Design and E-loyalty Across Cultures In Electronic Commerce

Dianne Cyr, Carole Bonanni, and Joe ilsever

Simon Fraser University 2400 Central City 10153 King George Highway Surrey, B.C. Canada V3T 2W1 Telephone: +1 604.268.7500

Contact: cyr@sfu.ca

ABSTRACT
The increasing incidence of Internet shopping necessitates a better understanding of how e-loyalty is built in online transaction environments between businesses and consumers. In the current investigation website design and culture are important elements related to how website trust, website satisfaction, and e-loyalty evolve in online business relationships. A review of the literature is presented, including hypotheses for testing. Based on data collected on site in Canada, the U.S., Germany and Japan, preliminary results are outlined. Based on the data, all hypotheses received support for cross cultural differences concerning trust, satisfaction, loyalty and design preferences for the local website, but not for the foreign website.

encourage or discourage a consumers purchase intentions. In the marketing literature website features such as layout, appeal, graphics, readability, and ease-of-use have been considered to affect consumers clicking frequency. Some researchers have done work in the area of culture and design [5, 16, 44], but results have been either inconclusive or unrelated to developing loyal online customers. Although trust and satisfaction [1, 19, 59, 65] are expected to be precursors to e-loyalty, few studies have systematically examined these elements related to user design preferences. More specifically, design preferences contributing to the development of trust, satisfaction and e-loyalty have not been examined across cultures. This investigation addresses this gap in the research to date, and proposes comparisons across cultures for design preferences of the local and foreign websites and subsequent participant perceptions of trust, satisfaction and e-loyalty. The implications of this research are important as an exploratory step for understanding the role of design and culture related to e-loyalty. In this paper a review of the literature emphasizes design, trust, satisfaction, and e-loyalty with reference to culture. Various related hypotheses for testing are outlined. Preliminary results of a four-nation study conducted onsite in Canada, the U.S., Germany and Japan are reported. Data was collected using a survey, online task and interviews.

General Terms
Management, Design, Culture.

Keywords
Design, E-loyalty, E-commerce

1. INTRODUCTION
The origin of online shoppers is progressively more global and represents a multicultural community. In 2004, there are 736.6 million people with Internet access (Global Reach [28]) and hence access to online consumer products. Of those Internet users the primary language is English (35.6%), followed by Chinese (12.2%), Japanese (9.5%), Spanish (8%), and German (7%). Understanding how to build trust, satisfaction and ultimately loyalty for diverse consumers in electronic markets is a central imperative [27, 30, 38, 39, 47, 62, 65]. Despite an anticipated large number of consumers from multiple cultures, little research has systematically examined Web preferences of users related to design characteristics across cultures. This appears an omission in the literature, considering Chen and Dhillon [10] (pages 310-311) note: In the case of an Internet vendor, the website is perhaps the only way a firm communicates with its customers. Therefore its appearance and structure
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2. CONSIDERATIONS OF CULTURE
A definition of culture is complex. According to Matsumoto [45], culture is characterized as the degree to which people share attributes, values, beliefs and behaviors. Hofstede [34] defines culture as the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from another (page 21). Doney et al [21] note culture is a system of values and norms that are shared among a group of people and that when taken together constitute a design for living (page 67). Although one definition of culture is not possible, various researchers have used nation state as a loose categorization for culture [21]. In fact, for more than twenty years researchers have relied on the work by Hofstede [33] in order to make meaningful comparisons between national groups. While it is recognized these categorizations are not perfect, they do provide some means for contrast. To understand how national culture is related to social psychological phenomena such as trust, researchers [15, 38, 56,

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64]) refer to Hofstedes [33] cultural dimensions of individualismcollectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and femininity-masculinity.1 Individualism-collectivism focuses on an individuals relationships with others. In an individualist society such as the U.S., Canada or Germany individuals are expected to consider personal interests over interests of the group. Uncertainty avoidance characterizes how societies accommodate high levels of uncertainly and ambiguity in the environment. Members of high uncertainly avoidance societies such as Japan seek to reduce personal risk. Power distance addresses the extent to which a society accepts unequal distributions of power in organizations and institutions. In low power distance cultures such as Canada, the U.S. or Germany there is a tendency to maintain a philosophy of equal rights for all, without acquiescence to those in power. Finally, in feminine societies there is emphasis on quality of life and relationships. Cultures that focus on material success and assertiveness are considered more masculine in orientation [33]. Relevant to the cultures studied in this investigation: Canada, the U.S., Germany and Japan, differences on each of Hofstedes dimensions are noted in Table 1.

preferences for design features. However, how consumer preferences relate to culture and e-loyalty is not well understood.

3. WEBSITE TRUST, SATISFACTION, AND ELOYALTY

Since transactions [on the Internet] occur without personal contact, consumers are generally concerned with legitimacy of the vendor and authenticity of products or services [10 p.1]. Trust focuses on consumer confidence in the website as part of a buyerseller transactional exchange, and consumers willingness to rely on the seller and take actions in circumstances where such action makes the consumer vulnerable to the seller [38 p.4]. In contrast, website satisfaction refers to a positive navigation experience and perception of a well designed website [7, 57]). Generally accepted in other work, and also adopted as a definition in this research, e-loyalty represents online repeat purchase intention or return visits to a website [13, 27, 57].

3.1 Website Trust and Culture

Prior to the advent of the Internet, trust was examined in multiple disciplines in multiple ways. Traditionally trust has been difficult to define and measure [53). Other researchers have called the state of trust definitions confusing [43, 47], a conceptual morass [9 p.473) and multidimensional [10, 46, 53]. Others believe trust is a single dimension [54]). Bhattachherjee [8] conducted an extensive review of trust based on previous research and concludes ability, benevolence and integrity are conceptually distinct and reflect different elements of cognitive and affective abstractions of trust. (p. 219) 2 Disposition to trust is an enduring and personal characteristic that may also be embodied in culture. According to McKnight et al [47 p.473], Disposition to trust is a general, i.e. not situation specific, inclination to display faith in humanity or to adopt a trusting stance toward others. Further, [T]rust is determined by a general trusting disposition that is the product of a lifelong socialization process. This disposition is especially influential when the trusting party has not had extensive personal interaction with the specific organization or person in question. Therefore, also a trusting disposition should influence peoples trust in a vendor [26 p.729]. Lack of trust is one of the most frequently cited reasons for consumers not purchasing from Internet vendors [29]). Despite the importance of the concept, a definition of trust in online environments remains as elusive as does a definition of trust when conducting traditional shopping. Within a cultural group norms dictate there is a higher propensity to trust in collectivist than individualist cultures [21, 31, 52, 61]. Collectivists rarely move in and out of groups, and levels of trust and cooperation are high in social exchange among collectivist
2

Table 1: Country Cultural Dimensions Country Dimension Power Distance Uncertainty Avoidance Masculine Individualism US 40 46 62 91 CAN 39 48 52 80 GER 35 65 66 67 JAPN 54 92 95 46

Culture or ethnicity has been related to a wide range of consumer preferences in non-Internet settings including attitudes toward advertising [17, 2] brand loyalty [18], consumption patterns [63], and perceived risk [36]). The results of the studies suggest culture does have a large potential influence on consumption behavior, although most of the work has been descriptive in nature. Culture has implications in Internet settings as well and is proposed to affect marketing [60]), consumer trust [38]), Internet diffusion [24], Internet marketing [60], and web site development [40, 58]. Differences on online communication strategies for target markets were detected between Japan, Spain and the U.S. [51]. In other work, [23]) demonstrate differences between cultures exist concerning web interface acceptance and

It is expected most readers are familiar with Hofstedes cultural categorizations and therefore details of this work will not be elaborated here. However, for more information on this topic refer to Hofstede [33], Dawar et al [15], or to Simon [56] who provide an excellent overview of Hofstedes dimensions in a compressed format.

A thorough review of trust in non-online settings is not feasible within the scope of the present paper however the reader may wish to refer to the authors cited in this paragraph, as well as to [20, 42, 48, 49]. In particular, Rousseau et al. [53] presents a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary critique of trust.

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group members. In individualistic societies, less trust and cooperation are demonstrated in relationships that are viewed as transitory. Between cultures, the tendency to trust is reversed. Individualists are more optimistic than collectivists concerning benevolence from strangers [37, 64]. With reference to culture and the Internet, few studies focus on trust, and those that do often have inconclusive results. Jarvenpaa et al [38] used Hofstedes dimensions to compare Internet trust in collective and individualistic cultures. The researchers expected consumers from individualistic cultures would exhibit higher trust in an Internet store than consumers from collectivist cultures. Contrary to this hypothesis, no strong cultural effects were found regarding antecedents to trust. Similarly, Badre [6] conducted research on consumer trust in an Internet environment in individualist versus collectivist cultures with mixed outcomes. Simon [56] found differences in trusting stance toward websites3. Asians were most trusting of information provided across American and European websites (83% positive), counter to the earlier findings of Yamagishi and Yamagishi [64] and Inglehart et al [37]. In Simons study, Europeans (46% positive) and North Americans (42% positive) exhibited substantially lower levels of trust toward the websites. Of interest in this investigation is whether there are differences in level of trust across cultures for local websites and for the same foreign website. It is expected that related to cultural differences as proposed by Hofstede [34] that website trust will differ across cultures, and that there will be more differences for the foreign website than the local website. Hypothesis 1: Across cultural groups there are differences in website trust for a local and a foreign website. Website users are expected to experience greater trust for a local website that matches their cultural needs and preferences than for a foreign website. Based on this premise, it is expected more difference in trust will occur for the foreign website than for the local website, as the foreign website is unlikely to match preferences for all four cultural groups preferences. Hypothesis 2: Across cultural groups there are more differences in trust for the foreign than the local websites

to their particular cultural preferences. The goal of localizing user interfaces is to provide a technologically, linguistically and culturally neutral platform from which to launch global ecommerce initiatives while allowing a framework that incorporates local content and functionality [55]. More simply put, this involves enhancing the site to fit the target users at different locales [3, 41]. Few studies examine website satisfaction across cultures. Notable exceptions are Evers and Day [23] who considered website satisfaction between a group of Asian students (from collectivist cultures including Indonesia, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Japan) and a group of Australian students (who represent an individualistic culture orientation). They found 87 percent of the Australian sample would be satisfied using technology adapted to their culture, compared to 70 percent of the Asian group. This finding appears to indicate Australians were most interested in localization of the website contents, and would be more satisfied with the outcome. In other relevant work to the current investigation, Simon [56] likewise examined website satisfaction across cultures. His findings are counter to those of Evers and Day [23]. Asians were slightly more satisfied with sites presented in the study than the Europeans and North Americans. Although it should be noted different sites may contribute to this discrepancy. Simon [56] concludes, The creation of a single universally appealing global site does not appear feasible given the differences between some cultures/consumers, and that a preferable strategy might be to instead create culturally and consumer specific sites. (p. 32) In short, websites merit localization to appeal to diverse cultural constituents. To date there appears little if any sound theory to support website preferences between cultures related to satisfaction. Further, existing work [23, 56] provides no consistent outcomes to inform future research. However, the following exploratory hypothesis is suggested. Hypothesis 3: Across cultural groups there are differences in website satisfaction for a local and a foreign website. Website users are expected to be more satisfied with a localized site that matches their cultural needs and preferences, and less satisfied with a foreign site. Based on this premise, it is expected more differences in satisfaction will occur for the foreign website than for the local website. Hypothesis 4: Across cultural groups there are more differences in satisfaction for the foreign than the local websites.

3.2 Website Satisfaction and Culture

Website satisfaction relates to stickiness and the sum of all the web site qualities that induce visitors to remain at the web site rather than move to another site [35 p.37]. Szymanski and Hise [59 p.318] found positive perceptions of site design are important to e-satisfaction assessments. In concert with the usability literature, it is expected online consumers will be more satisfied with websites that are localized4

3.3 E-Loyalty and Culture

To date no work has been conducted to study web user loyalty to a local versus a foreign website related to web user loyalty across cultures. However, in parallel with the preceding expectations translation, such details as time zones, currency, local color sensitivities, product or service names, gender roles, and geographic examples must all be considered. A successfully localized service or product is one that appears to have been developed within the local culture.

The four websites viewed by participants included Reebok Shoes (American), CapEx Investments (American), British Airways (British), and Godiva Chocolates (Belgium). Localization is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local "look-and-feel." In localizing a product, in addition to idiomatic language

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about satisfaction, and likewise based on the work by Simon [56] an additional hypothesis is offered. Hypothesis 5: Across cultural groups there are differences in website loyalty for a local and a foreign website. Based on the premise that website users will be more loyal to a localized site that matches their cultural needs and preferences, the following hypothesis is outlined. Hypothesis 6: Across cultural groups there are more differences in loyalty for the foreign than the local websites.

from Yoon [65]) and Gefen et al [26]. Items are measured on a five-point Likert scale. Once the e-loyalty survey was finalized, it was pre-tested with 62 undergraduate students. Categories were evaluated for item validity and reliability and several items were revised for better fit and comprehension. A copy of the final survey items appear in Appendix 1. Final versions of the survey were created in two versions (one with the foreign website experience first; the other with the local website experience first). In each country, one-half the respondents received each version. The survey was translated and back translated for each language required.

4. WEBSITE DESIGN AND CULTURE

Effective website design engages and attracts online consumers [4, 25, 31, 49]. Design elements often considered include architecture of the information, familiarity of metaphors, transparency of terminology, ease of access, and level to which the site is customer-centric [22]. According to Gommans et al [27 p.51], A website has to be designed for a targeted customer segmentLocal adaptation should be based on a complete understanding of a customer groups culture. Barber and Badre [5] refer to the merging of culture and usability as culturability, when cultural elements are considered in website design and are expected to directly affect the way a user interacts with the site. Some research in which design characteristics such as color or screen images were considered across cultures did find different user preferences [16, 44]. In other research, results have been mixed with no systematic design preferences determined across cultures [5, 6] tested Italian participants using Italian designs and found preferences for navigation, but not for color. In the same study, there were no significant differences uncovered as a result of varying cultural characteristics for Americans. Cyr and Trevor Smith [14] examined design elements using 30 municipal websites in each of Germany, Japan, and the U.S. Design elements considered were use of symbols and graphics, color preferences, site features (links, maps, search functions, page layout), language and content. Significant modal differences were found in each of the listed categories, and suggest distinctive design preferences across cultures. Hypothesis 7: Between cultural groups there are differences in website design preferences for a local and a foreign website. It is expected web users will perceive design elements of a local website as more culturally appropriate. This gives rise to the following hypotheses concerning website design. Hypothesis 8: Across cultural groups there are more differences in preferred design elements for the foreign than the local websites.

5.2 Research Task

For the research task, participants responded to a local version of the Samsung website, and a foreign version (which was the Hong Kong site in each case).5 Initially participants viewed the home page, and then were requested to navigate the site to choose a cell phone they would hypothetically purchase. Once participants completed the survey questions within a category, each was asked parallel interview questions to obtain further information about the website experience. Interviews were digitally recorded. An interpreter was used when necessary.

5.3 Participant Selection

Data collection was on site in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and Japan. These countries were chosen as they represent very diverse cultural characteristics as determined by Hofstede [33] (refer to Table 1). Participants were a stratified sample of employees from different levels in a multinational high technology company. The original sample of 30 participants in each country was reduced to 114 respondents in the final analysis, and was equally distributed. Respondents included 41.5% females and 58.5% males, with an average age of 35.

5.4 Analysis
For the analysis mean scores and t-tests were calculated to determine significant across country differences. Established theory was used for the categorization of data. Key participant responses were recorded by category and relevant quotes were produced verbatim. Once all individual responses had been extracted, a within-group analysis was carried out for each country. At the country level of analysis, responses were likewise coded and categorized. As the analysis proceeded, further segmentation was required for emerging codes, themes, and categories. The final stage of the analysis consisted of a between5

5. METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY 5.1 Survey Development

A survey was developed to test a variety of topics including design, trust, satisfaction and e-loyalty. Design items relate to work by Marcus and Gould [44], Egger [22], Badre [6], and Cheskin ([11]; [12]). Items on trust and satisfaction are drawn

The local sites are: Canada (http://www.samsung.ca/cgibin/nasecabc/init_seca.jsp), USA (http://www.samsungusa.com/cgibin/nabc/home/b2c_home_samsungusa.jsp), Germany (http://www.samsung.de/), and Japan (http://www.samsung.co.jp/) The Hong Kong site can be found at http://www.samsungelectronics.com.hk/ .

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group analysis for all countries. This part of the process used the codes, themes, and categories developed in the previous stage. Once content analysis was completed, an independent reviewer considered the data from a different perspective in order to affirm the reliability and validity of the findings. The second reviewers examination of the data revealed virtually identical results.

security when buying online, and more concern about the legitimacy of the online sales contact. Also in Table 3, scores for satisfaction and loyalty to the local and foreign websites are reported. For satisfaction statistically significant differences are found for the local website for all three variables. For the local website significant differences were also found across the countries related to whether participants would visit the website again. Consistent with the findings on trust, Japanese respondents had lowest mean scores for the three satisfaction variables and the two loyalty variables for the local site. Hypothesis 3 was supported for the local website for satisfaction, and Hypothesis 5 was partially supported related to loyalty for the local site. Hypotheses 3 and 5 were rejected for the foreign website in that no significant differences were found across countries for the foreign site. Hypotheses 4 and 6 were also rejected as more statistically significant differences were reported for the local website than for the foreign website. This suggests when the four groups of participants navigated the Hong Kong Samsung site their level of satisfaction and level of loyalty were very similar. This was not the case with their respective domestic websites. Table 3: Website Trust, Satisfaction and E-loyalty for the Local and Foreign Websites US TRUST Trust the vendor Website credible 3.89 3.59 3.96 3.85 4.11 3.85 4.00 3.41 3.93 3.83 3.93 3.90 4.27 4.07 4.23 4.07 4.40 4.13 3.32 3.32 3.25 3.43 3.43 3.61 ** ** *** CAN GER JPN Sig

6. RESULTS
In this exploratory research, the objective is to determine whether there are differences across countries regarding preferred website design elements, website trust, website satisfaction and website loyalty. To determine differences, t-tests are run on the individual observed variables within each of the factors across the four countries. For these factors, reliability measures were acceptable using Cronbachs alpha. Table 2: Cronbach Alpha Values Factors Mean Std Dev Alphas Local Design Local Trust Local Satisfaction Local Loyalty Foreign Design Foreign Trust Foreign Satisfaction Foreign Loyalty 3.32 3.90 2.97 2.75 3.59 3.77 3.03 2.60 0.88 0.87 1.10 1.20 0.72 0.80 0.93 1.10 .92 .93 .92 .85 .88 .88 .89 .78

6.1 Website Trust, Satisfaction and Loyalty Across Cultures

Trust, satisfaction and loyalty were investigated across the four countries to determine if there are systematic differences between participant perceptions of the local website and the foreign website related to culture. Statistically significant differences were found between the four countries concerning trust for the local and foreign website. However, for the local website there are differences in the means across countries concerning the three variables for trust (refer to Table 3), while for the foreign website only one of the three variables for trust is statistically different. Overall, Japanese respondents reported the lowest average trust for both local and foreign websites. Based on these results, Hypothesis 1 is supported and Hypothesis 2 is rejected. With reference to interview data, all four cultural groups identify vendor familiarity, and security signs as important factors influencing their trust in online purchasing. Vendor familiarity refers to previous experience purchasing from a vendor, the popularity of the vendors name, and the vendors reputation. Of interest, even when the vendor is well known like Samsung, there are differences across countries in trusting their websites. Such issues of security are particularly important to the Japanese and less so for Canadians, Americans, and Germans. On average, Japanese indicate less trust for Internet stores, more concern about

Trust info ** presented on website SATISFACTION 2.85 Website fulfills 3.00 3.27 2.18 ** personal needs 2.74 2.55 3.17 2.89 and expectations Website satisfies 3.00 3.10 3.17 2.25 ** personal needs 3.22 2.66 3.80 3.04 Using site/service 3.15 3.48 3.70 2.32 ** is satisfactory 2.67 2.48 3.20 2.79 LOYALTY Would visit 3.15 3.17 3.27 2.04 ** website again 2.67 2.48 3.20 2.79 2.85 Would consider 2.90 2.73 1.96 purchasing from 2.30 2.48 2.40 2.50 website in future Note: Unshaded values represent local website data and italic and shaded values represent foreign website data ** significant at 0.05, ***significant at 0.01 (2-tailed) Further observed in Table 3, when comparing means for the local versus the foreign website, Japanese appear to favor the foreign (Hong Kong) site over the local Japanese site. In particular, the Japanese reported they liked the brighter colors of the foreign site, and found the colors on the local site cold, and that images are badly designed.

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Also of interest in Table 3, on average the participants trusted the local and foreign websites (with mean scores between 3 and 4 out of 5). This is not the case for satisfaction or loyalty variables. The Japanese were the least satisfied with their local website while the Canadians were the least satisfied with the foreign site, with a resulting average score of less than three. Regarding the loyalty variables, Canadians, Americans, and Germans would tend to visit their local site, while Japanese represent the exception and would not visit the local website again in the future. In the four countries the respondents did not seem on average to consider purchasing from either the local or foreign websites in the future. However when comparing the percentage of answers in the most likely and least likely categories to purchase from the local or foreign website in table 4, Japanese are least likely to purchase from the local site rather than the foreign site. However, the percentage of respondents in the other three countries who would purchase from the local website is higher than the percentage of respondents who would purchase from the foreign website.

To test for statistical differences in design preferences across the four countries, t-tests were used. Table 5 indicates in 7 of 9 instances significant differences were found for website preferences or the local site. The only exceptions are for screen design and product availability. Therefore Hypothesis 7 is supported related to perceptions of the local website. With a focus on the foreign website, only one item concerning presentation of product attributes yielded statistically significant results. Hypothesis 7 is not supported related to the foreign website. As mentioned earlier, main differences are between the Japanese and the other three categories of respondents. Contrary to Hypothesis 8, in Table 5 are reported statistically significant differences for the local website more than for the foreign website. Table 5: Mean Values for Design Elements US CAN 3.30 3.67 3.70 3.89 3.85 3.78 3.48 3.33 3.67 3.48 3.33 3.59 3.63 3.59 3.37 3.07 2.89 2.78 GER 3.93 4.03 4.07 4.10 3.80 3.83 3.87 4.10 3.63 3.57 3.90 3.93 3.87 3.90 3.77 3.83 3.13 2.67 JPN 2.28 3.82 2.39 4.03 2.82 3.50 2.75 3.42 3.10 3.57 2.32 3.61 2.29 3.64 2.54 3.71 2.61 3.11 ** ** *** *** ** *** *** Sig ***

Table 4: Preference for Purchasing from Local versus Foreign Websites % Most Likely Local Site Canada U.S. Germany Japan Foreign Site Canada U.S. Germany Japan 26% 17.2% 20.0% 17.8% 65% 62% 40% 43% 40.7% 37.9% 33.4% 7% 40.7% 44.8% 40% 68% % Most Unlikely

Menu layout Access to product information Professional design Logical presentation of product info Screen design Navigation Sequencing Presentation of product attributes Product availability

3.48 3.48 3.79 3.41 4.03 4.03 3.45 3.55 3.51 3.86 3.55 3.45 3.21 3.48 3.24 3.21 3.00 3.03

6.2 Website Cultures

Design

Preferences

Across

The following analysis compares website design preferences between countries for the local and then the foreign websites. On a Likert scale (1 to 5), mean scores for each design element for Americans, Germans and Canadians are mostly between 3 and 4 suggesting they somewhat like the design of the foreign and local websites. Japanese participants report values less than 3 for 8 of the 9 design elements of the local website, therefore indicating moderate dislike of the local website. Alternately, Japanese have a strong preference for the (Hong Kong) foreign website and report values between 3 and 4.. Sentiments about the Japanese site are captured by this Japanese respondent, I sayuse more pictures, more drawings to appeal to Japanese peopleJapanese people like the emotional approach. Japanese seemed to prefer the brighter colors and animation present on the Hong Kong site.

Note: Unshaded values represent local website data and italic and shaded values represent foreign website data ** significant at 0.05, ***significant at 0.01 (2-tailed) In conclusion, Table 5 illustrates many design elements are statistically different across countries. Some of the broad perceptions of the websites are captured in the following quotes representing each country: I would say, it (the website) doesnt have to be exciting. I just want to buy a handy item, I dont

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want to go on an exciting shopping tourI just search the site where I can buy it, so I dont have to look at impressive animations, sounds, and multimedia. (German respondent) Banners drive me crazy, they are very distracting actually, when I got deeper into the site, there was a flashy think over here, it is very distracting. (U.S. respondent) There are two different kinds of home pages. There is the one with every possible link like the Yahoo home pageit turns me off. So this one I find a little simpler in the sense that it is broken into a few sections, there are pictures to break things offIt does a fairly good job. (Canadian respondent) All national groups believe it is important online product information is complete and detailed. A Canadian states: For a first glance I like the first ten bullet points, the ten most important things. But if Im looking for detail information I want it to be there. For example, the sizes and dimensions or something like that.

In the design realm, previous researchers has been mixed with respect to design preferences across cultures. However, in this investigation there are clear differences noted for perception of the local sites. This supports work by Cyr and Trevor Smith [14] and others who found significant differences in website design elements across Japanese, German and American cultures. However, it would also be expected that there would also be significant differences across cultures for the foreign site, as participants would all view the Hong Kong site through a different cultural lens. Further research is required to determine why this is the case. While the current research is focused on between country differences, additional analysis will more specifically examine paired country comparisons. Further, within country comparisons will be made to determine statistically significant preferences of the local versus the foreign site. These additional results will be made available at the conference. In sum, the research is a contribution in an area where very little work has been conducted to date. The experiments are systematic and rigorous, and add to the literature on design which otherwise tends to be more qualitative in format. Further, linking trust and eloyalty to design is a new area of investigation. Although the results of this research are not always in alignment with our initial expectations, they form important building blocks for future scholarly research. Further, the information gained has practical importance. To date, many companies have not considered the impact of design as part of their business model related to e-loyal customer behavior. In this research different preferences for the local sites do surface, indicating that savvy Web designers will ideally incorporate culturally specific design elements into websites especially if they are to be appealing to diverse clients. The present work is deliberately exploratory. Collecting data on site in each country location is a strength of this investigation. A limitation of the research pertains to the relatively small sample of participants who are drawn from a technology company in developed nation states, constraining the generalizability of our findings. Additional research may alternately focus on how eloyalty is built related to design in developing economies. Also noteworthy, all websites used in the study are Samsung sites. While one would expect this choice to provide greater consistency in website design and localization features, response biasing may occur due to participant knowledge of the company and its reputation. In future research, a larger sampling of websites might be considered to enhance generalizability of the findings. The current research will inform other avenues for investigation such as controlled laboratory experiments. User cultural preferences can be systematically examined for differentiation of consumer group preferences using specialized eye tracking or other equipment. In this effort, our intention is to both widen the selection of websites presented, and to use eye tracking and subjects self reports to identify profiles or patterns of preference for design characteristics by national groups. Further, it is of interest to determine how design elements resulting in e-loyalty may be applied in the realm beyond PC-based electronic commerce. With the advent of M-commerce and ubiquitous computing, applications of this work may find a new home in emerging markets.

7. CONCLUSION
This portion of the research investigation supports that differences exist for trust, satisfaction, loyalty and design preferences across cultures for the local website viewed, but not the foreign website. This finding suggests participants variously viewed their local sites, and overall had more similar perceptions of the foreign Samsung site. In all cases, when viewing the local site it was important to trust the vendor, that the website was seen as credible and that information on the site could be trusted. This outcome supports earlier work by Chen and Dhillon [10], Gefen [26] and others who note vendor legitimacy is important to purchasing on the Internet. Various researchers [21, 31, 52, 61] suggest a higher propensity to trust in collectivist than individualist cultures. This finding was not supported in this research. The Japanese were least trusting of either the local and foreign sites, while the Germans tended to be most trusting. Americans and Canadians who are individualists would be expected to be most trusting, however they scored midrange compared to the other two groups. Considering satisfaction, again the Japanese were much less satisfied with the local site. For other groups, generally there was more satisfaction for the local website over the foreign site, but the only country in which this was consistently so was Canada. This finding supports Evers and Day [23] in that members of individualist cultures are more likely to be satisfied with localized websites. Related to e-loyalty, participants in each country except Japan were more loyal to the local site, and would be more likely to purchase from the local site. This further supports the practice of localization as it relates to purchasing on the Internet. In fact, it may be that the unexpected results on the part of the Japanese relate to poor localization of the local site. Indeed, Japanese respondents were quite specific in noting why they preferred the Hong Kong site.

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8. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research is part of a three year project titled Managing ELoyalty through Experience Design generously funded by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant under the special category Initiative on the New Economy.

9. REFERENCES
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Appendix 1: Survey (answered by each participant for both the local and the foreign Samsung site separately)

Experience Design 1 The user menus are clearly categorized and are well laid out on the screen. 2. I can easily recognize and find where product information is located. 3. The website looks professionally designed and well presented. 4. The product information provided on the website is presented consistently and logically. 5. The screen design on the website (i.e. colors, boxes, menus, navigation tools etc.) is harmonious and well presented. 6. The website can be easily navigated. 7. The organization, sequencing and overall arrangements of the site are understandable and easy to use. 8. All product options, product attributes and product information are well designed and presented. 9. Site product availability and product variety are well explained. Trust, Satisfaction and E-loyalty 10. I can trust the online vendor. 11. The website is credible to me 12. I information presented on the website 13. The website completely fulfills my needs and expectations. 14. This website satisfies my particular needs well. 15. Using this site/service is satisfactory overall. 16. I would visit this website again. 17. I would consider purchasing from this website in the future.

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