipulaciones: la velocidad y la facilidad de uso de la Web. Las dos Webs creadas (alta usabilidad y baja usabilidad) fueron visitadas por un total de 170 encuestados que fueron compensados con un USB valorado en 15 euros. Los resultados muestran que la seguridad percibida en la Web acarrea tres interesantes efectos (especialmente para la Web altamente usable): (i) mejora las actitudes agrado, (ii) reduce el nivel de riesgo percibido; (iii) aumenta la confianza. Los dos últimos efectos, a su vez, acaban aumentando la intención de compra.. Por último, se ha demostrado que la usabilidad, efectivamente, refuerza las relaciones consideradas en el modelo propuesto para explicar la intención de compra.A conceptual model has been proposed to show how buying intention antecedents are reinforced in highly usable contexts. Specifically, this paper deeply analyses the moderator role of system variables (usability) on explaining the relationship between Web security and buying intention. Between both extremes (security and buying intention), several relationships have also been stated to better explain this effect. An “ideal” fictitious Website was designed for a non existent clothing company directed at the segment of middle class consumers. In order to alter Web usability, two blocks of changes were made, one concerning Website speed and the other related to ease of use. Our experiment sample consisted of 170 respondents who participated in exchange for a pen-drive (USB) valued at 15 euros. The results show that improving website security has three interesting effects (especially in high usable contexts): (i) it improves pleasure attitudes, (ii) reduces the level of perceived risk and (iii) increases trust. Secondly, it has been found that to increase buying intention, two actions must be taken: (i) to diminish perceived risk and (ii) to improve users’ pleasure attitudes towards the Website. Finally, usability has been found to have a moderating role in all the relationships considered (reinforcing them)

Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed