Understanding consumer online shopping behaviour from the perspective of transaction costs

5.11 CHAPTER SUMMARY 
Since two constructs (site design and environmental uncertainty) did not have satisfactory 
discriminant validity, H2b and H3c were not tested in the structural model. The estimated 
structural model for controlling for demographic variables (age, gender, income, and 
education level) supported eleven research hypotheses (refer Figure 5.3). Only one path from 
privacy and security concerns to TCs was insignificant in the structural model. Multigroup 
SEM supported two moderating hypotheses out of the four proposed. The results show that 
risk-bearing propensity negatively moderates the relationship between TCs and customer 

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loyalty, and perceived enjoyment negatively moderates the effects of TCs on online purchase 
behaviour. Moreover, the results based on product category comparisons, clearly indicate that 
the strengths of the corresponding paths in the proposed model differ between search 
products and experience products. Overall the data collected provided very good support for 
the proposed research model of consumer TCs associated with online shopping. In the 
concluding chapter, the statistical results from chapter five will be interpreted in greater detail. 

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CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 
6.1 CHAPTER OVERVIEW 
 
 
The study aimed to develop an integrative model of consumer TCs associated with online 
shopping for understanding a comprehensive set of their antecedent factors as well as its 
behavioural consequences and to empirically examine the model using a large-scale sample 
randomly selected from real-world online shoppers. Prior research has not well addressed 
five important elements related to TCs: (1) the applicability of TCT at the individual level for 
explaining online consumer behaviour; (2) the effects of the antecedents on TCs; (3) the 
impacts of TCs on online purchase behaviour and customer loyalty; (4) the factors that 
confound the effects of consumer TCs on its behavioural consequences; and (5) the 
differences in the causal relationships between the aforementioned constructs in the proposed 
consumer TCs framework across product categories.
This research directly answers many of the questions that have remained largely unanswered 
but that hold significant interest for marketing scholars and managers: do TCs matter in 
consumer- online vendor exchanges? What affects consumers’ perception of TCs of shopping 
at an online store? What are the underlying mechanisms linking consumer TCs and online 
customers’ purchase decision-making regarding a transaction? What is the relationship 
between TCs and customer loyalty after he/she has had some transactional experiences with 
the online store? What factors mediate and moderate the effects of consumer TCs on 
behavioural consequences? And what are the differences in the effects of various antecedents 
on TCs and the effects of TCs on behavioural outcomes between consumers who purchase 

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search products and those who purchase experience products? This research provides clear 
and compelling answers to these questions.
In this concluding chapter, the findings, implications, limitations and direction for future 
research will be discussed. Specifically, this chapter will first provide a further discussion of 
the statistical results presented in chapter five. The contributions of the study to e-commerce, 
TCT, consumer behaviour, and marketing theory and practice are presented next. Then, the 
limitations of this research, as well as potential areas for future research are discussed. Finally, 
the overall conclusions of the study are provided at the end of this chapter.