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INTERNET SHOPPING AND ITS IMPACT ON

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR




MSc INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

By
Fayu Zheng

2006





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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is the final dissertation for MSc International Business at the University of
Nottingham, during the summer term of 2006.

Firstly, I would like to thank Vicky Story for her invaluable support, guidance and
availability throughout the course of this project.

In addition, I would like to thank all the participants for sparing the time to take part in
the questionnaire.

Finally, I would like to express my love and appreciation to my parents, Juxiu Zheng and
Yangfang Wang, and also my fiance Wei Jiang for their supports in the past few years.

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ABSTRACT

The main goal of the paper is to obtain quantitative evidence describing the actuality of
internet shopping in the case of the UK and China in order to explain the development of
internet shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour. The paper builds on the relevant
literature and at the same time examines consumer behaviour by questionnaires.
Furthermore, the future development of internet shopping will be measured, and a deep
comparison of consumer behaviour between these two countries is also analysed. To
reach those objectives a co-integration analysis and quantitative research methods are
used to identify all aspect of the internet shopping and impact on consumer behaviour.
The data results obtained revealed in the paper support the research questions that
including recent trends and various issues of in internet shopping, and principal factors
for consumer behaviour.

The paper, therefore, provides information for analysing these research questions to
conclude the status of internet shopping and its impact of consumer behaviour among UK
and China consumers. More specifically, the empirical results suggest how the E-
commerce company make marketing strategies according the research data and analysing
results.

Keywords: Internet shopping, Consumer behaviour, E-commerce, Consumer purchase
decision making process.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Introduction 8
1.1 Overview 8
1.2 Internet Shopping Development 9
1.3 Background of Book Industry 10
1.3.1 Internet Shopping in the Book Industry 10
1.3.2 Difference between Online/Offline Bookstores 11
1.4 Aims and Objectives 12
1.5 The Framework of Study 14
Chapter 2 Literature Review 16
2.1 Traditional Shopping Behaviour 17
2.1.1 Overview 17
2.1.2 Definition 17
2.1.3 Perspectives 18
2.1.4 Factors 19
2.2 Internet Shopping 20
2.2.1 Nature of Internet Shopping 21
2.2.2 E-commerce Website 25
2.2.3 Online Security, Privacy, Trust and Trustworthiness 28
2.3 Online Consumer Behaviours 33
2.3.1 Background 33
2.3.2 Shopping Motivation 37

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2.3.3 Decision Making Process 39
Chapter 3 Research Methodology 51
3.1 Participants & Apparatus 51
3.2 Research Methods 51
3.3 Method Selection 52
3.4 Questionnaire Design 56
Chapter 4 Results Analysis and Discussion 65
4.1 Detailed Analysis of Results 65
Chapter 5 Conclusion 93
Chapter 6 References 95
Appendix I Questionnaire 104

























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TABLES AND FIGURES


Table 1. Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods.
Table 2. Which features do you value when visiting an e-commerce website?
Table 3. Do you think the following need to be improved for e-commerce websites?


Figure 1. An Integrative Model of Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping.
Figure 2. Research Model of Consumers# Online Shopping Attitudes and Behaviours
Figure 3. The consumer decision making process and its five stages.
Figure 4. Results from UIE.
Figure 5 & 6 $ How many years experience of using Internet?
Figure 7 & 8 $ How often do you use the Internet for the following purpose?
Figure 9 & 10 $ What kind of goods do you purchase from the Internet?
Figure 11 & 12 $ Reasons for Internet shopping?
Figure 13 & 14 $ Which search engines do you use for Internet shopping?
Figure 15 & 16 $ How do you make payments when shopping on the Internet?
Figure 17 $ How do you recognize that the website offers secure payment?
Figure 18 & 19 $ Gender?
Figure 20 & 21 $ Which age group do you belong to?
Figure 22 & 23 $ Are you?



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CHAPTER ONE

I NTRODUCTI ON
















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Introduction


1.1 Overview


The 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 internet shopping and its

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impact on consumer behaviour could help companies making use of it as a form of doing
e-business.


1.2 Internet Shopping Development


There are many reasons for such a rapid developing of internet shopping, which mainly
due to the benefits that internet provides. First of all, the internet offers different kind of
convenience to consumers. Obviously, consumers do not need go out looking for product
information as the internet can help them to search from online sites, and it also helps
evaluate between each sites to get the cheapest price for purchase. Furthermore, the
internet can enhance consumer use product more efficiently and effectively than other
channels to satisfy their needs. Through the different search engines, consumers save
time to access to the consumption related information, and which information with
mixture of images, sound, and very detailed text description to help consumer learning
and choosing the most suitable product (Moon, 2004).


However, internet shopping has potential risks for the customers, such as payment safety,
and after service. Due to the internet technology developed, internet payment recently
becomes prevalent way for purchasing goods from the internet. Internet payment increase
consumptive efficiency, at the same time, as its virtual property reduced internet security.

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After service is another way to stop customer shopping online. It is not like traditional
retail, customer has risk that some after service should face to face serve, and especially
in some complicated goods.


1.3 Background of Book Industry


1.3.1 Internet shopping in the book industry


The catalogue of internet shopping could be segmented by industry, choosing book
industry for analyze the internet shopping and its impact on consumer behaviour as it was
provided with representative and ripe.


Amazon.com is the biggest online retailer in the world, and it is also the earliest and the
most successful e-commerce company. To review its growing, we can see that it starts
from selling books in 1995, and after 1999, Amazon.com start expands their category of
selling products which including music and movies, clothing, toys, computing and so on.
There are more than 20 categories products so far. From the data in 2003, the sale of
Amazon.com achieved about 4 billions US dollars, and its sales of books occupy the total
sale of books in the US at 8-9%.

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In contrast, the internet shopping is just becoming increasingly popular in these years. As
it is a result of the dramatic development of internet technology and the popularization of
computer in China. There are 111 million people who surfing on the internet, and 24.5 %
internet users purchased goods online, and 47.2% of them have purchased books in last
half year (Statistical Reports on the Internet Development in China, 2006). The recent
status of internet shopping development shows that there is a huge potential in the
Chinese e-commerce market, and thus it attracts international company come and invest
in this area. Dangdang.com is the most famous business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce
Company in Chinese online book retail market at the moment. It was established by
couple in 1999, and its business mode is the same as Amazon.com. Furthermore,
compare with Amazon#s huge bibliography database around the world, Dangdang.com
have built its own bibliography database since 1997, and there are 210 thousands
catalogue of books in their database so far. According to recent development and sale
annual report from Dangdang.com, after 6 years developed, the total sales in year 2005
has reached 2700 million Chinese Yuan, and about 40% sales come from selling books.


1.3.2 Difference between online/offline bookstores


Even the internet shopping has been rapidly developed, especially in book industry, but
there still have a big difference between traditional and online bookstores. Referred to
sales in the US book industry above, the online sales occupied at a very low percentage

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rate. That could be caused by many reasons, but the most importance is the advantages
exist in both traditional bookstores and online bookstores; both of them have specific
characteristics. For example, the traditional bookstore can provide convenience in
parking and shopping, it allows customers come to read and check the printing quality of
books before they purchase, and the after service is more directly to customers. However,
the traditional bookstore has limited number of books, and the selling cost is higher than
online bookstore. By comparison, we can find out the limitations of traditional bookstore
are more likely as the advantages of online bookstore, in contrast, the weakness of online
bookstore is also seems as the advantages of traditional bookstore.


1.4 Aims and Objectives


It is clear from the overview of internet and internet shopping development that e-
commerce is being used in many corporations due to the dramatic development of
technology and competitive advantages of web selling. Moreover, the expansions of the
usage by individuals also become main contributors to the development of internet
shopping.


Relatively few studies have investigated in the internet shopping and impact on consumer
behaviour. The previous studies are more focus on the marker#s point of view, such as

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how to establish a more efficient marketing channel online rather than the traditional
offline channel. Therefore, this research will combines with previous studies from
literature reviews, and focus on the impact of the internet shopping on consumer
behaviours to find out a comprehensive analytical framework which showing the
essential ingredient of marketing and business to satisfying the consumer#s needs, and a
deeply understanding of online consumer behaviour as a reference for any e-commerce
company to make marketing strategies.


By carry out this work, the following research questions will be answered:

Recent status related to internet shopping in the UK and China.

The impacts of factor of Internet shopping influence online consumer behaviours.

Through analyze data collected from the questionnaire survey to indicate the
current online consumer behaviours.

Examine the business strategies affect online consumer behaviour in conclusion,
and applications and recommendations for future research.




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1.5 The Frame Work of Study


This study includes five chapters. In chapter 1, the background of internet shopping,
recently development of internet, book industry reviews, and the purpose of this research
is revealed. Chapter 2 refers to the literature review in which three main sectors are
discussed. First, it provides a general overview of consumer behaviour in the traditional
mode. In the second section, it shows some recent researches in relation to internet
shopping, and discussions will be followed by each point of view. The section three gives
a deeper insight into consumer behaviour in association with online and offline shopping.
Chapter3 goes to the methodology section of study. In the first place, the selection of
methodology will be identified after the introduction of data analysis methods, and the
reasons will also be presented afterwards. Next, the questionnaire design is described
what data will be collected, and the process of sample selection will indicate how to
analyze them. In chapter 4, the research data will be analyzed and will get the final result.
A deeper discussion in chapter 5 will describe which part of recent research has
agreement with data get from questionnaire, and what weaknesses of recent research are.
Moreover, a future usage of the questionnaire data by e-commerce Company will be
discussed as well. Finally, a summary of internet shopping and its impact on consumer
behaviour will be provided in the end.




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CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVI EW
















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Literature Review


For better understanding the factors of internet and consumer shopping behaviours
towards internet shopping, this chapter would provide academic research reviews and
relative ideas expressed in the literature that associated with this subject. Furthermore, a
number of hypotheses will be tested to answer the research questions that mentioned
already in the introduction. Due to the recent research shows that internet shopping
becomes a full and effective business model (Black, 2005), therefore there are several
studies that already investigated more or less related on internet shopping and consumer
behaviour. In the following chapter, some point of view will be taken from literatures,
and needs careful review to achieve them as the basis of the subsequent research
investigation.


This chapter will begin with the briefly talk about the traditional landscape of shopping,
and following the principles of consumer shopping behaviour. Through indicated that, the
essence of internet shopping consumer behaviour will be indicated in the second section.






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2.1 Traditional Shopping Behaviour


2.1.1 Overview


To study the consumer behaviour is very complex as it is a kind of human behaviour, and
human beings are always not easily studied, understood and sometimes quite ambiguities.
Therefore, the complexity of consumer behaviour represents a challenge to anyone who
wants research the subject including marketers. From the concept of marketing, it is
based on the notion of creating satisfying relationship between sellers and buyers. In this
kind of exchange process, consumer is being an important partner to make requirements,
and thus it is essential for marketers who want to possess an understanding of consumer
behaviour in order to make marketing strategies (Malcolm).


2.1.2 Definition


According to Warner, consumer behaviour defines that %the study of the mental and
physical activities performed by individuals or groups that result in decisions or actions
associated with the purchase, use or disposal of goods and services& (Malcolm). Warner
emphasized the consumption related behaviours are often undertaken collectively. For

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example, some activities performed by individuals but consumed by a family or group of
people, similar as organization purchasing activities usually followed by group decisions.
Beside this point, the consumer behaviour is not just purchasing, but has usage and
disposal the goods, this type of information always be useful for company to make
marketing decisions (Malcolm).


2.1.3 Perspectives


Traditional consumer behaviour shopping has its own model, which the buying process
starts from the problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, then
purchase, and at last post-purchase behaviour (Crawford, 1997). During these serials
actions, the perspectives on consumer behaviour could be divided into two parts: Macro
perspective and Micro perspective. Macro perspective mainly influences by modes of
thought and deploy form of enquiry. Micro perspectives mainly include the decision
theories (Malcolm).







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2.1.4 Factors


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 usually from the consumer#s mind. There are many factors could influence
consumer#s behaviours. According to Warner, the external influences could divide into
five sectors: Demographics, socio-economics, technology and public policy; culture; sub-
culture; 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 non-
functional. The functional motives are mostly about the time, shopping place and
consumer#s 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.


The traditional shopping is simply about the customer to purchase their needs. This
behaviour will be influenced by the seller#s advertising and promotion which attracts
customers goes there and purchase goods, afterwards a part of new products will be taken
home and be used.


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2.2 Internet Shopping


Internet shopping and traditional shopping are sharing many similarities, at the same time,
it still exists some differences between them, such as the Internet shopping could provide
convenience and interactive services (Jarvanpaa and Todd, 1997), and the traditional
shopping could gives customers more comfortable shopping environment and good
quality of products (Lee and Chung, 2000). Both aspect of shopping malls are trying to
improving their services by learn commutatively from each other, such as traditional
shopping malls provide more parking spaces, more counters, and closer to residential area
in order to improve services in convenience; Internet shopping malls adopt virtual reality
(Lee, 2001) and 3D techniques (Miller, 2000) to improve the presentation of products.


In the following sections, the study would provide the nature of internet shopping at first,
then the E-commerce web site will be indicated to comprehend the essence of internet
shopping, after that, online security, privacy and trust will be discussed. All of these
general overviews and discussions about the internet shopping will provide a background
to the study and help to building the foundation of academic researches. Moreover, there
will be a summary provided in the end of this chapter.




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2.2.1 Nature of Internet Shopping


As mentioned above, the Internet shopping is another mode of shopping and it can
provide customers with new experience. Therefore, the Internet shopping has its special
nature to difference with traditional shopping. According to Miller (2000), the product
and services for Internet shopping could be influenced easily by their type, and he also
indicated four sources that could explain the nature of Internet shopping. In this section,
the nature of Internet shopping will be discussed below with three main parts:
convenience, technology, and product and price.


Convenience


Internet provides a big convenience for shopper as the main reason for they shopping
online has been agreed by most of researcher and customers (Wolhandler, 1999). Due to
the feature of Internet, it allows customer to shopping online anytime and anywhere,
which means customer can browse and shopping online 24-hours a day, 7 days a week
from home or office, which attracts some time-starved shoppers come to Internet for save
time to searching products in physical store. Additionally, Internet offers some good
ways to save money and time. For example, shoppers do not need go out to the physical
store and thus there is no transportation cost. Compare with the traditional shopping,

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there is no waiting line for shoppers on the Internet, and some shoppers reported that they
feel pressure from the sales people sometimes, but Internet offers them more enjoyable
while shopping online (Wolhandler, 1999; GVU#s WWW 9
th
User Surveys, 1998).


Technology


The convenience based on Internet is mainly according to the technology development,
and which plays a key role during the development of Internet shopping. In the last
decade, organisations have realised that the new technology could impact on Internet
shopping deeply, and thus there are many important technologies like virtual reality and
3D techniques have adopted to gain big competitive advantages (Clark, 1989).
Information technology has used in the form of the Internet improved better quality of
product information, which help shopper#s decision making (White, 1997).


Through the wide range of surveys about the Internet use, the growth of Internet and the
rate of growth of Internet usage have been rapid increased in the last decade. According
to the BMRB International (2004) and GVU#s WWW 9
th
User Surveys (1998), the
number of Internet users in Great Britain has increased to 22.7 million among 48.4% of
the adult population, and about 53% of Internet users have reported that shopping is a
primary use of the Web. Moreover, a statistical report on the Internet Development in

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China from CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Centre) have released in July
2006. From this report, in the aspect of Internet shopping, there are 30 million users often
shopping online, and near 1/4 Internet users have online shopping experience. Both
surveys shows that more and more Internet users prefer online payment while they
shopping, thus the security of online payment certainly will become a significant factor to
influence the Internet shopping.


The provision of the security is becomes the highest or almost the highest budget in the
service development of Internet retailer. As this kind of technology is quite complexity
and costly for Internet retailer develop by them own, therefore, they usually ask for
professional security service provider to check their E-commerce web site, and get the
verify or certificates from the provider like VeriSign, in order to let shopper knows that
shopping on Internet is very safely.


Another Internet technology has adopted for improving the Internet environment is
developing a virtual community. As Yoo W., Suh K. and Lee M. (2002) mentioned in his
report, personal interactions with other customers and service providers play a very
important role while shopping online. Because of the feature of Internet, customers can
not check the products and service carefully, almost all of trade between sellers and
buyers are through a virtual world, and people can not meet each other directly, therefore,
the Internet retailers offering not just products or services but also a nice and efficient

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interface for interactions with customers, and which could increase the happiness of
customer to shopping online and let them gain new shopping experience.


Product and Price


The Internet allows consumers to browse products or services extensively, search the
newest products or services information, check and compare prices among all of the
offers, and make/change orders instantly and easily. These allowable activities offer
another way of convenience to consumers. For browsing the products/services,
consumers only need to do is open a browser and exploring the shopping sites, which
gives them more pleasure to seeking out the new information about the products and
services than searching in physical stores, even some of them did not actually buying
anything, but they still gain a new kind of shopping experience (Punj and Steelin, 1983).
Moreover, the web based contexts can easily and flexibility show the inventory of some
niche products, and thus shoppers could looking for it by search through a large scale of
product database. For some products, such as books and CDs, which shoppers are already
known the quality, and that means the less quality concern for shoppers purchase it from
online. Therefore, if the brand name and equity of products or services have embedded in
shopper#s mind, that means this products or services are more amenable to web based
marketing.


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According to the research by Bulkely and Carlton (2000), the majority of Internet
shopping behaviours consist of one-time purchases, which is mainly according to
consumer#s different shopping motivations, such as convenience. Therefore, the E-
commerce shopping websites need improve their services or reduce the cost of products
in order to motivating these one-time purchase shoppers to become loyal and regular
consumers. In the aspect of costs, the E-commerce shopping websites have their strength
than physical store, as they can remove the middle marketers (brokers, distributors), and
that the lower warehousing cost and distribution expense can be added to online retailing
channels for reducing the marketing price, which could greatly attract the price-sensitive
shoppers come and purchase.


2.2.2 E-commerce Web Site


According to Zwass#s (1998) definition for Electronic commerce is %the sharing of
business information, maintaining business relationships, and conducting business
transactions by means of telecommunications networks&. For doing business, the Internet
provides a lot of technologies to enhance the E-commerce. For example, for the aspect of
the sharing of business information, the Internet provides shared databases (such as the
databases of books have been shared among all of the publishing company in the US);
email, web based forum, electronic data interchange (EDI) and other software could

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increase the interactions with customers and business partners, and also conducting
business transactions much easier and more efficiently.


The Internet mad the world become smaller and closer, and it becomes very popular in
the people#s life. From the firm#s view, as the Internet makes much easier to running an
online business for firms, and the associated costs will be decreased in some ways, thus
that strength of the Internet attracts firms to enter this new marketplace. On the other
hand, actually there are some problems are exist in the international market, and some of
this are not fully solved, such as the currency, taxes and tariffs. Despite those problems,
the adoption of E-commerce for Business Company could gain more advantages than
disadvantages.


There are three components in the E-commerce processing: sellers & buyers, products &
services, and E-commerce web site. Each component plays a key role in the Internet
shopping. The advantages of E-commerce could be divided into four sides: cost reduction,
revenue expansion, time reduction, and relationship enhancement (Swahney and Zabin,
2001). The E-commerce can be essential complementarities for the firms as the store
rents and the cost of for sales staff can be greatly reduced by transferring physical store to
online, beside this big cost for traditional firm, the Internet also provides many
applications (e.g. email) to reduce the costs, such as printing and mailing cost, and web
based advertising can lead to small expenditure. By the reduction of costs, the firm can

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provides much cheaper products and services to attract more customers, and thus it can
helps firm increase the revenue expansion. For the time reduction side, as the traditional
store have difficult and very costly to update the products information, but the online
information is all the time updated, and the interaction between service staff and
customers and instant feedback to customers could be mad possible, in other words, these
activities improve the relationship with customers indirectly, and also the enhanced
interfaces and operational functions.


There are two types of E-commerce web sites: Business to Business Electronic
Commerce (B2B) and Business to Customer Electronic Commerce (B2C). B2B is
commerce where business activities between companies through web site channel. B2C is
commerce where the purchase and sale transactions between the consumers and sellers
(Lee H., Cho D. and Lee S., 2002). The Internet retailers can both have B2B commerce
and B2C commerce as they can use B2B commerce to link directly to their suppliers and
use B2C commerce to sell products and services to individual consumer through E-
commerce web site. The B2B commerce and B2C commerce have some similarities, such
as they both use electronic payment systems, and facing the lack of trustiness between
both sides. Even there are some challenges exist for doing E-commerce, but it is the trend
that the E-commerce is an indispensable constitutes for firms while they are doing
business.



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2.2.3 Online 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 customer#s 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.


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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 Lukas#s 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 customer#s 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

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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 Baumer#s research, because of the lack of legal remedies, this
implies electronic customers should be aware of privacy risk and it could affect
customer#s obstacle to shopping on the Internet. Moreover, it also leads to customers
more carefully to decide what kind of information will be revealed online, and to which
web site. From the survey results, most of customers willing to reveal their gender and
ages, and 18% of respondents willing to provide credit card details to well-known web
site while only 3% of respondents indicated willingness to provide the same information
to lesser-known web sites. Moreover, web site that has privacy statement and third-party
verification could reduce some customer concerns, but the evidence is not strong. Overall,
customers are being very carefully to reveal their personal information since the legal
environment of Internet is uncertain.





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Trust and Trustworthiness


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 1). 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

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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).


Figure 1. An Integrative Model of Consumer Trust in Internet Shopping.


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

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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.


2.3 Online Consumer Behaviours


As the traditional shopping behaviours are also could be transferred to internet shopping
behaviour. Therefore, this chapter will pick some points of view in association with
consumer behaviour that mentioned above and together with other ideas to have a deeper
discussion. The current status of studies of online consumer behaviours is investigated
through an analysis of existing literatures as background studies of consumer behaviours
in order to understanding of the dynamic of online shopping field. After the consumer
behaviour background examined, the shopping motivation of consumers and decision
making process are considered to be separate into two sections in this study.


2.3.1 Background


Since the explosion of the World Wide Web in the 1990#s, relative Electronic commerce
has been developed rapidly, and it has become an essential characteristic in the Internet

- 34 -
era. According to UCLA Centre for Communication Policy (2001), Internet shopping has
become the third most popular Internet activities, immediately following email using and
web surfing (Li and Zhang, 2002). Online consumer behaviour is complex and can be
described as the process of purchasing products or services via the Internet, and Kardes
(1995:5) suggested consumer behaviour is %the study of human responses to products,
services, and marketing of these products and services&. As Liang and Lai (2000)
indicated in their research that this process have similarities with traditional shopping
behaviours. During the process of Internet shopping, the potential consumer recognized a
need for products or services, and then, they use Internet for searching related
information. If the information search result can meet their needs, the potential
consumers evaluate alternatives in order to choose one of the best products or services,
and final purchase is made and following with post-purchase evaluation.


According to Li and Zhang#s (2002) taxonomy that developed based on their analysis,
there are ten impacts of relevant factors on online consumer behaviours (see figure 2).
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

- 35 -
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
consumer#s involvement during the Internet shopping process, and this two ways
relationship could influence each reciprocally.



Figure 2. Research Model of Consumers# Online Shopping Attitudes and Behaviours


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

- 36 -
which focus on comparisons between online and offline consumer behaviour in relation
to different products has been presented.


Consumer behaviour difference within online and offline shopping are mainly because of
consumer#s attitude and interest. Now that consumers have both online and offline
shopping choices, thus when buying books, some consumers using offline store as dating
venues, and then buying from the online sites; or, on the other hand, some consumers
prefer go to the physical bookstore as their perceptions of books and the environment in
the bookstore.


Consumers often use the Internet search for product information before buying from
online or offline stores. According to Anfuso#s research (2004), the online research drives
the offline sales. The study shows that the Internet plays a role as a consumer product
information utility more than its role as a direct selling medium. Consumers use online
product research, and then spending in the offline. Thus, the study found that Internet-
influenced offline spending is now growing faster than direct online spending, in other
words, consumer still prefer shopping in offline store than buying from the Internet.


Compare with convenience of the Internet provided, online consumers could easily go for
research products. However, for offline consumers they may go into a store simply to

- 37 -
research products, but not over and over. Moreover, many online visitors window shop
more than impulse buy. The research shows that the internet has become a useful tool for
comparison shopping and users often click around various sites to view and compare
products, proceed to leave the site altogether, and then, possibly, return days later to
purchase a product, or they might buy locally (Degeratu, Rangaswamy and Wu, 2000).
Furthermore, online consumer might do this repeatedly, but the offline shoppers would be
less likely to do research products very often. Therefore, the Internet shopping allows
consumers more freedom to continuously visit and purchase products, even they leave
without a purchase (Wolfinbarger and Gilly, 2001).


2.3.2 Shopping Motivation


It is true that the E-commerce is increasingly adopted by business organisations, and
there also have many evidences to prove that the online shoppers become much more
active than before. Through the E-commerce web sits provide superior products and
services and interactive communication with online retailers, customers feel more about
values, and thus these beneficial offers from the Internet may turn into motivation for
customers active or arouse their needs.



- 38 -
Pittman (1998) defines a motivation as the activation of internal desires, need and
concerns which energize behaviour and send the organism in a particular direction aimed
at satisfaction of the motivational issues that gave rise to the increased energy (Mallalieu,
2000). According to Perner#s research, there are several perspectives on behaviour as a
way to understand what motivates the consumers: (1) the hard core behavioural
perspective is based on learning theories like operant and classical conditioning; (2) the
social learning perspective, which allows for vicarious learning; (3) the cognitive
approach emphasizes consumer thinking rather than mere behaviour; (4) the biological
approach suggests that most behaviour is determined by genetics or other biological bases;
(5) the rational expectations perspective is based on an economic way of looking at the
World; (6) the psychoanalytic perspective is based on the work of historical psychologists
(Perner). All of the perspectives help to explain the motivation of consumers in which the
customers do the shopping, and the major study in this research is related to the rational
expectations perspective. In addition, through understanding of the motive for online
shopping can facilitate the comprehension of consumer#s attitudes, intention and
consideration. Thus, the following section %Decision Making Process& will be discussed
about the factors that impact on consumer behaviours.







- 39 -
2.3.3 Decision Making Process


Decision making process is the cognitive process leading to the selection of a series of
actions among multiple alternatives. Every decision making process will have the final
choice which called decision, and it can be an action or opinion. In this study, we mainly
talk about the consumer decision making processes, which are the decision making
processes undertaken by consumers in regard to before, during, and after the purchase of
a product or service (Wikipedia, 2006).


According to the Wikipedia web site (2006), there are three ways of analysing consumer
buying behaviours in general. They are:

l Economic models
These models are largely quantitative, and they are most relying on the
assumptions of rationality and close perfect knowledge. In these models, the
consumer is seen to maximize their utility, and some theory such as game
theory can be used in some circumstances.

l Psychological models
These models are qualitative rather than quantitative, and they concentrate on
psychological and cognitive processes such as motivation and need reduction.

- 40 -
Moreover, these models build on sociological factors like cultural influences
and family influences.

l Consumer behaviour models
These models typically blend both economic and psychological models, and
which are practical models used by marketers usually.


In the recent of researches, it suggested that there is a five-stage decision making process
for consumer to go through in any purchase (see the diagram below).



Figure 3. The consumer decision making process and its five stages.
Source from: guuui.com


When people buy things, they will engage in a decision making process. Thus this model
is important for anyone who making marketing decisions to consider the whole buying

- 41 -
process rather than just the purchase decision. The current research shows that one of the
major problems of E-commerce web sites is that they fail in supporting the customers in
this process (Olsen, 2003). By understanding the customers needs and concerns as they
process the decision making cycle, marketer can provide better products and services.


The model has five stages in the whole process, but it does not means that the customers
need to pass through all stages in every purchase. In some cases, the customers often skip
or reverse some of the stages. For example, a customer buying a favourite food would
recognise the need, so he/she can skip the information search and evaluation, and just go
right to the purchase decision. Moreover, the complexity of the decision making process
can rage from careful analysis (rational) to pure impulse (emotional), like the example
above, the impulse buy can take place instantaneously, but the complexity purchase
always take long time to analysis. Furthermore, this buying decision making process is
iterative process, %where people collect information from different sources and repeatedly
return to re-evaluate and compare the information they have found& (Olsen, 2003).


According to the researches from the usability consultancy UIE, the online buying
decision making process can be acts as a sieve, where customers are filtered out through
the each stage of the decision making process. From the figure below, there are 17% of
customers are filtered out at the information search stage. In this percentage, there are 9%
of customers weren#t able to find the products which they were looking for, and there are

- 42 -
8% of customers who find the right products but gave up at the end due to lack of
information to identify final purchase. For the customers who want to evaluate their
product alternatives, there are 25% of customers are filtered out due to some reasons:
firstly, some stopped because there is none of the products can fit their needs; secondly, it
is because the information of products was not enough to tell them that products are in
satisfied their need. At the purchase stage, there are 12% of customers lost due to the
inconvenience or disappointed by the E-commerce web site services. Again, there are
12% of customers have problems in the purchase evaluation stage. These customers are
unhappy with the product that they purchased from online as some of them got the wrong
products, some found the product was not what they expected, and extremely some
customer did not receive the product at all.


Figure 4. Results from UIE.
Source from: guuui.com



- 43 -
Need Recognition


The decision making process starts with need recognition. At this stage, the customer
recognizes a need or responds to a marketing stimulus. Therefore, the Internet can
provide huge amount of information for marketers utilize to stimulate consumer needs.
For the online retailers, they have to do some researches in order to learn which customer
needs and concerns they have when making purchase decision, and that could help them
to support the customers# decision making process. There are many ways to understand
the customer needs: one effective and economical method is to collect information from
salespersons that are in contact with customers very frequently; another way is through
interviews with customers and observations their shopping behaviors in order to gain
information. Moreover, online retailers can use advertising online/offline and web site
promotions to attract customers come and consume. Besides this, if there is email list and
those customers on the list have accepted subscribe to received information of new
products and related offerings, which will also be useful to trigger need recognition (Mae
et al., 1999).







- 44 -
Information Search


When the customers recognized a need, then they have to decide what and how much
information is required. If there is enough information of products or services they got
recently (which mainly according to their shopping experience), and that also meets the
need close to hand, then the final purchase is likely to be made. Otherwise, there is
information search process starts.


After the customers start looking for information, there are many ways for customers to
obtain new information. According to Tutor2u web site, it suggested four different
sources:

l Personal sources: family, friends, neighbours etc

l Commercial sources: advertising, salespeople, retailers, dealers, packaging,
point-of-sale displays

l Public sources: newspapers, radio, television, consumer organisations,
specialist magazines

l Experiential sources: handling, examining, using the product

- 45 -
Although there are many different sources help consumer to make purchase decisions,
but consumers still have to make decisions on: 1. whether they will search information
through offline channels or the Internet; 2. whether they will search information through
the Internet and then buy through offline channels; 3. whether they will search
information through offline channels and then buy through the Internet; 4. use the
Internet for both information search and product purchase (Moon, 2004).


As the Internet has one of the main competitive advantages which is the ability to collect
as much products information as possible and makes all of the products can be compared
among the different providers, therefore it plays a key factor to attract customers using
the Internet as the first choice for information search. According to the UIE study is that
the usability problems have exist in the design of the sites, such as customers could not
find product and unable to process the checkouts (Olsen, 2003). Therefore, online
retailers should provide detailed product information and ease use of shopping interface
in order to be able to support the customer#s decision making process. For example, in
the online book industry, Amazon offers book reviews to help customers evaluate and
make purchase decision. In addition to add more details in the product list such as image
and product description, other valuable information such as top sellers can also lead to
increased sales (Lohse and Spiller, 1998).



- 46 -
Besides the factors from the online retailers, consumers have their own characteristics
which impact on the decision making process, such as their proficiency or knowledge.
The extensive research shows that customer#s prior knowledge and experience of using
Internet can influence the information search result (Brucks, 1985). Moreover, Han (1996)
also examined that the internet usage skill and familiarity with computers can affect
consumer information search through the internet.


With the development in information technology, more and more customers use a range
of search techniques for information search. Search engine is the major and useful tool to
support information search, which covers most likely the entire E-commerce web sites
and produce hyperlinks to every sites which in association with products. Furthermore,
some customers prefer the internal search facilities while they shopping online, which
will increase the effectiveness of web site and also influence the consumer#s decision
making process.


Evaluation of Alternatives


Once the customers obtained enough product information and then gained a number of
possible alternatives, they must choose between the alternative brands, products and
services in the evaluation stage. There is one important determinant of evaluation of

- 47 -
alternatives is whether the customer perceived relevance of product, which are mainly
according to the price and potential risks.


The online customers not only compare product and price, but also need to consider the
potential risks such as payment security. For the product and price, the online retailers
need to differentiate the products that they were offering, and offer a competitive price or
added other values into products such as lower cost of delivery. However, for the less
price sensitive customers who more likely to purchase good quality product if the online
retailer can improve the shopping interface and provide high quality information. For the
potential risks, the online retailers can build more interactions between them and
customers for increasing the consumer trust, and also need to employ some security
controls during the payment transactions in order to reduce the risk. Moreover, a well
deigned community which allows interactions between customers by leaving comments
or opinions will also helps customer evaluate their alternatives.


Purchase


At this stage, the emphasis should be on providing the secure online payment and the
easies possible way for the customers to go through their orders. The recent research
discovered that 2/3 of all online purchase processes are not completed at the end

- 48 -
(Wolfmbarger and Gilly, 2001). There are many reasons for that: the first one is some
required registration and poor shipping charge policies made customers leave; secondly,
many customers could not find the information needed to complete the purchase; and
some customers even did not find the way to checkout. In order to solve these problems,
some well known web sites built a large and well staffed team to help customers during
the purchase process, such as the Amazon did. Furthermore, the online retailers have to
offer a wide range of electronic interactivities in order to serve customers efficiently. For
example, the contact email address, instant message based on web, and frequently asked
questions (FAQs) about shipping, payment, and return policy can be added in the design
of E-commerce web site.


Post-Purchase Evaluation


The final stage is post-purchase evaluation of the decision, which results in a level of
customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The post-purchase evaluation is common for
customers to experience concerns, and which is determined by the customer#s overall
feelings about the product after making a purchase decision. If the products or service
meet the customer#s requirement, then they may fell more comfortable and thus may
purchase again in the future. However, some customers after bought a product, they may
feel that an alternative would be much preferable, thus they will not re-purchase the
product and may switch to other brand next time. If the customers got dissatisfaction with

- 49 -
the product as it does not meet their expectations, the product will be returned to online
retailer.


In order to manage the post-purchase evaluation stage and avoid the product to be
returned, the online retailers with the marketing team to persuade the potential customers
that the product will satisfy their need. Therefore, the customers will be encouraged that
they have made the right decision after having made a purchase.
















- 50 -



CHAPTER THREE

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
















- 51 -
Research Methodology


3.1 Participants & Apparatus


The survey was taken in both UK and China, by sending questionnaire as many as
possible. Only those participants who have completed the questionnaire will be accounted
as valid survey.


Computers with facilities for internet access, volley mail software were used to perform
the survey, and use Microsoft Office Excel to do statistic and data analysis.


3.2 Research Methods


The research method of this study is a survey research, which collect information from a
participant through a questionnaire. The purpose of this research is to analyse the current
and future behaviours from consumers to help marketing manager making strategies
according feedback from participants (Churchill, 1999). These behaviours include
attitudes, believes, attribute, motivation and behaviour of sampled participants, and that

- 52 -
will be taken on a series of measurements based on specific research point. After
questionnaires sent out, and later collected data from feedbacks, the quantitative research
method will be used in this research. Researchers then use SPSS and excel programmes
help to analyse the outcome from the samples and generalize the conclusion in whole
points of view of consumer behaviour. In addition to the collected data, some other data
such as it from official reports of governments or organizations will also be used to assist
complementarities of research.


3.3 Method Selection


This section is dedicated to selection of research method in this paper. The research
methods can be classified in many ways, but the most common difference is between
qualitative and quantitative approaches. Qualitative research method can be broadly
defined as %any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of
statistical procedures or other means of quantification& (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). It also
can be simply says that this research method is non quantitative. In contrast, quantitative
research method deal with measurable characteristics by using structured questions (e.g.
questionnaire) and a formalised procedure of data collection




- 53 -
Qualitative methods


According to Myers (1997), the qualitative research method %was developed in the social
science to enable researchers to study social and cultural phenomena&. Moreover, it also
helps researchers to understand and explain the world from the perspectives of
respondents. Qualitative researches involves collecting information, observation and
interpret data, and that data sources could be used from interviews, documents and texts,
participant observation, and the researcher#s impressions and reactions. Qualitative
research methods can be found in many disciplines and fields, and its motivation for
doing qualitative research is if there is one thing which distinguishes humans from the
natural world. The reasons for using qualitative research is that the goal of understand a
phenomenon from the point of view of the participants and its particular social and
institutional context is largely lost when textual data are quantified (Kaplan and Maxwell,
1994).


Quantitative methods


As opposed to qualitative research, the quantitative research methods were originally
developed for natural sciences to study natural phenomena. The quantitative research
methods includes the survey methods, formal methods (e.g. econometrics), and numerical

- 54 -
methods such as mathematical modeling (Myers, 1997). It stands that after the data
collection from questionnaire, and then the data will transformed into statistics related
figures which computed by software like Microsoft Office Excel, and also produced
various tables with numbers which have unique meanings.


The distinction between the qualitative and quantitative research methods not only those
points noticed in conception, but also some other distinctions which are commonly made.
It is much clear if there is a comparison of qualitative and quantitative research methods
(see table 1). For example, rresearch methods %have variously been classified as objective
versus subjective (Burrell and Morgan, 1979), as being concerned with the discovery of
general laws (nomothetic) versus being concerned with the uniqueness of each particular
situation (idiographic), as aimed at prediction and control versus aimed at explanation
and understanding, as taking an outsider (etic) versus taking an insider (emic) perspective,
and so on& (Myers, 1997).


Qualitative Methods Quantitative Methods
Open-ended, dynamic, flexible Statistical and numerical measurement
Depth of understanding Subgroup sampling or comparisons
Taps consumer creativity Survey can be repeated in the future and
results compared
Database-broader and deeper Taps individual responses

- 55 -
Penetrates rationalized or superficial
responses
Less dependent on research executive skills
or orientation
Richer source of ideas for marketing and
creative teams

Table 1. Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Research Methods.
Source: Gordon and Langmaid (1988)


Each of research methods has positive and negative features, and it can not be say that
one is absolutely better than the other. Although most researchers use either qualitative or
quantitative research method for their work, but still have some researchers have
suggested using one or more research methods in their studies. After consider the
distinction and features of these two research methods, in the literature review stage of
the study, the qualitative and quantitative data were both used for research; after the
literature review helped developing understanding the previous research, and thus some
decisions have been made in terms of the data, a survey will be conducted in order to test
the Internet shopping impacts on consumer behaviours in the UK and China.







- 56 -
3.4 Questionnaire Design


The design of questionnaire is very rely on what data need to be collected and how to
analyze the data, and the questions asked in the questionnaire are need to be defined prior
to data collection. According to the aims and objectives of this study, the questionnaire
was conducted to collect data about the impacts of Internet shopping on consumer
behaviors within the summarized framework in associated with the respondent#s online
shopping experience. From this survey, there are following information will be gathered:
the respondent#s experience of Internet use, the purpose of using Internet, the product
categories which consumers purchased online, attitudes to Internet shopping, and
feedback for E-commerce web sites. In addition, some demographic data will also collect
from the respondents, such as gender, ages, and employment details.


The design of questionnaire differs according to different culture in the UK and China i.e.
some question may be asked in different ways in order to comparable. In the respect of
how it is going to be administered, all of the questionnaires are sent by volley mail
software, and thus these questionnaires are completed by the respondents themselves, and
the answering process is totally without any of intervention from the researcher. After the
questionnaire sent out, the return of such questionnaires are very accordingly. Moreover,
there are some factors of doing questionnaires in this research. For example, the

- 57 -
questionnaire have to taking a long time to collect, and the time available to complete the
data collection and entry is quite limited.


After the survey finished and all the data gathered, some of the questionnaires may not
acceptable for research due to the lack of answers for the important questions. In the most
cases it can enable researchers to reduce the amount of data needed to collect in order to
keep the result reliable (Saunders M., Lewis P. and Thornhill A., 2000). The following
questions from the questionnaire (include the same question asked in different way for
UK consumers and Chinese consumers) are important for this study. The complete
questionnaire is given at the end (Appendix I).


Questionnaire


Stage 1. The general questions


1. How many years experience of using Internet? (Select one only)
Less than a month Less than 1 year 1 $ 2 years
3 $ 4 years More than 5 years


- 58 -
2. How often do you use the Internet for the following purpose?
Very often Often Occasionally Never
Search product info.

Surfing (e.g. read news/articles)

Chatting (e.g. MSN / ICQ)

Research a topic

Looking for a job

Internet shopping

Other (Please Specify):





Stage 2. Brief View of Internet Shopping


3. What kind of goods do you purchase from the Internet? (You may select more
than one option)
Books CD/Video Software
Toys Tickets Flowers
Gifts Consumer electronics House wares
Computer (Components) Hotel/Travel bookings
Other Please state

- 59 -
4. Reasons for Internet shopping?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
Saves time

Saves money

More relaxing shopping

Much easier shopping

More efficient
Other (Please Specify):





Stage 3. Information Search for Online Shopping


5. Which search engines do you use for Internet shopping?
(You may select more than one option)
Google Yahoo MSN
AOL Lycos Ask Jeeves
Other Please state



- 60 -
(The following options are only used in the questionnaire for Chinese respondents)
Sohu (!) Baidu ("#) Sina ($%)
21CN Tom AltaVista


Stage 4. Internet Shopping Process


6. How do you make payments when shopping on the Internet? (You may select
more than one option)
Credit card Personal cheque Third party (e.g. Paypal / WorldPay)
Bank transfer Other Please state


7. Do you feel secure when shopping on the Internet?
Yes No


8. How do you recognise that the website offers secure payment?
(You may select more than one option)


- 61 -

Other Please state


Stage 5. About the E-commerce Provider


9. Which features do you value when visiting an e-commerce website?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
Company profile & brand
identity

Security certificated

Customer service

Detailed product information

Large selection of products

Terms and conditions of
website

Cost of delivery

Speed of delivery


- 62 -
Simplicity of purchase process

Protection of privacy
information

Ability to track your shopping
history

Website response speed

Website interface

Personalised offers/adverts



10. Do you think the following need to be improved for e-commerce websites?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
After service

Website security

Delivery on time

Packing of products



11. Do you intend to continue purchasing products from the Internet in the near
future?
Yes No


- 63 -
12. Are you?
Full-time employment Part-time employment Student
Unemployed Housewife/husband Retired





















- 64 -



CHAPTER FOUR

RESULTS ANALYSI S AND DI SCUSSION
















- 65 -
Results Analysis and Discussion


This chapter starts to present and analyse the data collected from the questionnaires. All
data will be analyzed by computer, the Microsoft Office Excel was used to enter the data
and design the graphs in order to help the researcher be able to explore and analyse the
data.


4.1 Detailed Analysis of Results


There are two versions of questionnaires which sent separately to the respondents in the UK
and China by attached to emails. There are 78 emails sent in the UK, and 12740 emails
sent to China. Due to many members who register with invalid email address with the
web site or those email addresses are no longer to use or other reasons did not respond to
this questionnaire, so there are only 826 (UK: 47; China: 779) questionnaires have
returned back and which are valid for research before the analysis begins. Although there
is a description in each questionnaire to tell how to fill, but still have many respondents
who use different way to answer the questions. For those questionnaires, if the researcher
can understand their answers, then the questionnaire will be accounted in the list of valid
questionnaires.


- 66 -
The questionnaires have sent to students, friends, workers, and unknown persons through
email. Among the people as known, almost 60% of respondents are male and their age is
all below the 30 years. The questionnaire has six sections: general questions, brief view
of Internet shopping, information search for online shopping, Internet shopping process,
about the E-commerce provider, and personal details. The following analysis of results
will be focused on the important questions which asked in each part of questionnaire.


General questions


In this section, the following questions have been covered in order to know the
respondent#s availability and accessibility to Internet, and also asked about the regularity
of using the Internet.


Do you have access to the Internet?

If you have access to the Internet please indicate where?

How often do you use Internet to support your work?



- 67 -
Due to this survey is based on sending emails, therefore, all of the questionnaire return
back by respondents who must have the way to access to the Internet, thus there is no one
without Internet access for this survey. Most of respondents have the Internet access at
their home and work place, but especially for most of students who choose public place
as their choice that may because they were living at university accommodation. Moreover,
more than 80% of the respondents said that they use Internet daily, and around 18% of
the respondents use Internet at least weekly.


How many years experience of using Internet?


As we can see that there is 40% of respondents who has been using the Internet for 1-2
years in the UK (as shown in Figure 5), and which is the highest percentage among the
respondents. Compare with the respondents in China, the highest percentage is 36%
which of them has been using the Internet for 3-4 years. Furthermore, the years
experience of using Internet between 1-2 years and more than 5 years are both have high
percentage which are 28% and 21 % (see Figure 6).



- 68 -
Howmany years experi ence of usi ng I nt ernet ? ( UK)
3, 6%
12, 26%
19, 40%
8, 17%
5, 11%
Less t han a mont h Less t han 1 year 1 & 2 years
3 & 4 years More t han 5 years

Figure 5

Howmany years experi ence of usi ng I nt ernet ? ( Chi na)
14, 2%
102, 13%
219, 28%
281, 36%
163, 21%
Less t han a mont h Less t han 1 year 1 & 2 years
3 & 4 years More t han 5 years

Figure 6



- 69 -
How often do you use the Internet for the following purpose?


This question contains two purposes: the first one is to investigate the respondent#s
current online activities; and the second one is to discovery how much degree of those
activities has been used. There are six options for respondents: search product
information, surfing (e.g. read news/articles), chatting (e.g. MSN/ICQ), research a topic,
looking for jobs, and Internet shopping. For the degree to which purpose is used, there are
four options for respondents to choose: very often, often, occasionally, and never.


From the Figure 7 and Figure 8, the difference between them can be easily find out: first,
Chinese respondents more likely to use the Internet for information search than British
respondents as there is more percentage of %very often& than %never& and %often& and
%occasionally& are very close; secondly, in the chatting option, %very often& has the
highest percentage among the Chinese respondents; the third which is the biggest
difference between respondents in the UK and China, there are 683 Chinese respondents
who never had use the Internet to research a topic before, but there are 36 British
respondents who did some research occasionally; the last difference is British
respondents have more frequently to use Internet shopping, and most of Chinese
respondents use Internet shopping occasionally. For surfing and looking for jobs, both
respondents from UK and China got similar situation.


- 70 -

0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Sear ch
pr oduct
i nf o
Sur f i ng Chat t i ng Resear ch
a t opi c
Looki ng
f or j obs
I nt er net
shoppi ng
Howof ten do you use the I nternet f or the f ol l owi ng purpose?
(UK)
Ver y of t en
Of t en
Occasi onal l y
Never

Figure 7

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Sear ch
pr oduct
i nf o
Sur f i ng Chat t i ng Resear ch
a t opi c
Looki ng
f or j obs
I nt er net
shoppi ng
Howof ten do you use the I nternet f or the f ol l owi ng purpose?
(Chi na)
Ver y of t en
Of t en
Occasi onal l y
Never

Figure 8



- 71 -
Furthermore, this section not only covered questions on the purpose of usage of Internet,
but also used to differentiate the respondents who have Internet shopping experience or
not. For those respondents who never shopping online before, they will go to the last
section %personal details& for complete this questionnaire, other respondents will keep
going through the questionnaire.


Brief view of I nternet shopping


After the selection of which respondents will answer the following questions about the
Internet shopping, there are 41/47 of respondents from UK and 585/779 of respondents
from China will be analyzed in the research.


What kind of goods do you purchase from the Internet?


This question is important issue for Internet retailers, which will help them to analyse
customers need in order to make marketing strategies. The products or services were
listed are the most preferred kind on the Internet. The hotel/travel bookings and books are
the most popular things for online shopping in the UK, which scores are 24% and 32%,
and followed by software (12%) and CD/Video (10%). As there are not too many

- 72 -
respondents, so the research for this question is quite limited. Beside with survey in
China, it has much more values in the research result. There are three aspects of kind of
products are most frequently purchased: books, CD/Video, and Computer (also included
components). Compare with the British respondents, the hotel/travel bookings are much
less usage of online shopping, which indicated indirectly that the Chinese people are
more traditional to using travel agency instead booking online.


37
12
14
0
6
2
9
1
2
5
28
0 10 20 30 40
Books
CD/ Vi deo
Sof t war e
Toys
Ti cket s
Fl ower s
Gi f t s
Consumer el ect r oni cs
House war es
Comput er
Hot el / Tr avel booki ngs
What ki nd of goods do you purchase f romt he I nt ernet ?
( UK)

Figure 9


- 73 -
373
355
67
28
14
7
105
31
19
259
62
0 100 200 300 400
Books
CD/ Vi deo
Sof t war e
Toys
Ti cket s
Fl ower s
Gi f t s
Consumer el ect r oni cs
House war es
Comput er
Hot el / Tr avel booki ngs
What ki nd of goods do you purchase f romt he I nt ernet ?
( Chi na)

Figure 10


Reasons for Internet shopping?


The aim of this question is to research what feelings of customers about the Internet
shopping, and what motivations activated or aroused their needs. From both of Figure 11
and Figure 12, most of respondents agreed that the Internet shopping could save them
time and money, only few respondents feel that the Internet shopping offers relax, easier
and efficient shopping. It also shows for the online retailers that customers have much
more requires for the high qualities of services from web site.

- 74 -
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Saves t i me Saves money Mor e
r el axi ng
shoppi ng
Much easi er
shoppi ng
Mor e
ef f i ci ent
Reasons f or I nt ernet shoppi ng? ( UK)
St r ongl y agr ee
Agr ee
Neut r al
Di sagr ee
St r ongl y di sagr ee

Figure 11

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Saves t i me Saves money Mor e
rel axi ng
shoppi ng
Much easi er
shoppi ng
More
ef f i ci ent
Reasons f or I nternet shoppi ng? (Chi na)
St rongl y agree
Agree
Neut ral
Di sagree
St rongl y di sagree

Figure 12




- 75 -
Do you need help while shopping on the Internet?


Around 95% of all respondents said that they feel confidence in using the Internet and
from research in overall questionnaires show that the respondents who have higher
education (like students), full-time employment, and many years experience of using
Internet is more confidence in using the Internet than less computer skilled respondents.
Moreover, the percentage of %never asked for help& among the respondents who below 30
years old is higher than the respondents who in higher age group. According to this, it can
be measured that older people have much rational on buying decision making process
than young people as they take more seriously in online shopping.


I nformation search for online shopping


As discussed very detail in the decision making process, the information search is very
important for customers to find out products or services which fit their needs very well.
This section contains four questions:


Do you use the Internet to search for product information before purchasing (whether
online or in store)?

- 76 -

Do you compare prices between websites prior to making your purchase decision?

Which of the following do you care about more when choosing which Internet providers
to purchase from?

Which search engines do you use for Internet shopping?


The first two questions are mainly to know how many respondents are using the Internet
for information search and how it helps them prior to making their purchase decision.
From the result, almost all of respondents said that they used to information search before
purchase any goods, and around 95% in total of them (include respondents in the UK and
China) had compare prices between websites. Near 35% of respondents in the UK is
more care about the brand name of Internet providers, thus it is important for online
retailers to build up their reputation. However, there are more than 55% of respondents in
China preferred lower prices than physical stores as the main reason to shopping online.


For the forth question, because the different situation in the UK and China, so the options
for respondents to choose are different, Chinese respondents have few more options to select.
The results show that Google.com (48% in the UK, and 27% in China) and Yahoo.com
(36% in the UK, and 23% in China) are the main search engines in the Internet. As we

- 77 -
can see from the Figure 14, there are other two search engines have very high score as
well. Baidu.com (26%) and Sohu.com (13%) are the Chinese search engines, which plays
very important role in the Chinese Internet Market. Especially, the score of Baidu.com is
very close to Google.com, and even higher than Yahoo.com, thus these search engines have very
high competition and customers can gain benefit from the improved services in those information
search providers.


Whi ch search engi nes do you use f or I nt ernet
shoppi ng? ( UK)
31
23
5
2
3
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Googl e Yahoo MSN AOL Lycos Ask
J eeves

Figure 13


- 78 -
357
313
24
0 6
0
178
349
85
23
12
0
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
Which search engines do you use for Internet shopping? (China)
Googl e
Yahoo
MSN
AOL
Lycos
Ask J eeves
Sohu
Bai du
Si na
21CN
Tom
Al t aVi st a

Figure 14


I nternet shopping process


In this section, there are seven questions which are mainly about the registration,
subscribing, policy, and web security.


Do you register at website while shopping on the Internet?
If yes, do you subscribe to websites that offer to tell you about new products?

Do you carefully read the policies prior to making your final purchase?

- 79 -
If no, what are the reasons for not reading it carefully?


The questions above are related to the customers will register with website or not, and
also consider about the customer#s attitudes for the policies which E-commerce web sites
offered. From the result which got from questionnaires, most of respondents who have
Internet shopping experience will register at web site. It may because some web sites
required all customers need registration in order to collect information for marketing, and
some customers also prefer to do so as they can track the order history online. Besides the
registration, most of web site offers subscription for customers to receive the new
information of products or some sales promotion offers, only 23% of respondents in the
UK and 35% of respondents in China have subscribed to websites. From this data, the
online retailers need to know more about advertisement, not only this way but also need
to apply other online advertising such as through search engine. Furthermore, most of
respondents in both countries of UK and China have carefully read the policies prior to
making their final purchase. For some respondents who not read the policies that because
they have limited time to read through all details, and some policies contain too much
detail, thus not all customers have read these policies.






- 80 -
How do you make payments when shopping on the Internet?


This question is for researcher to understand the current payment methods used by online
shoppers, and that in order to help the online retailers to improve the payment security as
a consult. The Figure 15 shows that most of British respondents were using credit card
and third party payment (e.g. paypal) for their online shopping, and which two scores are
very close to each other. The Figure 16 shows that the Chinese respondents were using
different payment method, which they use bank transfer as the major payment method,
and the credit card users are very limited. However, the respondents from these two
countries have some similarities, which are they never use personal cheque for the online
shopping and both of them preferred third party payment. For the deeper consideration of
the results, because the most of Chinese people who do not hold any credit card at the
moment, so the credit card used as the payment method is very limited, and also personal
cheque. Moreover, all respondents choose the third party payment as the main choice,
that may due to the third party provides more security for payment as they are very
professional in this area, and thus customers feel more reliable to use it. Furthermore,
there is no one using bank transfer in the UK, the reason could be not safety or more
complicated. However, most of respondents in China were using bank transfer as they
feel more confident in bank, and virtual transaction makes them feel no safety.



- 81 -
34
0
33
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Credit
card
Personal
cheque
Third
party
payment
Bank
transf er
How do you make payments w hen shopping on the Internet?
(UK)

Figure 15

35
0
372
416
0
100
200
300
400
500
Credit
card
Personal
cheque
Third
party
payment
Bank
transf er
How do you make payments w hen shopping on the Internet?
(China)

Figure 16







- 82 -
Do you feel secure when shopping on the Internet?


This question covered on the perceived web security. The analysis will be hold among
the all respondents. From the result, a majority of the respondents said that they feel
insecurity when they sending personal information or making online payment, which
score is about 80%. These results remind online retailers need to improve the security of
transaction process and keep more safety about the privacy information.


How do you recognize that the website offers secure payment?


Provide the security certificate is the way to show the web site has been checked up by
professional third party web merchants, and let customers feel more reliable to shopping
on the site. There are 34% of respondents who think VerSign security as a major
consideration when deciding whether or not to purchase online. For those respondents who
choose Visa security as another consideration have also selected MasterCard as
recognition that the web site offers secure payment. As this question can have multi
answers, so these tree options got very high scores.



- 83 -
Howdo you recogni ze t hat t he websi t e of f ers
secure payment ?
32%
32%
34%
2%
0%
0%
Vi sa Mast erCard VerSi gn
Ameri can Express Mi crosof t Top Rank Reward

Figure 17


About the E-commerce provider


E-commerce is a kind of platform for consumers shop and purchase products or services,
thus the providers need to know well about factors determine that consumers make online
purchase decisions. The questions in this section will be covered on features on E-
commerce web sites valued by customers and what need to be improved for the sites.





- 84 -
Which features do you value when visiting an e-commerce website? (UK: 41 / China:
585)


Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree
Strongly
disagree
Company profile & brand
identity
7 / 15 24 / 149 10 / 421 0 / 0 0 / 0
Security certificated 13 / 54 22 / 285 6 / 246 0 / 0 0 / 0
Customer service 17 / 46 19 / 253 5 / 286 0 / 0 0 / 0
Detailed product information 4 / 0 20 / 173 16 / 412 1 / 0 0 / 0
Large selection of products 0 / 0 5 / 104 34 / 465 0 / 16 2 / 0
Terms and conditions of
website
0 / 0 0 / 0 38 / 572 3 / 4 0 / 9
Cost of delivery 0 / 8 3 / 215 34 / 362 1 / 0 3 / 0
Speed of delivery 0 / 0 34 / 27 6 / 558 0 / 0 1 / 0
Simplicity of purchase process 11 / 29 18 / 53 12 / 503 0 / 0 0 / 0
Protection of privacy
information
15 / 5 16 / 447 10 / 133 0 / 0 0 / 0
Ability to track your shopping
history
3 / 0 31 / 108 6 / 452 0 / 25 1/0
Website response speed 0 / 0 29 / 13 12 / 561 0 / 11 0/0
Website interface 0 / 47 16 / 384 23 / 154 2 / 0 0/0
Personalised offers/adverts 1 / 0 1 / 1 27 / 494 8 / 57 4/33

- 85 -
Table 2. Which features do you value when visiting an e-commerce website?


The online retailers must provide enough functions and quality services to support the
customer#s needs during their online shopping process. This question is for customers
choose which features of the E-commerce web sites need to be provided, and after the
customers identified which factors are the most important, then the online retailers can be
able to use it as consult to improve their services focus on those factors. As different
factors can be valued in different levels at each stage of purchase decision making
process, therefore, this survey will be analyzed in overall thinking. After the customers
evaluated their needs, then there are many features available from the E-commerce web
site to support the customer#s information search, such as detailed product information
and large selection of products.


From the table above, it contains two different data, one is for the result from UK, and the
other data is from China. The most useful features are valued by the respondents were
customer service (36/41) and security certificated (35/41), speed of delivery and ability to
track your shopping history have the same score (34/41), and company profile & brand
identity and protection of privacy information have the same score (31/41) as well.
According to the result, these services are significantly important for the online retailers
to keep their customer#s satisfied. Compare with survey in China, protection of
information (452/585) and website interface (431/585) is the most care features, and

- 86 -
followed by the security certificated (339/585) and customer service (299/585). Moreover,
the Chinese respondents are seems more preferred to select %Neutral& as their choice, thus
many feature have the highest score in this option.


Do you think the following need to be improved for e-commerce websites? (UK: 41 /
China: 585)

Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
After service 4/5 27/388 10/192 0/0 0/0
Website security 29/174 11/253 1/158 0/0 0/0
Delivery on time 0/6 6/128 35/451 0/0 0/0
Packing of products 0/0 9/46 32/539 0/0 0/0
Table 3. Do you think the following need to be improved for e-commerce websites?


Do you prefer one-stop shopping: even if some products are priced higher than on other
web sites?

Do you intend to continue purchasing products from the Internet in the near future?
If no, what reasons may cause you not to use the Internet for shopping?



- 87 -
According to the data, more British respondents prefer one-stop shopping than Chinese
respondents, and that indirectly means the Chinese respondents are more price sensitive
than British respondents. The last two questions in this section are about future online
purchase, which around 90% of respondents in total were intend to continue purchasing
products from the Internet in the near future, for those who were not plan to mostly
because low trustworthiness and bad customer service.


Personal details


The last section covered three questions to gather information about the respondent#s
gender, ages, and occupation in the survey. The reason for needing this information is
these three characteristics of respondents may affect the choice of online shopping and
help researcher to understand the consumer behaviour which in association with them.


The survey consisted of 29 males and 18 females in the UK (47 totally), and 563 males
and 216 females in China (779). The males accounts for the most during this survey.
Most of the respondents are in the 18-30 age group, and there are more respondents from
China who under the 18 than whose age in 30-39. From the survey in the UK, only
students and full-time worker have been involved. Compare with UK, among the

- 88 -
respondents in China, there are 40% of students, 22% of who does not have job, and 20%
of full-time workers (see Figures below).


Gender?
Gender? (UK)
Mal e, 29
Femal e, 18
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Mal e Femal e

Figure 18

Gender? (Chi na)
Mal e, 563
Femal e, 216
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Mal e Femal e

Figure 19

- 89 -
Which age group do you belong to?

0
43
1
2
1
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Under
18
years
18- 30
years
31- 39
year s
40- 49
year s
50- 59
year s
Over
60
year s
Whi ch age gr oup do you bel ong t o? ( UK)

Figure 20

97
605
63
14
0 0
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Under
18
years
18- 30
years
31- 39
years
40- 49
years
50- 59
year s
Over
60
year s
Whi ch age group do you bel ong t o? ( Chi na)

Figure 21



- 90 -
Are you?

16
0
31
0 0
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Ful l - t i me
empl oyment
St udent
Are you? ( UK)

Figure 22 (Due to unknown error, the options are: Full-time employment, Part-time
employment, Student, Unemployment, Housewife/husband, Retired)

156
107
308
174
33
1
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Ful l - t i me
empl oyment
St udent
Ar e you? ( Chi na)

Figure 23 (Due to unknown error, the options are: Full-time employment, Part-time
employment, Student, Unemployment, Housewife/husband, Retired)


- 91 -
From the result, it revealed that most of males are preferred online shopping than female,
and also most of males are intend to continue purchase goods from the Internet in the
near of future. In the aspect of occupation and ages, the statistic shows that the young
respondents like students and full time employment were more encouraged to use the
Internet shopping instead of traditional shopping. The reasons for that are those
respondents do not have enough time, and the most of students emphasized their interest
in Internet shopping as that gain a new shopping experience, but they preferred a mixture
of both online and traditional shopping. The results show that if the life goes fast pace
and the struggle to work hard (e.g. students and full-time employment), more customers
prefer go for online shopping as the traditional shopping very time consuming.














- 92 -



CHAPTER FI VE

CONCLUSI ON
















- 93 -
Conclusion


Since the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) have been developing rapidly in the
last decade, the growth of E-commerce has also along with the fast speed of Internet
development. Due to the features of the Internet, in the business world there has another
important marketing channel for many firms. From the current researches suggested that
the online retailers have to attract customers and at the same time provides right products
or services to fit the customer#s needs.


This study is mainly focus on the factors from the Internet and examines those factors
that affect the consumer#s online shopping behaviours. It starts with the current status of
the Internet development, and mentioned the background of book industry as
representation and its difference with physical stores which in order to show the
developing history of Internet shopping since the E-commerce become popular. In the
chapter of literature review, there are three main sections have been discussed: traditional
shopping behaviour, Internet shopping and online consumer behaviours. Each section
starts with the concept, and followed by other perspectives. The research focus on the
Internet shopping (include the nature of Internet shopping, E-commerce website, and
online security, privacy, trust and trustworthiness) and online consumer behaviours
(include background, shopping motivation and decision making process). Those factors
were looked at, and examined to reveal the influence at online consumer behaviours. In

- 94 -
addition, the previous researches were used to help researchers understanding more
comprehensively. Moreover, the customer#s purchase decision making process was also
examined to identify the potential factors. The information search is the most important
factor that helps the customers find the suitable products or services for their needs.
Therefore, the online retailers have to enhance and improve the information supporting
such as provide much detailed product information and use internal search engine in
order to increase the efficient of information search. For the evaluation stage, customers
more think a lot of the reputation from the E-commerce website, and the payment
security for the purchase stage. At the post-purchase stage, the factor of after services
which is the most concerned about. Overall, the factors from the Internet that influenced
or prevented online consumer behaviours need to be carefully concerned by the online
retailers, who can utilize the appropriate marketing communications to support the
customer#s purchase decision making process and improve their performance.











- 95 -
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Appendix I Questionnaire


Internet Shopping and Its Impact on Consumer Behaviour


*please note: For your selection %& symbol can be replaced by %'& by copying %'& and then selecting
paste.


13. Do you have access to the Internet?
Yes No (if no, please go to page 5)


14. If you have access to the Internet please indicate where? (You may select more than one option)
Home Work place Caf Bar
Public place (e.g. Library) Other Please state


15. How many years experience of using Internet? (Select one only)
Less than a month Less than 1 year 1 $ 2 years
3 $ 4 years More than 5 years


16. How often do you use Internet to support your work? (Select one only)
At least daily At least weekly At least monthly
Never Other Please state


17. How often do you use the Internet for the following purpose?
Very often Often Occasionally Never
Search product info.
Surfing (e.g. read news/articles)
Chatting (e.g. MSN / ICQ)
Research a topic
Looking for a job
Internet shopping
Other (Please Specify):





If you have Internet shopping experience, please continue.
Otherwise, please go to page 5.



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Brief view of Internet shopping


18. What kind of goods do you purchase from the Internet? (You may select more than one option)
Books CD/Video Software
Toys Tickets Flowers
Gifts Consumer electronics House wares
Computer (Components) Hotel/Travel bookings
Other Please state


19. Reasons for Internet shopping?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
Saves time
Saves money
More relaxing shopping
Much easier shopping
More efficient
Other (Please Specify):





20. Do you need help while shopping on the Internet?
Yes, I always need help
Yes, but only sometimes
Yes, but only the first time
No, I have never needed help


Information search for online shopping

21. Do you use the Internet to search for product information before purchasing (whether
online or in store)?
Yes No


22. Which search engines do you use for Internet shopping?
(You may select more than one option)
Google Yahoo MSN
AOL Lycos Ask Jeeves
Other Please state


23. Do you compare prices between websites prior to making your purchase decision?
Yes No


- 106 -
24. Which of the following do you care about more when choosing which Internet providers
to purchase from?
Low price Brand name


Internet shopping process

25. Do you register at website while shopping on the Internet? (If no, go to question 15)
Yes, I prefer to do so Yes, but only when needed No, I don#t like


26. If yes, do you subscribe to websites that offer to tell you about new products?
Never Sometimes Always


27. Do you carefully read the policies prior to making your final purchase?
Yes No


28. If no, what are the reasons for not reading it carefully?
Too many details Not enough time Small font size
Other Please state


29. How do you make payments when shopping on the Internet? (You may select more than one option)
Credit card Personal cheque Third party (e.g. Paypal / WorldPay)
Bank transfer Other Please state


30. Do you feel secure when shopping on the Internet?
Yes No


31. How do you recognise that the website offers secure payment?
(You may select more than one option)


Other Please state






- 107 -
About the E-commerce provider


32. Which features do you value when visiting an e-commerce website?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
Company profile & brand identity
Security certificated
Customer service
Detailed product information
Large selection of products
Terms and conditions of website
Cost of delivery
Speed of delivery
Simplicity of purchase process
Protection of privacy information
Ability to track your shopping
history

Website response speed
Website interface
Personalised offers/adverts


33. Do you think the following need to be improved for e-commerce websites?
Strongly
agree
Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
disagree
After service
Website security
Delivery on time
Packing of products

34. Do you prefer one-stop shopping: even if some products are priced higher than on other
websites?
Yes No

35. Do you intend to continue purchasing products from the Internet in the near future?
Yes No

36. If no, what reasons may cause you not to use the internet for shopping?
Low trustworthiness
Bad customer service
Product doesn#t perform as expected
Long delivery time
Other Please state

- 108 -
Please provide your details below:
(THIS INFORMATION WILL BE KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL)

Gender
Male Female


Which age group do you belong to?
Under 18 years 18-30 years 31-39 years
40-49 years 50-59 years Over 60 years


Are you?
Full-time employment Part-time employment Student
Unemployed Housewife/husband Retired


Thank you very much!


Please return your completed questionnaire to:
Lixfz5@nottingham.ac.uk


This questionnaire will be used in support of research on Internet shopping and its
impact on consumer behaviour.