An Empirical Study of Consumer Switching from Traditional to Electronic Channels: A Purchase-Decision Process Perspective

This paper examines the relationships between the operating characteristics of the consumer purchase decision process and the channel switching intentions of consumers. A theoretical model that explains consumer channel switching intentions is constructed and tested based on a sample of 337 actual consumers. The analysis indicates that the overall channel-switching tendency from offline to online is approximately 52% across four product categories, including books, flight tickets, wine, and stereo systems. The order of switching tendency (flight tickets, books, stereo systems, wine) is consistent with their search and experience attributes: flight tickets and books are search goods whereas wine and stereo systems are experience goods. The logistic regression analysis across product categories shows that consumers’ differences in channel risk perceptions, price search intentions, evaluation effort, and waiting time between online and offline channels have significant impacts on their tendency of switching from offline to online shopping. The results also indicate that those attracted to purchase online perceive significantly lower channel risk, search effort, evaluation effort, and waiting (delivery) time online than offline and express significantly higher price search intentions online than offline. Although consumers attracted to offline channels also perceive lower search cost and higher price search intentions online than offline, their perceived online search effort and price search intentions are significantly lower than those attracted to online channels. These results provided further support to the importance of the factors examined in influencing consumer channel switching. It also suggests that demographics might not be effective bases for market segmentation.