A Conjoint Study of the Relationship between Website Attributes and Consumer Purchase Intentions

Many scholars have developed different conceptual models to capture effects of factors on consumers’ preferences for on-line shopping websites (e.g., Ranganathan and Gananpathy, 2002; Schaupp and Belanger, 2005; Shih, 2004; Straub and Watson, 2001) because the on-line shopping website has become one of the major interfaces between companies and their consumers. A review of extant literatures suggests that a survey method has been widely used. However, a survey method used for exploring consumers’ preferences for on-line shopping websites may bear potential problems of validity and transferability due to respondents’ potential lack of both the knowledge and experience associated with on-line technologies. To address the above problem, a refined methodology is imperative in the investigation into on-line shopping experiences. In this paper, we extended and modified the Schaupp and Belanger model (2005) to develop and propose a model of on-line shopping intentions that includes three categories of factors: technology, shopping, and product. Next, we developed four on-line websites that incorporate and operationalize the relevant factors to serve as test platforms. All respondents of this study were asked to visit these web-sites that represent differing shopping scenarios before they completed our on-line survey. By simulating different shopping scenarios on our four test platforms, prior experiences of respondents are not required in this study. Findings of this study are as follows. First, on-line contract signing mechanism was ranked as the most desired option in building trust in on-line shopping websites by all respondents. Second, respondents of this study were found able to be categorized into three groups according to the website factors they valued most. The three were logistic/security, security/trust, and convenience/trust. The specific attributes of on-line shopping websites valued most within each of the three groups are discussed in this paper. This study presents findings that support the use of many existing on-line technologies that have been found little used in on-line shopping websites such as digital certificate and on-line contracting. The inclusion of these technologies in on-line shopping websites may increase the cost of building and maintaining them and may create worries about user inconvenience. However, it is important that these technologies increase the attractiveness of the on-line shopping website and web surfers purchase intentions.