Purchase Intentions @nd the Internet - Which Products are most likely to be bought via the Internet and why?

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject Business economics - Offline Marketing and Online Marketing, grade: 1,0, Maastricht University, course: Marketing and Market Research, language: English, abstract: The Internet has tremendously changed the way in which businesses and consumers interact with each other. Consumers are becoming increasingly demanding, and naturally expect products and services to be suited to their individual needs. Derived needs change at an even faster pace nowadays and therefore firms recently discovered the Internet as a means of interactive marketing. For consumers the Internet creates new opportunities for buying at higher speed, discount prices and greater overall convenience. Probably one of the most important developments in the previous years is e-commerce. Interactive home shopping is considered to be one of the fastest growing markets in the future, given the substantial benefits to both firms and consumers. However, the failure of many business-to-consumer start-ups shows, that recent innovations have been company-driven. The new consumer has yet to be educated to use the Internet as a shopping device. Especially sensitive issues such as data security as well as payment security seem to contribute to the reluctance of a great majority of potential Internet users to purchase via the Internet. Despite its recognized importance, knowledge of the critical success factors in e-commerce is lacking. For once, the mind-set and expectations of the consumer have to be taken into account. Secondly, companies have to redesign their business processes in order to deliver superior customer value via the Internet. However, knowledge of consumers Internet buying behavior is limited. This paper will provide a deeper insight into the factors influencing the decision process. We, a group of five students from Maastricht University, found that the problem has not been adequately addressed in the existing literature. For this reason, we conducted a market research study investigating Internet buying behavior. Our objective is to identify the factors and variables critical to a successful e-commerce strategy for business-to-consumer companies. This paper will focus on products from seven frequently quoted categories: books, audiovisual media, software, electronic equipment, travel services, clothing and groceries. We assume a consumer perspective in order to advise firms making market-driven decisions. Although forecasters expect e-commerce to be one of the fastest growing markets in the near future we feel that firms can only gain sustainable competitive advantage if they can identify and control the critical determinants of success.