Consumers Online: Intentions, Orientations and Segmentation

Purpose – This paper examines the purchase intentions of online retail consumers,segmented by their purchase orientation.Design/methodology/approach – An e-mail/web survey was addressed to a consumer panelconcerning their online shopping experiences and motivations, n = 396.Findings – It is empirically shown that consumer purchase orientations have no significanteffect on their propensity to shop online. This contradicts the pervasive view that Internetconsumers are principally motivated by convenience. It was found that aspects that do have asignificant effect on purchase intention are prior purchase and gender.Research limitations/implications – There are two limitations. First, the sample containedonly UK Internet users, thus generalisations about the entire population of Internet users maybe questionable. Second, in our measurement of purchase intentions, we did not measurepurchase intent per se.Practical implications – These findings indicate that consumer purchase orientations in boththe traditional world and on the Internet are largely similar. Therefore, both academics andbusinesses are advised to treat the Internet as an extension to existing traditional activitiesbrought about by advances in technology, i.e. the multi-channel approach.Originality/value – The paper adds to the understanding of the purchase orientations ofdifferent clusters of e-consumers