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2.3.3.4 Product Characteristics
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Marketing literature discusses product characteristics extensively. Some researchers claimed
that product attitudes affect consumer attitude towards online shopping (Peterson
et al.
1997,
Bhatnagar
et al.
2000b, Liao and Cheung 2001). For example, Phau and Poon (2000)
explicated that products and services that have a low cost are frequently purchased from an
online channel. However, Vijayasarathy (2002) did not find such effect when examining the
relationship between product costs and channel preference. The author (2002, 2003) further
provided empirical evidence linking tangibility and behavioural intention. The findings
demonstrated that a product’s tangibility has a significant influence on consumers’ intentions
towards online shopping, which also empirically verify previous conceptual work conducted
by Phau and Poon (2000) that products and services that have intangible value proposition
and relatively high on differentiation are more likely to be purchased via the Internet.
Despite the contributions made by previous studies, it is worth mentioning that the vast
majority of prior studies focused on a single product or a group of similar products. For
instance, Liang and Lai (2002) focused on book-buying activities. Dahlen and Lange (2002)
concentrated on grocery retailing. Shim et al. (2001) focused on search goods. Ruyter et al.
(2001) carried out a number of investigations into travel services. This narrow focus (Lian
and Lin 2008) limited the generalizability of their results to a few products at best. The
effects of different product categories have been relatively neglected (Lian and Lin 2008).
Past online shopping studies underlined the important role of product value in online
purchase decision-making (Lee
et al.
2011a). The outcomes suggested that product value is
positively related to online purchase intention and behaviour (Jarvenpaa and Todd 1997,
Vijayasarathy and Jones 2000, Mathwick
et al.
2001, Guenzi
et al.
2009, Chen
et al.
2010,
Lee
et al.
2011a). Product value denotes perceived product and service quality of consumers.
52
Boyer and Hult (2006) argued that a match between the requested and the delivered product
is a key element in online purchase decisions. Previous studies on the components of product
value showed diverse results. For example, Anand (2007) and Brucks et al. (2000)
emphasized that product value should comprise ease of use, functionality, high performance,
durability, customer service and good reputation. Turban et al. (2006) considered reasonable
price and high quality equally important to product value. Chen et al. (2010) synthesized
prior literature and examined the following features of product value: product features (e.g.
quality) matching customer expectation (Brucks
et al.
2000, Boyer and Hult 2006), product
ease of use (Brucks
et al.
2000), and product pricing reasonably reflects product brand
(Turban
et al.
2006).
Researchers also examine whether merchandising and product brand image influence online
behaviour. Schaupp and Belanger (2005) suggested that e-commerce provides a great breadth
and depth of product offers to impress the consumer. Online retailing literature concluded the
features of merchandising as extensive product assortment and variety (Szymanski and Hise
2000, Sin and Tse 2002, Cho 2004, Schaupp and Belanger 2005, Anand 2007, Martins
et al.
2012), exclusive products (Schaupp and Belanger 2005, Anand 2007), and seasonal products
and sales (Schaupp and Belanger 2005) offered by online vendors. It was demonstrated that
merchandising is positively associated with consumers’ online shopping intention and
adoption (Szymanski and Hise 2000, Sin and Tse 2002, Cho 2004, Schaupp and Belanger
2005, Anand 2007). Moreover, Aghekyan-Simonian et al. (2012) developed and empirically
examined a model that links product brand image to online purchase intention. They stated
that product brand image influences online purchase intentions both directly and indirectly by
reducing various risk perceptions.
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A product’s asset specificity is another product characteristic that has been studied. Asset
specificity is the extent to which assets (such as physical, human, or location) are special to a
given transaction and used only at lower value in any alternative application (Chiles and
McMackin 1996). Liang and Huang (1998) maintained that a product’s asset specificity, the
lack of transferability of the assets from one retailer to another, is positively related to TCs,
which, in turn, has a negative impact on online shopping intention.
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