Website attributes that increase consumer purchase intention: A conjoint analysis

Ying-Hueih Chen a, I-Chieh Hsu b,⁎, Chia-Chen Lin a

a Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Providence University, Taichung, Taiwan
b Department of Business Administration, National Changhua University of Education, No.1, Jin-De Road, Changhua City, 500 Changhua, Taiwan
articleinfoabstract
Article history:
Received 1 May 2008
Received in revised form 1 October 2008
Accepted 1 January 2009
Keywords:
Online purchase intention
Technology factors
Shopping factors
Product factors
Conjoint analysis
Test platform
Prior studies investigate factors that affect consumer preferences in online shopping websites. However,
prior studies, due to their methodological limitations, do not thoroughly investigate consumer preference
structures that reflect the relative importance of attributes and features of shopping websites. By
synthesizing prior literature, this research proposes and investigates a comprehensive list of attributes
and features of shopping websites that increase consumer purchase intention. This research used IT-based
platforms for data collection, and collected data from university students. Data analysis enabled us to
categorize consumers that use online shopping websites into three groups based on the attributes they
prefer. Consumers with different levels of computer expertise also showed differing preference structures.
This research has implications in both research and practice.
© 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Since the rise of B2C online shopping websites as major transaction
platforms, attracting consumers to online shopping has become a
critical issue for both firms and researchers. Scholars have proposed
several conceptual models to capture factors that affect consumer
preferences for online shopping websites (Liang and Lai, 2002;
Schaupp and Belanger, 2005; Zviran et al., 2006). A review of the
extant literature suggests wide acceptance of the survey method in
the conduct of prior studies. However, wide acceptance does not
necessarily signify high reference value in research findings. Survey
methodologies face potential problems of validity and transferability.
The validity of quantitative studies depends on respondent
knowledge and online experiences. However, finding and targeting
experienced respondents may be difficult. Validity has thus become a
challenge. Furthermore, as e-commerce becomes commonplace, evendors
face the challenge of attracting new online customers and
keeping existing customers. Research findings from existing customers
may not be transferable to potential customers who may lack
the requisite knowledge and experience in online shopping. Thus, a
more robust methodology is imperative in the investigation of online
purchase intention (cf. Schaupp and Belanger, 2005).
In this paper, we synthesize previous research to obtain three
major factors that affect online purchase intention: technology,
shopping, and product (Ranganathan and Ganapathy, 2002; Schaupp
and Belanger, 2005). To investigate how attributes and features of
each of these factors affect online purchase intention, we established
four online websites that incorporate and operationalize the relevant
attributes and features as test platforms. Prior knowledge and
experience in online technologies was not necessary in this research.
These online experiments allow this research to effectively classify
groups of consumers based on their preferences for the focal
attributes and features, a result prior studies have not achieved. This
research also seeks to compare preference structures between
consumers with and without computer expertise. The findings of
this research have implications for both research and practice.
2. Conceptual model
In the context of e-commerce, purchase intention is a major
consequence of pre-purchase satisfaction (Bai et al., 2008). Previous
e-commerce research has sought to propose generic decision-making
criteria and suggested that technology, shopping, and product
characteristics are important factors influencing purchase decision
(e.g., Bai et al., 2008; Schaupp and Belanger, 2005; Szymanski and
Hise, 2000). However, prior studies seldom distinguish between prepurchase
and post-purchase experiences and tend to focus on postpurchase
assessment only (Maxham, 2001). This has presented a gap
in the literature. Companies building online shopping websites do not
just seek to attract consumers with online purchase experiences, they
also seek to attract those without. The research approach of previous
research has tended to draw information only from consumers with
online shopping experiences, losing sight of those without (Schaupp
and Belanger, 2005; Szymanski and Hise, 2000). However, the
business goal of attracting the largest number of online consumers
possible renders consumers without prior online shopping experiences
an important area of e-commerce research. Thus, this research
Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 1007–1014
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 4 7232105x7316; fax: +886 4 7211292.
E-mail address: fbhsu@cc.ncue.edu.tw (I.-C. Hsu).
0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.01.023
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