Iran on Top of the Middle East

Iran is becoming an appropriate country for selling Internet-based products. Evidence illustrates an inverse trend and avoidance in this regard. This study was designed to provide some insights into why Iranians avoid shopping on the Internet. The recent rapid increase in the number of Iranian users (almost 34 million) and low desire to buy from online retailers make it imperative to study various variables affecting this avoidance from online shopping. This study builds a comprehensive theoretical model. The authors examined seven latent variables including: lack of information intermediary, lack of electronic guarantee, lack of electronic reputation, technological and knowledge weakness, lack of interaction, lack of trust, and avoidance from online shopping. In this regard, structural equation modelling (SEM) has been used to specify the model and validate which construct of the proposed model plays the most critical role. The authors found that these constructs successfully explain why Iranians avoid shopping on the Internet. “Lack of electronic guarantee” is found to be the most significance antecedent explaining avoidance of Internet shopping. DOI: 10.4018/ijom.2012040104 International Journal of Online Marketing, 2(2), 44-56, April-June 2012 45 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. not for price changes, were $46 billion, a 3.4% increase from $44.5 billion in Q4 2010,” (U. S. Census Bureau, 2011). However, despite all these progresses, there are barriers for applying e-commerce. According to Forrester (2008), 47% of the consumers are not so interested in online shopping; and just 17% from 35% of consumers searching for information, prefer shopping from internet. The above-mentioned evidences indicate that, the first step for success in online shopping is identifying the factors forming avoidance from online shopping. Hence, this paper intends to scrutinize the factors form the Iranian users’ avoidance from online shopping and finds the answer of this question: how do consumers will form their trust from a website?