Buying on the Web? Isn't that dangerous? - Consumer Behaviour on Internet Shopping: Consumer Profiles, Decision Processes, Drivers and Barriers in the Virtual Environment -

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,3 (A), Stellenbosch Universitiy (Department of Industrial Psychology), language: English, abstract: This paper attempts to gain a better understanding of consumer behavior on Internet purchases. To address this objective a secondary literature survey was conducted. In the first part, the paper focuses on characteristics of Internet consumers through briefly exploring online demographics and activities, and then through classifying several shopper types. Second, the established five stages model of the consumer decision process is examined in the online shopping context. Third, potential drivers of Internet shopping are derived, focusing on benefits of online shopping, Web loyalty and Web site design quality. The fourth part deals with acceptance barriers to Internet shopping, in particular with general barriers, security issues and privacy concerns. Implications for online marketers are derived after each part of the paper. Finally, several conclusions, a summary of implications and further notes are presented at the end.