How Innovativeness Influences Internet Shopping

Innovativeness is a willingness to try new things. Combined with other factors, innovativeness leads consumers to be among the first to adopt new ideas, products, and practices, such as buying online. As an individual difference trait, innovativeness can be conceptualized at three levels of generality: a global personality trait, general marketplace innovativeness, and domain-specific innovativeness. The present study assessed the impact of the first and third of these types of innovativeness on cyber-shopping. Data were collected through a survey of 303 consumers. Four hypotheses were proposed and supported. Global innovativeness and domain-specific innovativeness (online innovativeness) were positively correlated with each other and with amount of online buying. Domain-specific innovativeness also mediated the influence of global innovativeness on online buying behavior. Moreover, the relationships were weakly moderated by gender of respondent. These findings are consistent with previous studies and help to explain how personality influences online buying.

A Rhetorical-Prototype Mechanism for Creating International E-Marketing Materials

The global diffusion of the Internet has resulted in a new degree of access to international markets. Creating successful online materials for international consumers, however, requires an understanding of cultural expectations related to visual design. For this reason, a mechanism that examines such expectations can facilitate international e-marketing success. This chapter proposes a methodology marketers and design firms can use to address cultural expectations in relation to Web site design. By using this method, individuals can increase the chances that e-marketing materials will meet with success in the global marketplace.

An Interactive Marketing Communications Model in New Product Diffusion

The introduction of the Internet medium has accelerated changes in marketing communications. This chapter proposes an Interactive Marketing Communication Model that reflects two types of online conversations, business-to-consumer and consumer-to-consumer in three settings: business-directed, consumer-directed and independent group-directed. The conceptual model serves as the foundation that postulates the increasing effect of the new medium in new-product diffusion. The model is empirically tested with the diffusion of two new products: the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) and the Digital Video Disc (DVD) Player, introduced prior to and after the commercialization of the Internet medium. The diffusion of the DVD player introduced after the Internet is found to have an increased network effect in terms of a larger imitation effect over an innovation effect expressed in the parameters of innovation (p) and imitation (q) within the Bass Model. The empirical findings clarify prior postulation that the Internet medium would change the patterns of new-product diffusion among innovators and imitators. Both the conceptual framework and empirical findings shed light on the increasing importance for managers to include Internet-enabled communications in their new-product marketing strategy.

Online Privacy

The primary research objectives of this chapter are to: (a) investigate consumer attitudes to the invasion of online privacy, and (b) discover coping strategies used by consumers when they are online. Using a grounded theory approach, a framework of how consumers deal with online privacy concerns was developed from the analysis of six focus groups across gender and age segments. The framework suggests that people differ in their level of self-perceived technological competence (SPTC), which in turn determines their level of concern and coping strategies used. We define SPTC as a subjective self-rating of how much individuals know about technology, and how comfortable they feel with it. The level of SPTC appears to differentiate the online behaviors and privacy concerns of consumers. People with low levels of SPTC tend to be more concerned about privacy invasion, feel more comfortable with offline interactions, reduce their Internet usage, and seek regulatory solutions to privacy invasion threats. People with higher levels of SPTC are more willing to accept the risks of being online, and tend to be cautious in their online dealings without foregoing the benefits of the Internet. This group is also more likely to know about and use features such as security locks, and Internet seals of approval.

The Impact of eBay Ratings and Item Descriptions on Auction Prices

Buyers on eBay commonly rely on seller feedback ratings to determine bidding strategies. Various studies have examined the impact of eBay’s reputation system on auction outcomes. This study builds on prior research by examining the relationship between seller ratings on auction prices for two distinct product types, DVDs and designer watches and by benchmarking the bid prices against retail prices. The results show that eBay ratings explain a greater degree of price variation in Designer Watches than in DVDs. The study also suggests that high quality product listings with such features as digital images, formatted pages, and product details may result in higher bid prices.

Economic Issues in Advertising via E-Mail

By any measure, e-mail turns out to be one of most effective and useful features offered by the Internet. However, by providing an unprecedented level of personalized communication opportunities, e-mail has also become a favorite tool for commercial advertising which has led to the problem of unsolicited commercial e-mailing (UCE). Popular press is full of articles outlining that businesses spend billions of dollars every year to combat UCE (also termed as “spam” in literature). This chapter looks at the issues in e-mail advertising via a business model termed as Admediation which facilitates e-mail advertising. Admediary is a trusted third party that facilitates a mutually desirable communication between buyers and sellers via e-mail and operates under “opt-in” mode, which is widely supported by consumer advocacy groups. At the end we summarize the viability of Admediation and its impact on e-mail advertising.

Viral Experiences

This chapter signals the implications of a shift in production and distribution practices of online advertising in an age of computer network-facilitated participation. It explores online entertainment forms such as games and films that are increasingly being used as an integral part of online advertising strategies to promote goods and services to potential consumers. These “advertainments,” as they are often referred to, exemplify the linkage of commercial goals with cultural texts through creating engaging experiences, initiated by commercial corporations for solid reasons of promotion and profit, enabled by computer networks, and given form by various members of the public.

Experiencing Quality

As customers gain Web site-specific skills they come to perceive the Web site differently and more favourably than inexperienced customers. This is not only due to familiarity, emotional attachment, liking, trust, etc. Often, it is the result of an objective change in the utility of the interface as a result of skill acquisition. This chapter reviews recent work on the link between skill acquisition and loyalty in electronic environments, and extends this work by investigating the impact that learning has on consumers’ perceptions of electronic interfaces. I report the results of an experiment, which demonstrates that with increasing task experience the probability that participants will choose an incumbent Web site, over an objectively equivalent competitor, increases. In addition the data indicate that with increasing experience participants’ perceptions of product quality also increase. Although the two interfaces (i.e., incumbent and competitor) are not perceived to be any different when each has been used only one time, there is a significant difference in quality perceptions between the interfaces when the incumbent has been used six times and the competitor has only been used once. These findings are important, because perceptions of quality have an impact on the choices that customers make when shopping online. Therefore, changes in perception that occur with increasing exposure to the incumbent are meaningful and can have an impact on a Web site’s market share. The data presented in this chapter provide strong evidence that perceptions of interface quality are affected by experience with an interface in a way that gives an incumbent an advantage over competitors.

Using Server Log Files and Online Experiments to Enhance Internet Marketing

Unlike most traditional media, the Internet is both digital and interactive. Here we do not simply refer to interactions between consumers and a Web site or e-mail, but also between the marketer and the firm’s Web site or e-mail. Furthermore, the digital nature of the Internet records every interaction. These two characteristics — interactivity and digitization — facilitate research possibilities that would be cumbersome and costly using earlier media such as print, radio and television. On the Internet, marketers receive instant feedback on any tactical decision in the form of server log data. We believe that due to technical hurdles, both practitioners and academics under-utilize this omnipresent data residing in server log files. This is unfortunate for practitioners because their online efforts are far less efficient and effective than they could be. This is also unfortunate for academics because even small sites can generate massive amounts of rich data in relatively short times. This chapter introduces readers to server log files and how the basic information in these files helps management achieve goals for their Web sites and e-mail communication. Next, the chapter uses examples to illustrate how server log files make running online experiments easier than one would expect. The chapter closes with a call for more use of server log files in interdisciplinary research, and collaboration between industry and academia.

CRM, KDD and Relationship Marketing

Customers vary in their needs, and their wants change swiftly. The Internet and allied technologies enable customers to locate and obtain a variety of services/products and sometimes even have fun in the process. For e-marketers, satisfying the varied and changeable customers and surviving in today’s fast moving marketplaces is a huge challenge. Three main themes for serving customers have appeared in the business world: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Technology, Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD, or data mining) Techniques, and Relationship Marketing. The integration of these three themes is a key aspect of success in online marketing environments. In this chapter, we outline and illustrate a model that links these three elements based on ongoing research streams in Management Information Systems (MIS) and marketing as well as our own ongoing research program. Starting with three case examples, quick overviews of CRM, KDD, and Relationship Marketing are provided. Then the model and its theoretical justification are presented. This is followed by elaboration and illustration of some of the linkages in the model. Finally, in the concluding section, practical and theoretical challenges are revisited.