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2.2 THEORIES EXPLAINING ONLINE CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR
2.2.1 Introduction
The Internet has dramatically changed consumers’ shopping behaviour. During the pre-
Internet growth time period (1993 and the years prior) (Canzer 2006, Friedman 2006, Laudon
and Traver 2008), consumers mainly focused on shopping through traditional marketplace,
while with the great development of Internet, during the post- Internet growth time period
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(1994 and the following years), consumers have changed some shopping habits by switching
from conventional market channels to online channels.
Research on consumer behaviour of online shopping is gaining in intensity (Croome
et al.
2010). Consumer behaviour is the study of the processes involved when an individual selects,
purchases, uses or disposes of products, services, ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and
desires (Solomon 1998). To a very large extent, online consumer behaviour can be studied
using frameworks from ‘offline’ or traditional consumer behaviour. Synthesizing research in
this area from 1994 to 2013, previous studies provided a critical and comprehensive review
of the theories and empirical results of online consumer behaviour (Cheung
et al.
2005).
Common themes of past research have included the identification of factors that influence
consumer’s choice of the internet versus a conventional channel (Van Birgelen
et al.
2006,
Bigne-Alcaniz
et al.
2008, Horppu
et al.
2008) and online shopping attitudes, intention and
purchase behaviour (Vijayasarathy and Jones 2000, Mathwick
et al.
2001, Goldsmith 2002,
Ahn
et al.
2007, Wu
et al.
2013), the role of integrated marketing communications such as
product picture/information in evaluating product feature/quality (Weathers
et al.
2007, Silva
and Alwi 2008), the impact of web site design in enhancing consumers’ interest in the site
(Van Dolen
et al.
2007), customer satisfaction in an online environment (Luo
et al.
2012, Wu
2012), and consumer site commitment and e-loyalty (Ha 2006, Li
et al.
2006, Massad
et al.
2006, Kim
et al.
2009, Teng
et al.
2012).
Extant studies of online consumer behaviour indicate that researchers mostly draw theories
from classical consumer behaviour research, such as behavioural learning (Skinner 1938),
personality research (Folkes 1988), information processing (Bettman 1979), and attitude
models (Fishbein 1967, Ajzen and Fishbein 2005). Cheung et al. (2005) revealed that a large
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part of conventional consumer behaviour theories had been applied to the study of online
consumer behaviour. However, Levin et al. (2005) stated that the application is not as
straightforward as simply borrowing the components and applying them. Chu et al. (2010)
noted that there are still significant differences between offline and online consumer
behaviour that warrant a distinguishing conceptualization.
The research of online consumer behaviour has been widely conducted in both information
systems and marketing fields. However, most of the studies have been published in
information systems literature, implying that most e-commerce studies have been done in the
information systems world. Koufaris (2002) gave an explanation of this, that it is, perhaps
more accurate to view e-commerce as an information systems phenomenon where user of
information systems interacts with a complex information system, rather than viewing e-
commerce as a marketing issue influenced by information systems’ usage. A similar
argument has also been given by other scholars (Pavlou 2001, Van der Heijden
et al.
2003,
Porter and Donthu 2006).
Among the existing studies in the information systems literature, the research models of
technology adoption have thus been extensively used in studies of online consumer behaviour.
Cheung et al. (2005) found that most authors depended heavily on theories of reasoned action
(TRA) family, including the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the theory of planned
behaviour (TPB). In the following sub-sections, TAM and TPB models are reviewed and
compared in regard to the explanation of online consumer behaviour.
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