Web Systems Design and Online Consumer Behavior [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Implications for Future Research

The increasing use of the Internet as a business transaction channel and information source
has attracted attention from researchers and practitioners alike. The model proposed in this
chapter is a comprehensive framework to understand what motivates, drives, and mediates online
information search behavior. The proposed model may facilitate empirical tests of online search
behavior in several ways.

First of all, the proposed model presents boundary conditions for the relationships between
antecedents and external information search. For example, prior research suggests that the
information-rich and interactive nature of the Internet affects consumer information search (Huang,
2000; Li et al., 1999). It appears that information complexity tends to decrease information search
whereas information novelty increases the amount of search. However, this effect will depend on
other factors such as consumer ability and motivation to search, or situational factors such as the
ones indicated in the proposed model. It is therefore plausible that consumers with prior online
purchase experience or high product knowledge will be less affected by information complexity and
novelty.

Second, the proposed model may provide theoretical grounds for the interactive role of
several important constructs in explaining information search behavior. For example, some
researchers found that product knowledge decreases external search (Betty & Smith, 1987) while
other researchers demonstrated that higher situational involvement facilitates information search
(Celsi & Olson, 1988). The proposed model suggests that situational involvement increases
external search only for low product knowledge consumers because high knowledge consumers will
utilize their existing knowledge regardless of situational involvement.

Third, the proposed model provides implications for practitioners in terms of how to deliver
product and service information on their Web sites in an effective way. Practitioners are reminded
of consumer ability, motivation to search, and perceived benefits and costs of search when
designing their Web sites. In addition, marketers need to consider consumer characteristics (i.e.,
knowledge, experience, skill, involvement, shopping attitudes, need for cognition), media and
product characteristics simultaneously so that their Web sites can provide information that is
properly tailored for the consumer’s abilities and motivations.