A Study Of Consumer Information Search Online In China

Consumer information search is an important aspect in the study of consumer behavior. Consumer behavior has dramatically changed with the advent of E-commerce, which broke the region and time restrictions of traditional market information access, from passive receiving information to active searching information. Compared with traditional consumption environment, online consumer behavior on information search casts more complicated and multi-variant influences on further decision-making of the consumers and thus caused great attention from academia. In business practice, it is also important to arouse online consumers' purchase desire by means of effective information convey.An unavoidable fact is that the E-commerce industry circumstances of China are quite different from those of western countries. And this makes the comparison and expansion between the empirical study based in domestic China and western existing research results theoretically meaningful. This research takes pre-purchase consumer behavior on information search as study object and mainly examines the process on which consumers, after having consumption needs, access relevant product information through Internet and its correlated key influence factors. We use EKB model, the classic durable-product consumer behavior model, as the basis, and extend its information search link to test its adaptability on online consumption behavior. Our research takes Chinese consumers' purchase on durable products, such as cell phones, digital cameras, and laptops as behavior objects. On the selection of samples, we choose the main consumer group—young people, including college students and white-collars that have a certain degree of consumption capacity. Due to its focus on online consumption scenarios, the sample selection also takes into consideration the Internet experience.The study is based on consumer information search related theories, specifically regarding information search mechanism and influence factors, in information economics, motivation studies, consumer behavior, and information behavior and takes consumer information search mode developed by Schmidt and Spreg (1996) as reference. In view of the characteristics of China's E-commerce, we construct the integrated model of online consumer information search behavior and mainly discuss the direct influence factors of online consumer information search behavior and its influence mechanism on consumer behavior. On the one hand, starting from motivation and capability, we examines the most essential influence factors on consumer information search behavior and then discusses how other factors influence through these two factors. On the other hand, the study divides influence factors into search influence factors and Internet influence factors. The search influence factors refers to the factors, including perception risk, product knowledge, market expert, product involvement, and traditional information search effort, that influence consumer information search behavior under traditional circumstances. The Internet factors mainly include Internet involvement, Internet trust, and Internet perception risk, which are typical of Internet circumstances.To testify the model, we collect data by means of questionnaires and apply SPSS15.0 and AMOS5.0 software tools to analyze the data in terms of correlation analysis, variance analysis, regression analysis, and structural equation modeling. In consequence, we conclude the following.1. There exists a mutually complementary relationship between traditional and online information search efforts. We found that those Chinese customers, who often try traditional ways to search information, also search more information online. The finding is consistent with the research results from a western scholar - Ratchford etc. (2001). Thus, For Chinese customers, Internet does not replace but complement traditional ways of information dissemination.2. Search motivation is the key medium for search behavior. It is through search motivation that search profit perception influences the final information search behavior. However, search motivation is not the medium from search cost perception to information search, which is different from the finding of western scholars. The reason is that the cost of online information search is very low compared with the cost perception of traditional ways.3. Product knowledge, involvement and perception facilitate search ability. Our study reveals that a customer with high Internet involvement and more product knowledge is able to improve the perception of his/her search ability. This result is in accordance with earlier research findings from Wilke (1989) and Park el at. (1994), It also implies that Internet behavior will increase information gap, that is, information search will add product knowledge, which in turn improve information search. Less information search will weaken search ability. Perception usability of computers and Internet helps improve search ability, thus we should speed up the popularity of information technology.4. Product involvement, trust and market experts have positive impacts on search profit, while perception risks have negative impacts. Our work shows that purchase of important products, a high level of trust in Internet information, and individual roles of market experts all increase perception of search profits. However, perception risks decrease the perception of search profits. This result is different from most western papers. Therefore at high risk of Internet circumstances, Chinese customers will rather chose traditional information search methods than online information search.Our contributions are as follows:1. Retrieve influence factors of information search behavior from multiple theories. The basic model of our study examines consumer online information search behaviors in the view of psychological motivation, information process and information economics. We use four factors, search motivation, search ability, search profit and search cost, to analyze search behavior. Particularly, search cost and search profit originate from information economics, while search motivation and search ability are from psychological motivation and information process respectively. We further demonstrate that the above hypotheses are all supported theoretically through variable settings and empirical data.2. Propose integrated model of online information search behavior based on Chinese characteristics. Many scholars have been focusing on direct influence factors of consumer information search efforts (Rha, 2002 and Jepsen 2007). They studied the factors from different points of view, but none of them did systematical analysis of these factors. Schmidt and Sprend(1996), Klviwat & Guo(2004) proposed a integrated model of consumer information search behavior. But this model is too complicated and the variables are difficult to measure that causes the failure of empirical study on the model. Stimulated by the above model, we study the actual situations and construct an integrated model based on online consumption scenarios of Chinese consumers. Our model is justified by empirical investigation and constitutive equations.This study will not only benefit the theoretical research on consumer behavior, but also help Chinese corporations implement and extend their online marketing. In particular, our work will be of great practical significance to online recognition, online marketing planning, online reconstruction and dissemination of product information, the online help of Internet purchase, and the construction of expert-aided decision-making systems.