Understanding consumer online shopping behaviour from the perspective of transaction costs

2.3.5 Conclusion 
As discussed in this section, various factors have impacts on the purchase intention and 
purchase behaviour of online shoppers. These factors can be categorised into three groups in 
related to consumer characteristics, online vendor/store and product characteristics, and 
perceived online channel characteristics as shown in Appendix A, B and C respectively. The 
literature shows that existing studies employ different ways of exploring and testing factors 
which exert influence on online shopping intention and actual purchase behaviour. There is 
no consensus on the determinants that can be used to explain and predict online shopping 
intention and actual purchase of online shoppers. The lack of a holistic approach that 
encompasses the common antecedents suggests the need to develop an integrative model to 
systematically investigate the antecedents of online consumer behaviour.
Despite the large amount of literature on online purchase intention or willingness to shop 
online, there exists a lack of a thorough theoretical understanding of actual online purchase 
behaviour. The majority of previous studies have utilised Fishbein’s model (Hsu
 et al.
2014, 
Ketabi
 et al.
2014) in understanding the issue of antecedents of online behaviour. In the 
Fishbein model (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975), attitude has been viewed as a predictor of 
intention and finally actual behaviour. However, the idea that intentional behaviour will 
predict actual behaviour is rather questionable in online setting, due to a large number of 
people who only browsing and not purchasing (Yusniza 2007). That is to say, an individual 
who has high intention to purchase online does not necessarily take such action. As most 
previous work on online shopping has focused on the intentional behaviour rather than the 

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actual behaviour of online shoppers, this indicates that empirical evidence of the antecedents 
of consumer purchase behaviour remains inconclusive (Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997). Actual 
purchase behaviour is of high interest to online vendors because of its contribution to online 
sales and profitability (Li and Huang 2009). Thus, there is a need for research to explore the 
factors that determine actual online purchase behaviour in order to develop a more complete 
understanding of the behaviour of online customers.
It can be noted that the vast majority of prior studies on exploring antecedents of online 
behaviour have been geographically concentrated in western countries where they share the 
similar cultural values. Far less attention has been devoted to examining the factors that 
influence Chinese consumers’ online shopping behaviour. Consumers may exhibit different 
behaviour towards online shopping in various countries due to cultural and technological 
differences. The findings in western countries do not guarantee the same findings in mainland 
China. Besides, simply granting the results found in other countries in Asia where the culture 
is related to Confucianism (similar to mainland China) can hardly be persuasive and the 
results may offer little guidance on understanding Chinese consumers’ online behaviour. As 
such, studies aiming to explain online Chinese consumer behaviour are needed.
While many researchers have sought to explain online shopping behaviour from the 
standpoint of benefits such as online shopping convenience, product variety, better price, and 
perceived enjoyment, few researchers have scrutinized this behaviour from a cost perspective. 
Only three references cited above including those of Liang and Huang (1998), Teo et al. 
(2004), and Teo and Yu (2005) have considered costs as the major antecedents to online 
purchase intention. Simply explaining online consumer behaviour from the perspective of 
benefits would limit our understanding of the complexity of online decision-making process.

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Indeed, the cost consideration plays an important role in consumers’ decision making (Wang
 
et al.
2013). When shopping online, consumers are often deterred by cost-related factors such 
as time and cognitive effort and obstacles such as concerns about product quality, and 
exposure of credit card numbers and personal identities. Demangeot and Broderick (2007) 
indicate that as a cost factor, cognitive effort involved in understanding the online shopping 
process may be perceived as a barrier to online purchasing. Many online vendors attempt to 
attract more customers and retain existing ones through providing more benefits to customers, 
but a lack of understanding of customers’ perceived costs has the potential to weaken the 
ability to create superior value over rivals and may dampen the occurrence of online purchase. 
Thus, consumers’ perceived costs are an important variable that needs to be taken in account 
as a determinant of online shopping behaviour.
Given the importance of the roles of costs in determining online consumer behaviour, the 
next section will review the existing literature on TCs in the area of online shopping to 
identify research opportunities for this study.