Research and design methodologies and applications

¶ … Passyn, K., Diriker, M., & Settle, R. (2011). Images of online vs. store shopping: Have the attitudes of men and women, young and old really changed? Journal of Business & Economics Research, 9(1), 99-110.

Benedicktus, R., Brady, M., Darke, P., & Voorhees, C. (2010). Conveying trustworthiness to online consumers: Reactions to consensus, physical store presence, brand familiarity, and generalized suspicion. Journal of Retailing, 86(4), 310-323.

Rajamma, R.K., Paswan, a.K., & Hossain, M. M. (2009). Why do shoppers abandon shopping cart? Perceived waiting time, risk, and transaction inconvenience. The Journal of Product and Brand Management, 18(3), 188-197.

To what degree do visions of difficulty, confusion, or frustration inhibit adoption of online purchasing?

Does manipulating generalized suspicion provide an especially challenging test for the effectiveness of consensus and brand cues in reassuring consumers, and also allows for the examination of a potential boundary condition?

Is convenience a critical factor in determining consumer behavior in general, is it considered as one of the most important predictors for the choice of online shopping?

Data-based marketing, catalogers and other direct marketers are well positioned to move quickly and effectively to online consumer marketing. As such, they intensify the threat they already pose to traditional, store merchandisers.

A measurement model was assessed using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the results suggested that the measurement model offered good fit to the data (?2 = 132.33; df = 51; CFI = .99; TLI = .99; SRMR= .019).

After initial scrutiny of the data, 13 respondents were eliminated as they were not online shoppers. Selfadministered electronic questionnaires were used to collect the data for the study. The online methodology is appropriate for this research as online customers provide the sampling frame for this study.

Table 1 displays the demographic distributions of response for the entire sample. The similarities of proportions of respondentsof each sex reflect the sample quota specifications. The convenience sample of respondents tended to be more educated, affluent, and engaged in more up-scale occupations than the general population from which it was drawn.

The ANOVAs indicated significant main effects of the consensus manipulation on each measure (ps < .001). Scheffe's multiple comparisons indicate support for H1a -- c; higher consensus led to greater trust and higher purchase intentions.

Using split samples, the data was tested to ensure that the results are not affected by non-response error. Analysis of the demographic variables showed that there are no significant differences between genders, income categories or age categories with respect to their propensity to abandon shopping cart. For further analyses, composite score for each factor was computed.

Customer

Professor

In "Conveying trustworthiness to online consumers: Reactions to consensus, physical store presence, brand familiarity, and generalized suspicion" the article discusses the competition etailers face from businesses that not only have websites, but also actual stores for customers to go into. Chains like Walmart are giving sites like Amazon and Ebay a decrease in sales due to having two versions of availability. So two studies have been made to investigate and research how etailers can give the impression of trust and reliability to consumers which will give increase to sales or desire to purchase in relation to their hybrid counterparts. Study 1 evaluates whether "consensus information (i.e., the extent of satisfaction agreement among previous customers) and brand familiarity exert independent or interactive effects on consumer perceptions across retailers that possess, or lack, a physical presence." (Benedicktus, Brady, Drake & Voorhees 2010) Study 2 attempts to test "a potential boundary condition of the effects of consensus information and brand familiarity by introducing generalized suspicion, which is a common condition for online buyers."(Benedicktus, Brady, Drake & Voorhees 2010)

The results specifically in the article presented manipulation checks that determined the manipulations were successful. In terms of the consensus manipulation, 97.2% of subjects recalled correctly the consensus scores within four percentage points of the manipulated figure. There was testing done in respect to the etailers and hybrid retailers. "As in the pre-testing, Amazon.com (M= 6.87) and Barnes & Noble (M= 7.18) brands were found to be significantly more familiar than Maximo.com (M= 4.44) and Suprema (M= 5.26; ps < .001).5 Lastly, 92.3% of respondents correctly classified the seller into the appropriate physical presence category. A 4 (consensus) x 2 (physical presence) x 2 (brand familiarity) ANOVA was computed for all dependent variables."(Benedicktus, Brady, Drake & Voorhees 2010)

For further clarification, an ANOVA is an analysis of the variation present in the experiment. This is a means for testing a hypothesis that implies the variation in an experiment is no greater than that due to normal variation of individuals'characterstics and error in their measurment. The ANOVAs performed in the study indicated significant main effects of the consensus manipulation on each measure which I found significantly important to the discovery of amount of trustworthiness in consumer population. The comparisons made from Scheffe designate support for H1a -- c. This led to an overall conclusion that the higher the concurrence, the greater the trust which gave way to higher rates of purchase aim.

The results of the two tests imply that consensus data is able to provide a "broad cue" that communicates believability and offers the potential for increase buyer intentions for brands that consumers are accostomed to or not. These results apply to the hybrid retailer and etailer companies.In contrast, the conclusion of physical being and brand awareness yielded results that were narrower in scope. Despite the information found, it was seen that consensus data was not enough to shield against flowing, established doubts on the internet. The conclusion then is that a mixture of high consensus and brand familiarity is needed to serve the purpose of trustworthiness. The article finishes with approbations on how etailers can communicate a trustworthy persona through customer service and how the use of further research can aid in these conclusions.

Suspicion played in overall negative part in creating consumer trustworthiness. The findings of the studied pointed out the need for there to have a combination of high concurrence and a familiar brand for their to exist the least amount of suspicion which as previously stated was a deterrant. I found that concurrence and brand familiarity had increased benefits in not just the overall consumer experience, but in the effectiveness of marketing. it's been proven that information like with these studies really does benefit any kind of retailer including etailers regardless of physical presense or not. It didn't hurt the retailers that they had physical stores for customers to go into, but it didn't hurt etailers as much that they didn't. The results in the article indicated that "consensus information had the broadest effects on trustworthiness and purchase intentions, whereas brand familiarity and physical presence were more limited in scope." (Benedicktus, Brady, Drake & Voorhees 2010)