The Effects Of Website Characteristics And Perceived Risk On Consumer's Purchasing Intentions

Brand is an intangible asset that has been more important to web retailer. Brand is notonly material things, but events, experiences, and acts of communication that canbe "brand" (Moore,2003). Today, an increasing number of companies are transactingthrough electronic-commerce markets and environments such as the Internet. Butputting an offline brand online is sometimes not a good idea, the researchers say,because the company's traditional image may not be appropriate for its Internetidentity. So promoting online brands is a balancing act between creating a newidentity that targets the desired audience, and using the power of a traditional brand tosupport perceptions of reliability and trust.While e-commerce has proliferated worldwidely with its unique merits, many studiesshowed that consumer perceived risks are main factors that prevent e-commerce fromfurther development. In China, still many people refuse to shop online consideringmany transaction uncertainties. Meanwhile, as the number of websites increases, thecompetitions between these websites are more and more fierce. In order to makeeffective marketing strategies, it is meaningful for web retailers to figure out whatkind of characteristics that websites have could attract consumers and encourage themto do more online purchasing and what kind of consumes would accept onlineshopping more quickly and easily.It has been an inevitable trend for businesses to do the marketing activities on theInternet and attempt to gain the competitive advantages by developing marketingstrategies. Therefore, understanding the determinants of consumer's purchasinginteritions in online shopping represents a significant contribution to the area ofbusiness-to-consumer electronic commerce. The research was based on TechnologyAcceptance Model (TAM) with consumer perceived risk and web characteristics astwo outsider factors. Data from a survey of 260 consumers of online shoppingwebsite to examine the effects of website characteristics (such as website content,Security, and entertainment) and perceived risk on consumer's purchasing intentions.The analytical results indicate that all website characteristics positive influencesrelative consumer's purchasing intentions. Perceived risk negative influencesconsumer's purchasing intentions.