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Develops and tests a general model for understanding the influence of query‐based decision aids (QBDA) on consumer decision making in the electronic commerce environment. The results show that the use of well‐designed query‐based decision aids leads to increased satisfaction with the decision process and increased confidence in judgements. The number of stages of phased narrowing of the consideration set was higher in the case of subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aids. The mediating variables through which this influence occurs are size of the consideration set, similarity among the alternatives in the consideration set, cognitive decision effort, and perceived cost savings. The size of the consideration set and the similarity among the alternatives in the consideration set were higher in the case of subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aid. Subjects who had access to the query‐based decision aid perceived an increased cost savings and a lower cognitive decision effort associated with the purchase decision. This research is done in the context of consumers searching for information on the World Wide Web prior to the purchase of cars.

This study aims to examine web site heuristics and their influence on the likelihood to purchase.

A convenience sample of 28 participants was assigned a list of 30 hotel web sites to evaluate according to predetermined criteria and open‐ended questions.

Results indicated that booking decisions are positively related to a web site's aesthetic appeal. The study found the presence of photographs on a hotel web site was the most significant factor impacting site appeal and influencing the booking decision. Other features affecting purchase decisions included ease of use, color, link availability, lack of web site clutter, and sites unique in appearance.

Research limitations included the size and composition of the sample. Respondents were college students, thus they represented a younger demographic and one which may be more tech‐savvy than other age groups. Also, the hotel web sites which were evaluated were located in one popular US tourist destination, meaning generalization to a larger population or to another industry may be limited.

Results showed four variables; pictures, ease of use, neat/uncluttered and plain/boring; were most significant on both site appeal and site influence. Practitioners would be well served to improve these web site elements to better accommodate customers and realize the greatest return on investment.

The paper investigates heuristics of hotel web sites. Findings identified areas for improvement by practitioners as well as areas for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research model that examines the effect of information overload and information disorganisation upon customers’ perceived risk and purchase intention online in a single integrative model. In addition the paper investigates whether internet experience moderates these relationships.

To achieve the paper's objectives an experiment that involved visiting the ten most visited e-commerce web sites in Spain was conducted. Hypotheses were tested by using structural equation modelling on a data set of 1,396 online shopping customers.

The results suggest a positive relationship between information overload and customer purchase intention and that internet experience reinforces this positive effect. Moreover the results confirm that the relationship between information disorganisation and customer purchase intention is not significant and that internet experience does not moderate the relationship. The findings also indicate that perceived risk mediates the relationship between information overload and information disorganisation on customer purchase intention.

This work contributes to the literature by exploring the phenomenon of information overload and information disorganisation upon customers’ perceived risk and purchase intention in the e-commerce environment as well as the moderating effect of internet experience on these relationships in a single integrative model. The main conclusions of this investigation can be valuable to organisations that implement or intend to implement e-commerce.

To investigate web‐shopping behaviour in Hong Kong: identification of the general attitude towards web‐shopping; relationships between past web‐shopping experience, attitude towards web‐shopping, adoption decisions, search behaviour and web‐shopping intentions; and influences of promotional offers and product categories on web‐shopping intentions.

Relevant hypotheses were constructed and a web‐based questionnaire survey was than conducted using technically educated subjects. The proposed hypotheses were statistically tested and principal components analysis and structural equations were used to produce a structural model.

Web‐shopping intentions are directly affected by web‐search behaviour and web‐shopping adoption decisions, and are indirectly affected by web‐shopping attitudes, past web‐shopping experiences and past experience with the web. Web‐search behaviour was a stronger factor than adoption decision in terms of influencing web‐shopping intentions. The presence of promotional offers had a positive effect on web‐shopping intentions, and web‐shopping intentions were different for different product categories.

The sample employed was composed of technically educated undergraduates and graduates and thus limiting generalizations to a higher levels.

Experienced internet users and experienced web‐shoppers are more likely to be potential future web‐shoppers. Those who have a general dislike for shopping and who tend to buy in a great haste when the purchase becomes absolutely necessary may eventually be another group to become web‐shoppers.

The primary value of this paper lies in extending the understanding of Hong Kong web‐shopper behaviour, and in developing an empirical model that can partly explain the processes leading to web‐shopping intentions.

This paper provides an analysis of the consumer buying decision process and discusses its impacts and implications for Internet retail store design. The paper begins with a brief overview of the consumer buying decision process, extracts desirable characteristics for an e‐commerce site, and evaluates a number of online stores and its corporate business characteristics. The implications for managers are to analyze the buying decision process and incorporate the requirements into the e‐commerce planning.

Many online merchants today have adopted web personalization in the form of personalized product recommendations (PPRs) to improve consumer’s decision quality. The purpose of this paper is to reveal the roles of PPRs on consumer decision quality in online shopping from the theoretical perspective of information load.

To explore the dual roles of PPRs on consumer decision quality, this paper develops a research model for it. A 2 (information load: high vs low) × 2 (web personalization: PPRs vs non-PPRs) between-subjects design is conducted to empirically test the model.

The results indicate that: first, information load can increase perceived information overload and decrease perceived information underload; second, PPRs can weaken (enhance) the positive (negative) effect of information load on perceived information overload (perceived information underload); third, both perceived information overload and perceived information underload are negatively associated with consumer’s decision quality.

This paper originally develops a research model that explains the roles of PPRs on consumer decision quality from the theoretical perspective of information load in the online shopping context, which could add new insights to the field of web personalization, especially the impact of web personalization on consumer decision making.

Online shopping phenomena are governed by a number of consumer acceptance and behaviour characteristics and grounded in theoretical aspects of consumer decision making. There are a number of factors that affect what we buy, when we buy, and why we buy. In reference to buying online, the factors that influence consumers are marketing efforts, socio‐cultural influences, psychological factors, personal questions, post‐decision behaviour, and experience. These factors will be further discussed by way of a consumer decision‐making model for online shoppers.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand familiarity, the number of pieces of product information presented on a web site, and previous online apparel shopping experience on perceived risk and purchase intention.

The experiment was 2 (brand familiarity)×2 (information availability) factorial design and 166 students participated in this study.

Multivariate and univariate analyses found a significant effect of brand familiarity and previous experience on perceived risk and purchase intention, and no effect of amount of information on perceived risk and purchase intention.

Participants may not have carefully considered the product information because the experiment was not an actual purchase situation, although a scenario was given. In future studies, creating an actual purchase situation may be necessary to investigate the effect of the amount of information available on the web sites on perceived risk and decision making.

The present study suggests that internet retailers should capitalize on the power of their brand names. Multi‐channel retailers may be able to derive significant advantages from brand familiarity among their customers.

This study has added to the in‐home shopping literature by extending findings of previous research to internet shopping. Findings suggest that internal information, specifically familiarity with brands offered online and previous experience of shopping online, influence perceptions of risk associated with shopping online, as well as intentions to purchase online.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internal and external factors of impulse buying in online shopping.

Two pretests were conducted; Pretest 1 to identify external impulse trigger cues on web sites and Pretest 2 to evaluate the content validity of the findings from Pretest 1. Based on the pretests, a web experiment and survey were conducted to explore the effect of different external impulse trigger cues on impulse‐buying behavior online and also to examine how internal factors of impulse buying (impulse‐buying tendency (IBT), affective and cognitive state, normative evaluation) are related to online impulse‐buying behaviors.

No significant differences were found among the types of external impulse trigger cues, however a positive correlation was found between a person's IBT and online impulse‐buying behavior, and between a person's affective state and online impulse‐buying behavior. A negative correlation was found between a person's cognitive state and actual online impulse‐buying behavior. And last, a significant positive correlation was found between a person's normative evaluation and actual online impulse‐buying behavior.

This study extends the Consumption Impulse Formation Enactment model into an online shopping context. Marketers can use this information to assess their own web sites in terms of what external stimuli to present on their web sites to trigger impulse buying.

Given the prevalence of impulse buying in online shopping and the importance of impulse purchases to a retailer's profit, this study provides useful insights into impulse‐buying behavior in an online setting.