Managing motives and design to influence web site revisits

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand the relationship between web site design characteristics and revisit intention by examining the roles of satisfaction and consumer motives, thus providing managers with strategies that they can adopt to secure revisiting consumers at their web sites. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses survey method to collect data from 238 respondents and mediation hypotheses are tested with structural equation modelling using LISREL. Findings – The results indicate that for goal‐directed consumers web site content and customization play a more significant role in influencing their satisfaction and revisit intentions than convenience. However, for experiential consumers, content and convenience play a more significant role in satisfaction and revisit intentions than customization options at a web site. Research limitations/implications – One type of online business is used as a stimulus in this study. Future studies may include different types of web sites. Also, researchers in the future may use actual behavior, instead of intention, to increase the validity of the results. Practical implications – This paper suggests that marketers interested in revisiting consumers should focus on web site characteristics that lead to satisfaction during their web visit. Also, marketers need to pay attention to the consumer motives at the web site, so that the web site characteristics can be tailored to the motives and would ultimately lead to positive consumer outcomes. Originality/value – This is the first paper that investigates the moderating effect of consumer motives and mediating effect of web site satisfaction on web site characteristics and revisit intention relationship.