Factors Influencing Customers' Use of Electronic Commerce in Stock Trading: An Empirical Study in Korea

In recognizing the power of electronic commerce in continuously provided service context, this paper examines personal and situational factors as well as transactional characteristics influencing customers’ use of electronic commerce in stock trading. Empirical data were collected from an intercept field survey of individual customers of two major Korean stock trading brokers. Our results show that customer knowledge, price sensitivity, access capacity, and frequency of order are crucial conditions for customers’ use of electronic commerce in stock trading. Moreover, customer knowledge and price sensitivity appear to predict use of electronic commerce in stock trading most significantly, controlling some demographic variables. Despite several limitations, including cross-sectional design conducted only in Korea, this study advances the understanding of factors encouraging increased use of electronic commerce in continuously provided service context.