Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Research

Has e-marketing come of age? Modeling historical inuences on post-adoption era

Internet consumer behaviors
David G. Taylor, David Strutton
University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: E-marketing evolved from a comparatively isolated group of dot-com rms to a mainstream marketing
Received 1 May 2008 channel activity. This progress has also inuenced customers and their e-behavior in the process. This
Received in revised form 1 September 2008 study reviews the literature from information systems and marketing and uses meta-analysis to synthesize
Accepted 1 January 2009
key ndings. Three important insights emerged. From this exercise, a framework was developed integrating
both perspectives, Marketing and IS empirical and conceptual literatures, enhancing the understanding of
Keywords:
Internet
the customer e-behavior process by which attitudes, perceptions and evaluations interact to inuence
Consumer behavior purchasing intentions. The analysis suggests also that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, the
Meta-analysis primary constructs of the technology acceptance model (TAM), continue to inuence purchasing intentions
in the post-adoption online context. Thus, the multi-disciplinary nature of online purchasing behavior was
demonstrated, underscoring a need for both cross-disciplinary research and a more integrative and
collaborative strategy for decision-makers and managers.
Published by Elsevier Inc.

For all the hoopla surrounding the Internet, nding your way
onto the information superhighway remains surprisingly difcult.
And the sluggish performance may leave you wondering what
the excitement is about. Business Week, 1995
1. Introduction
Since leaping into the national consciousness in the mid-1990s,
the Internet has walked a tightrope between hype versus reality,
frustration versus promise, and potential versus pipe-dream. In its
early years, the Internet captured the popular imagination but
remained solidly in the realm of those technophiles who possessed
the ability to understand and navigate this brave new world. As Bu-
siness Week pointed out, in 1995 the Internet was no place for the
neophyte, requiring high levels of technological savvy and patience to
navigate with slow, unstable connections (Wildstrom, 1995).
But as technology improved Internet usability, acceptance grew
exponentially. Early e-retailers blazing the way were dot-coms,
discrete entities unfettered by brick-and-mortar stores. Internet
marketers were viewed as part of the e-commerce world, distinct
from their Old Economy brethren. However, just as Internet usage
Corresponding author. Department of Marketing, University of North Texas,
Denton, TX 76203, United States.
E-mail address: Strutton@unt.edu (D. Strutton).
spread from Silicon Valley to Main Street, Internet marketing was
absorbed into marketing's mainstream.
Academic study of the Internet follows a similar pattern. In the
early 1990s, information systems (IS) articles on Internet topics began
to appear in publications such as MIS Quarterly, Information Systems
Research, Information & Management, Information Technology and
Management and others. Studies examine technological aspects of the
Internet, including user adoption, vendor attributes, Web site design,
platform performance and stability.
In the mid-1990s, leading marketing journals also began publishing
prescient, forward-looking articles about the Internet's transformational
potential as a driver of marketing activities. Among the rst are Hoffman
and Novak's (1996) hypermedia computer-mediated communication
model, Alba and Lynch's (1997) work on incentives to go online and
Burke's (1997) predictions about the future of online consumer
marketing. A revolution is predicted in marketing thought and strategy
(Sharma and Sheth, 2004), and analogies are drawn between the
potential of the Internet and the impact of the printing press and
democratic governance (Dickson, 2000).
For these foundational marketing theorists, the sky is the limit for
the Internet's future impact. Many fellow academicians apparently
agree, and scores of articles address various aspects of the Internet.
While the pioneers generally proposed conceptual models for
studying the Internet and discuss its marketing potential, such topics
quickly gave way to more diverse research streams addressing
mainstream topics such as pricing, strategy, nancial/legal issues or
channels, with articles appearing routinely in leading marketing

0148-2963/$ see front matter. Published by Elsevier Inc.

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2009.01.018
 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956 951

journals. Several journals dedicated exclusively to e-commerce and extract the constructs most relevant to Internet-based marketing
Internet marketing emerged, including The Journal of Interactive research and practice. The following questions emerge:
Marketing, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Electronic
In the context of Internet purchasing behaviors, what consumer
Commerce Research, and the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research.
attributes exercise the strongest effect on consumer behavioral
The IS literature concurrently conducted research on issues of
intention?
interest to marketers, such as purchasing behavior, channel preferences
What marketing-related insights about Internet purchasing behaviors
or customer satisfaction. All the while, the IS literature represents a
may be gleaned from the information systems literature?
parallel stream from which marketers can and do pluck a wealth of
What is an appropriate conceptual model for studying Internet
information regarding Internet marketing.
purchasing behavior in this, a purportedly, post-Internet-adoption
era?
2. Research objectives

3. Methodology
Customer acceptance and usage of the Internet has grown tremen-
dously in recent years, and so has its strategic application. The Internet
3.1. Establishing a baseline of knowledge
has emerged as a critical channel across marketing arenas, offering cost
efciencies, expanded geographic scope and new opportunities for
Between 1996 and 2007, A+ level marketing journals published
targeting or understanding customers. Understanding how, when or
72 articles on various subjects related to the Internet. Of these, 25 are
why consumers choose to transact online is as important now as it has
in the domain of online consumer behavior. These issues include
ever been. And that importance will likely grow over time. Indeed,
information-seeking, decision-making, privacy and trust and even the
Internet marketing efforts may well have already come of age. For most
effects of avatars or computer-generated graphic representations of
B2C rms, Internet marketing capabilities have passed the point where
human characters. A detailed review that summarizes authors, titles,
they represent mere nice-to-haves. Instead, such capabilities now
journals and key ndings is available upon request.
represent absolute musts.
The remaining 57 top-tier marketing articles are classied into one
Consequently, this study is driven by three objectives. They are to:
of ve additional categories: (Internet-related) marketing strategy,
nancial/legal, pricing, distribution or word-of-mouth behaviors.
Provide comprehensive reviews of studies of online consumer
behaviors published in leading marketing and IS journals during the
3.2. Developing the population of relevant articles
past decade.
Quantitatively synthesize and evaluate these new historical ndings
To integrate the extant literature, a two-pronged approach was
to secure theoretical and practical insights into how post-adoption
used. First, a review of marketing literature (excluding the A+ level
online consumer behaviors might be studied more effectively in the
journals) as well as management and interdisciplinary journals
future.
was conducted. This search uncovered numerous additional studies
Combine marketing and IS insights into a unifying Internet
relevant to this meta-analysis. Seven articles were used from
marketing framework; i.e., a model capable of explaining with
publications such as Journal of Business Research, Journal of Interactive
greater clarity the inuence of various interdisciplinary concepts on
Marketing, Managing Service Quality, Organizational Science, Psychology
the behavioral intentions of consumers who shop online.
& Marketing and Total Quality Management & Business Excellence. One
unpublished study, in press at Electronic Commerce Research, was also
2.1. Practical and theoretical signicance of this research included.
Second, an exhaustive search was conducted of the IS literature,
These objectives are timely for several reasons. First, evidence identifying the remaining studies included in the meta-analysis. For
suggests Internet usage and online purchasing behaviors have each inclusion, IS articles had to meet all of the following criteria:
reached a post-adoption stage at which a new framework is appropriate.
Published between 1996 and 2007;
Online sales were expected to top $116 billion during 2007 in anyone's
Contain empirical data generated from a online survey or experiment;
ledger, a material number. But sector studies also suggest the growth
Specify online behavioral intentions (e.g. loyalty or purchasing) as a
rate for consumer Internet adoption has already peaked (Richtel and
dependent measure;
Tedeschi, 2007). As such, behavioral models used previously to predict
Include at least one marketing-oriented predictor construct.
online consumer behavior models largely based on technology
acceptance and diffusion of innovation theories may no longer
3.3. Additional renement and execution
adequately capture Internet consumer behaviors.
Secondly, with stable, easily usable and accessible Web sites merely
The literature review included 112 articles. Of these, 25 met all
the price of admission to the Internet marketing environment,
criteria and were ultimately included in the quantitative analysis.
technology-related issues may be fading into the Internet background.
Each of these 25 studies is based on one of the following theories:
Today, all but the most luddite consumer shops online. The focus of
Internet research, therefore, should shift from the Web site to the Web Theory of reasoned action (TRA). Conceptualizes behavior as being
customer. Marketing academics should become the primary drivers of driven by behavioral intentions, which are functions of the subject's
such study. The objectives driving this research are both complementary attitude toward a behavior and the subjective norms surrounding
to and consistent with these trends. that behavior. Attitude toward the behavior encompasses the actor's
positive and/or negative feelings about performing the behavior,
2.2. Description of study while subjective norms are dened as the subject's perceptions of
how others feel about the action to be performed (Fishbein and
This study synthesizes the existing marketing and IS literatures to Ajzen, 1975).
develop an empirically-based consensus about the nature and Theory of planned behavior (TPB), a variant of TRA, adds behavioral
inuence of vital consumer-related antecedents to consumers' control to attitude and subjective norms as antecedents to
Internet behaviors. Specically, this study systematically reviews behavioral intention (Ajzen, 1991). Behavioral control is dened
and analyzes the literature on Web site behavioral intentions to as the perceived difculty of performing a behavior, lying on a
952 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956
continuum between easily performed behaviors and those requiring
more effort and resources.
Technology acceptance model (TAM), also based on TRA, is specic to
the IS eld. In this model, actual technology usage is a function of
behavioral intention to use the technology, which in turn is
determined by perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use
(Davis et al., 1989).
Flow theory entails a state in which a subject becomes immersed in
an activity to the point of excluding external stimuli, i.e., in the
ow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). With ow theory, the process of
Internet shopping is a reward in itself (Hoffman and Novak, 1996).
In the articles included in the meta-analysis, dependent variables
were behavioral intentions such as purchase, repurchase or loyalty
behaviors, or intention to spread positive word-of-mouth. Each
outcome would be uniformly viewed as favorable and important by
Internet marketers. Thus, a single outcome variable of behavioral
intentions encompassing all of these intended actions was
employed as the outcome variable for the meta-analysis. Independent
variables and constructs were then compiled from these 25 studies.
Each construct included in the meta-analysis was cited in at least two
studies.
3.4. Analysis
Following accepted practice, wherever possible, the constructs from
each study were coded into common categories. This was done to
create the fewest possible constructs with the maximum number of
observations within each construct. Coefcients were then summated
and a mean calculated. As an alternative measurement, the coefcients
were combined using weighted averages to account for differences in
sample sizes. The equations for both are given below.
ri Ni ri i
Simple average r = Weighted average r w =
n Ni
Finally, using criteria specied by Cohen (1988), effect sizes were
categorized as small (.10), medium (.30) or large ( .50).
3.4.1. Results of the quantitative analysis
From the meta-analysis, eight constructs emerged that appeared
to inuence online consumers' behavioral intentions. These eight
attributes, in turn, were classied in three distinct categories. These
categories were:
Pre-purchase user perception attributes: key attributes of the Web
site that consumers consider in their evaluation of the site. These
include perceived risk, value, ease of use and usefulness.
Pre-purchase user attitudes: pre-existing user attitudes toward
online-purchases in general or toward the e-retailer. These include
personal Internet interest/afnity, privacy concern and trust.
Post-purchase user attitude: the evaluation of the purchasing
experience, conceptualized as satisfaction/dissatisfaction.
Effect sizes for all constructs fell into Cohen's (1988) medium
range (between .10 and .50). However, personal interest in the
Internet exercised a substantially smaller effect size than the other
attributes, while perceived risk and satisfaction featured large
negative and positive effects, respectively, relative to the other
attributes. The effect sizes are reported in Table 1.
The conceptual framework for depicting each user attribute and the
relationships tested in this analysis are shown in Fig. 1. As conceived, the
framework appears consistent with Bagozzi's (1992) appraisal,
attitude, behavior model, based on the premise that prior experience
with any marketing stimuli, e-based or otherwise, should inuence
subsequent evaluations of the prospect of future interactions with the
same marketing stimuli. The recursive nature of such relationships is
reected in Fig. 1.
3.5. Pre-purchase consumer perception attributes
3.5.1. Perceived usefulness and ease of use
It is unsurprising that perceived usefulness and perceived ease
of use are both widely used in IS literature, since they are key
constructs in the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1986).
Perceived usefulness is dened as the degree to which a person
believes that using a particular system would enhance his or her job
performance. Perceived ease of use captures the degree to which a
person believes that using a particular system would be relatively free
of effort (Davis, 1989).
TAM has been applied to a broad variety of software, network
designs and information systems research and can be appropriately
applied to studies of Internet purchasing as the acceptance or
adoption of a new technology. According to TAM, all else being
equal, customers will choose a system that provides the most benet
to the performance of a task and the system that is easiest to use.
In studying consumer acceptance of online shopping (e.g. Van den
Poel and Leunis, 1999; Doherty et al., 2003), TAM provides a useful
framework. However, it can be argued that in a post-adoption
environment, TAM no longer represents an appropriate vehicle
through which to study online purchasing behavior. But perceived
ease of use and perceived usefulness each remain key predictors of
behavioral intention. A regression analysis of the studies using TAM
found that the age of study was not statistically signicant in
predicting the size of the coefcients. This suggests perceived
usefulness or perceived ease of use continue to exert a consistent
and signicant effect size, despite the already widespread acceptance
of the Internet as a marketing and purchasing channel. In this meta-
analysis, perceived ease of use had a mean effect size of .335.
Perceived usefulness, in turn, featured a slightly smaller mean effect
size of .317.
The marketing discipline tends not to be intrinsically concerned with
issues such as Web site design, stability or ease of navigation. This
analysis, however, implies such issues ought not to remain the exclusive
domain of IS researchers. In a post-adoption context, technical attributes
such as visual design, user interfaces and navigation continue to inuence
the purchase intentions of e-consumers. Whereas IS researchers
generally account for these interactions through the lens of technology
acceptance, marketing academics logically might consider these same
issues from other perspectives, i.e. points of view more dear to their
hearts.
Some may view the emerging study of virtual retail spaces as being
analogous to the evolution of retailing atmospherics (e.g. Donovan
and Rossiter, 1982). Just as the design of a retail shopping center
coalesces the domains of marketing, architecture and interior design
in the physical world, Web site architecture and design surely should
straddle both the marketing and IS disciplines. While a handful of
studies (e.g. Rosen and Purinton, 2004; Hausman and Siekpe, 2009)
have broached the ISmarketing divide in this area, it is a rich
untapped area of research.
3.5.2. Perceived value
In its simplest form, perceived value entails consumers' overall
assessment of a product's utility based on perceptions of what is given
and received (Zeithaml, 1988). This utilitarian denition is widely seen
as overly simplistic in most current business environments. However,
within e-commerce domains, the intangibility and lack of physical clues
probably makes the evaluation of value even more complex. Holbrook
(1999) denes consumer value as an interactive relativistic preference
experience (p. 5), with perceived value encompassing all of the
 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956 953

Table 1
Summary of meta-analysis and effects.

Emergent construct categories Pre-purchase perceptions Pre-purchase attitudes Post-purchase attitude

Usefulness Ease of use Value Risk Trust Privacy concern Internet interest/afnity Satisfaction

Mean effect sizea

Weighted .32 .34 .31 .46 .33 .39 .26 .46
(unweighted) (.32) (.36) (.33) ( .56) (.34) (.40) (.27) (.40)

Studies
Author(s) Journalb N
Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) MISQ 288 .475c .307c
Anderson and Srinivasan (2003) P&M 1211 .335 .414 .28
Bhattacherjee (2002) JMIS 122 .36
Chellappa and Sin (2005) IT&M 50 .16c .34c

Chen and Barnes (2007) IMDS 103 .211d

Chiou (2004) I&M 209 .27 .37
Devaraj et al. (2002) ISR 171 .253d .74d
Dinev and Hart (2005) IJEC 422 .26c
Dinev and Hart (2006) ESJ 369 .59c .38c .48c
Eastlick et al. (2006) JBR 477 .23
Flavian, et al. (2006) I&M 351 .27 .31
Gefen and Straub (2003) ESJ 161 .32c .25c .42c
Gefen et al. (2003) MISQ 213 .40c .26c
Grazioli and Jarvenpaa (2000) ITSMC 80 .325c
Jarvenpaa et al., (2000) JCMC 120 .29 .59
Koufaris (2002) ISR 280 .415d .119
Lee and Lee (2005) JCIS 163 .71d
Lin and Wang (2006) I&M 255 . .36 .29 .45
Luarn and Lin (2003, 2006) JECR 180 .23d .163c .219
d
Malhotra et al. (2004) ISR 449 .63 .23d
Ribbink, et al., (2004) MSQ 184 .14 .68
Schaupp and Belanger (2005) JECR 188 .181c .439c
Stafford and Stern (2002) IJEC 329 .174 .665 .05
Taylor et al. (2009) ECR 394 .13d .62d
Thatcher and George (2004) JOCEC 441 .64d
a
All effects signicant at .05 unless otherwise noted.
b
Key to abbreviations: ECR = Electronic Commerce Research; ESJ = E-Services Journal; I&M = Information & Management; IJEC = International Journal of Electronic Commerce;
IMDS = Information Management & Data Systems; ISR = Information Systems Research; IT&M = Information Technology and Management; ITSMC = IEEE Transactions on
Systems, Man & Cybernetics; JCIS = Journal of Computer Information Systems; JCMC = Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication; JOCEC = Journal of Organizational
Computing And Electronic Commerce; MISQ = MIS Quarterly; MSQ = Managing Service Quality; P&M = Psychology & Marketing.
c
Signicant at .01.
d
Signicant at <.0001.

subjective, affective and hedonistic dimensions of the consumer's
experience.
Perceived value is thus the evaluation of all get component
(benets buyers receive from the seller) and a give component
(costs monetary or otherwise consumer must expand to acquire
the product or service) (Parasuraman and Grewal, 2000). In Internet
exchanges, the give component may entail degrees of privacy or
security, close geographic proximity to and/or physical location of the
seller and the ability to physically examine a product being
surrendered, as well as monetary costs. The get component, in
turn, may consist of time savings, home delivery, lower prices or
increased availability, among other benets. Product performance and
service quality are often identied as antecedents of value. But, as
Holbrook (1999) discusses, the perception of value is far more
subjective and relativistic than merely an evaluation of service and
quality, particularly in online transactions with virtual retailers.
Perceived value increases purchase and loyalty intentions by
reducing consumers' propensity to seek information on alternatives.
Even when customers are satised, they may engage in search
behavior if they fail to perceive they are receiving best value
(Anderson and Srinivasan, 2003).
The previously suggested positive relationship with both purchase
intentions and customer loyalty was supported in the meta-analysis,
with perceived value exercising a moderate effect size (mean
r = .308).

3.5.3. Perceived risk

Fig. 1. An integrative model of online purchasing behavior.
Perceived risk refers to a consumer's belief about the likelihood
of gains and losses being associated with a given consumption
decision (Bradach and Eccles, 1989). Consumers routinely encounter
more uncertainty online than in face-to-face transactions, as sellers
may be smaller, geographically dispersed or completely unknown
954 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956
(Jarvenpaa et al., 2000). Because it is negatively related to online
purchasing, perceived risk is important in online consumer behavior
(Forsythe and Shi, 2003). Consumers are more likely to purchase
online when they perceive risk as being low (Lee and Tan, 2003).
Perceived risk should be positively correlated with privacy
concern, and negatively correlated with trust (Jarvenpaa et al.,
2000; Malhotra et al., 2004). This meta-analysis supports the assertion
that perceived risk has a strong negative effect on behavioral
intentions (mean r = .46). This conrms prior notions that
consumers associate risk with the Internet, often outweighing the
benets they perceive in the product or service, and implies
practitioners should consider this risk perception dimension and
pursue appropriate compensatory measures.
3.6. Pre-purchase consumer attitudinal attributes
3.6.1. Trust
Milne and Boza (1999) introduce trust as a key antecedent to
consumers' intention to purchase online, spawning a series of studies
(Jarvenpaa et al., 2000; Lee and Turban, 2001; Bhattacherjee, 2002;
Eastlick et al., 2006) solidifying trust as an integral part of online
purchasing. Marketing studies generally treat trust as an attitude or
belief toward another entity. Gundlach and Murphy (1993) dene trust
as faith or condence that another party in an exchange will fulll
obligations. Moorman et al. (1992) dene trust as the willingness to rely
on an exchange partner in whom one has condence. Morgan and Hunt
(1994) dene trust as condence in the reliability and integrity of an
exchange partner, while Garbarino and Johnson (1999) dene trust as a
customer's condence in the quality and reliability of service offered.
Jarvenpaa and Tractinsky (1999) conceptualize trust as a consumer's
willingness to rely on the seller and engage in behaviors that make the
consumer vulnerable. Other studies echo this idea of vulnerability,
adding the elements of uncertainty (Milne and Boza, 1999) and control
(Lee and Turban, 2001). The literature also addresses the construct of
initial trust, in which consumers form trusting behaviors with
unfamiliar entities (McKnight et al., 2002; Wakeeld et al., 2004; Lee
and Lee, 2005).
Some marketing authors distinguish between trust, trusting beliefs
and trusting behaviors. Some argue that trusting beliefs are a necessary
but not sufcient condition for the existence of trust, given that trusting
beliefs do not always lead to trusting intentions (Schlosser et al., 2006).
However, Morgan and Hunt (1994) state that trusting beliefs are valid
measures of trust. For simplicity's sake, this study treats trust, trusting
beliefs and initial trust were treated as a single construct.
In this study, trust was the most widely-included attribute by a large
margin. Sixteen of the 25 studies, or 64%, included trust as a signicant
predictor in their models. Not only does trust provide a medium effect
size (mean r = .332) toward behavioral intentions, but it is also well-
documented as a key mediator in relationship marketing efforts
(Morgan and Hunt, 1994; Palmatier et al., 2006).
3.6.2. Privacy concern
Privacy concern is an important concept in the study of Internet
marketing. In addition to its role in capturing purchasing history and
other transactional data, technology allows each click, page view or
sequence of pages to be monitored, recorded and analyzed. The
unprecedented ability to collect information threatens to overwhelm
existing mechanisms for regulating privacy (Langenderfer and Cook,
2004). The impersonal nature of Web sites and the knowledge or
awareness that personal information is owing over a network of
interconnected computers has been shown in numerous studies to
increase the level of apprehension about the sharing of personal data.
Privacy concerns entail consumers' level of apprehension or dis-
comfort about the potential breach of privacy. Phelps et al. (2001)
dene privacy concern as consumers' perceptions regarding exchange
relationships with marketers that gather and use personal information
and the resulting behaviors. Milne (2000) conceptualizes consumer
privacy as a second-order construct with two dimensions: consumer
knowledge and control. Sheehan and Hoy (2000) identify ve
dimensions: awareness of information collection, usage of informa-
tion, information sensitivity, familiarity and compensation. Emerging
e-commerce research, however, appears to challenge prior concep-
tualizations of privacy concern as a second-order construct. The
concept of privacy and as a result, the concept of privacy concern
in e-commerce may be a rst-order construct in its own right.
Numerous studies of online privacy concerns have established the
negative correlation between privacy concern and behavioral inten-
tions. The results of this meta-analysis support the relationship,
revealing a median coefcient of .393, in turn, reecting a medium
effect size.
3.6.3. Internet literacy and afnity
Two articles included in this study showed an effect by consumers'
level of Internet literacy and their afnity for transacting online (Stafford
and Stern, 2002; Dinev and Hart, 2005). The effect was slightly smaller
compared to the other attributes studied (mean r = .263). And, as the
diffusion of Internet technology continues, consumer literacy levels may
well grow more homogenous. But the attribute still merits attention in
this study.
Computer literacy is dened by Dinev and Hart (2005) as the ability
to use an Internet-connected computer and Internet applications to
accomplish practical tasks. Higher levels of Internet literacy allows
consumers to better protect their privacy and information, and this
higher level of control over information may interact with and reduce
privacy concern, given the previously-stated connection between
information control and privacy concern.
Computer afnity is related to the level of computer literacy. In
addition to the level of competence with the computer and the Internet,
consumers with high levels of positive feelings about computers and
online shopping have higher levels of computer afnity than consumers
who can do without their computer for several days and would not
miss them if they were broken (Stafford and Stern, 2002, p. 139).
3.7. Post-purchase consumer attitudes
3.7.1. Satisfaction
The concept of satisfaction is built around customers' post-purchase
evaluation of their experience. Expectations create a frame of reference
against which consumers make comparative judgments, rating the
outcome as better (positive disconrmation) or worse than expected
(negative disconrmation) (Oliver, 1980). Anderson and Sullivan
(1993) conceptualize satisfaction as a function of not only expectations
but also perceived quality and the ease with which consumers are able
to evaluate quality. Satisfaction has been described as an active, dynamic
evaluative process, integrating meaning, emotion, social processes and
contextual factors (Fournier and Mick, 1999). It captures an ongoing
evaluation of the surprise inherent in the acquisition or consumption of
a product or service (Oliver, 1997).
The positive relationship between satisfaction and repurchase
intentions is well-documented (Oliver, 1980, 1981, 1997; Oliver and
Linda, 1981; Anderson and Sullivan, 1993). This meta-analysis
supports previous ndings. Anderson and Srinivasan (2003) and
Flavian et al. (2006) nd that satisfaction is positively related to
loyalty, with the effect moderated by inertia, convenience motivation
and purchase size. Lin and Wang (2006) report similar results in the
mobile environment, with satisfaction exerting not only a direct effect
on loyalty behavior, but also a signicant interaction with trust and
perceived value. Some studies conceptualize commitment as a
mediator between satisfaction and behavioral intention (Thatcher
and George, 2004), or as having direct relationships with both
commitment and loyalty behaviors (Luarn and Lin, 2003). Another
suggests direct relationships between satisfaction and both trust and
 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956
loyalty behaviors (Ribbink et al., 2004). It has also been conceptualized
as an outcome of the TAM constructs of perceived usability and ease of
use (Devaraj et al., 2002).
Most of these studies examine the effects of satisfaction on loyalty
(or e-loyalty) rather than behavioral intention. However, the
denition of loyalty generally a customer's favorable attitude
toward a business resulting in repeat buying behavior is primarily
an attitudinal dimension that itself is closely related to repurchase
intentions. Thus, this meta-analysis treated loyalty as measured in
these studies as an acceptable proxy for behavioral intentions.
Unsurprisingly, this study revealed a large effect size (mean
r = .461) for satisfaction, suggesting a need for continued study in the
Internet environment. Examinations of the antecedents to online
satisfaction should still hold promise for future research.
4. Discussion of contributions
As Internet purchasing becomes more widespread and diffused,
marketers are faced not only with a changing environment, but also a
changing customer prole. No longer are Internet users mostly tech-
savvy early-adopters. Instead, Internet users encompass every age
group, socioeconomic class and level of technical experience. Further-
more, as Internet marketing (and Internet consumer behaviors) move
from higher- to atter-growth stages, competition for these online
consumers is apt to become even more intense. It is important, then, for
practitioners to understand more about the processes behind their
customers' or prospects' buying behavior and loyalty.
This meta-analysis examined the extant literature in two disciplines
to provide a comprehensive framework for the study of online
consumer behavior in a post-Internet-adoption age. A review of the
marketing literature reveals a solid foundation of seminal articles
produced during the early years of the Internet's emergence as a force in
the retailing landscape, followed by several dozen articles on various
aspects of Internet strategy, pricing, buyer behavior, legal/nancial
issues and channels of distribution. Meanwhile, the IS discipline
produced a rich but (for the most part) distinct research stream
addressing not just the technical aspects of the Web, but also, at times,
the behaviors of consumers using the Internet. A surprising proportion
of the IS discipline's literature addressed marketing-related issues. This
study attempted to transfer this knowledge to the marketing literature,
and hopefully it has done so successfully.
Several noteworthy observations emerged when the IS and
marketing literature were empirically compared. Marketing academics
who are unfamiliar with the IS literature on e-commerce may be
surprised by the volume of marketing-related studies in the IS and
management literature, but several interesting distinctions were
apparent. First, e-commerce research in the IS discipline frequently
studies online purchasing intentions as a response variable, while a
search of the leading marketing journals found few empirical studies
with that dependent variable.
While the extant marketing literature is rich with examinations of
moderating inuences, the e-commerce IS literature features very few
moderators in its models, a deciency future IS researchers may wish
to address. Indeed, among the studies in this analysis, only two
articles mentioned moderating effects. Anderson and Srinivasan
(2003) identify ve moderators of satisfaction's inuence on loyalty
intentions, and Chen and Barnes (2007) study the moderating role of
familiarity between trust and purchase intentions.
Finally, while the extant marketing literature approaches online
consumer behavior from a number of theoretical perspectives
(including TAM), the IS literature overwhelmingly utilizes TAM. Nine
of the studies were based on the TAM model, with the vast majority not
explicitly based upon any explicit theoretical foundation. Thus, while a
collaborative ISmarketing research partnership suggests promising
directions in future research, the marketing discipline appears to be
better positioned to lead the study of the next era in online purchasing.
955
4.1. An integrative framework
The meta-analysis suggested an overall taxonomy of three categories
for antecedents pre-purchase consumer perceptions, pre-purchase
consumer attitudes and post-purchase consumer attitudes. First, pre-
purchase consumer perceptions include perceived usefulness, perceived
ease of use, perceive value and perceived risk. Second, pre-purchase
consumer attitudes entail trust, privacy concern and Internet literacy/
afnity. Finally, post-purchase level of satisfaction is an extremely
important antecedent to future purchases and loyalty behavior.
The collection of consumer perceptions and attitudes that emerged
from this analysis summarized in Fig. 1 is innately intertwined.
Considered jointly, these predictive concepts appear to form a complex
series of individual judgments and decision-making processes that
ultimately may inuence much of the online customer's purchasing
behavior. The model proposed is a simplied representation, drawn from
10 years of research of Internet mediated consumer behavior. The model
may provide as a rich starting point for the study of Internet purchasing
and online consumer behavior in what is described as a post-adoption era.
What is the proper framework for studying Internet purchasing?
Should the technical aspects of Web sites play a prominent role in the
marketing academy's investigations of Internet consumer behavior, or
should such considerations reside primarily in the IS domain? These
results suggest that the most frequently cited IS constructs perceived
usefulness and perceived ease of use remain strong predictors of
behavioral intentions. Indeed, this study suggests the need exists for even
more collaboration between marketing and IS academics in order to
properly capture the breadth of attributes that shape online transactions.
The same premise appears applicable to attitudinal dimensions.
While trust, privacy concern and satisfaction are relevant (and well-
studied) topics in any context, they are of particular importance in the
virtual environment. Thus, a collaborative approach apparently is
needed to develop a comprehensive understanding of these con-
structs in both marketing and IS disciplines.
4.2. Limitations and directions for future research
Through meta-analysis, this study attempts to form a comprehen-
sive and exhaustive review of the relevant extant literature regarding
online consumer behavior and distill their results into a quantitative
analysis. Meta-analysis is a powerful tool, but as numerous authors have
pointed out, it is not without its limitations. First, many critics make the
apples and oranges argument that results from incommensurable
goals and procedures cannot be aggregated. However, apples and
oranges can be compared on price, weight, nutritional value, and other
dimensions (Franke, 2001). Every attempt has been made to ensure the
fruits of this study are commensurable, but certain differences are
inevitable within comparisons.
Other criticisms have included the argument that meta-analyses
are inuenced by the biases, errors and methodological aws of its
component studies (Eysenck, 1978), as well as researcher selection
bias. To mitigate biases, a thorough literature was conducted to ensure
the study's integrity.
The conceptual framework poses interesting directions for future
research. The proposed model is built upon consumer perceptions and
attitudes toward online purchasing. As e-commerce matures and gains in
acceptance, how will these attitudes change? Already, the landscape of
retailers has changed dramatically with dot-com rms giving way to
a virtual world largely comprised of ofine click-and-mortar rms. How
will this affect risk and value perceptions, and or perceptions of attitudinal
constructs such as trust and privacy concern? If the Internet-connected
home computer becomes as ubiquitous and unremarkable as a refrig-
erator or television, will interest and afnity for the Internet disappear as
a predictor? Similarly, as stability and functionality in Web sites become
standard and undifferentiated, will technology acceptance attributes such
as ease of use and/or usefulness lose their predictive ability?
956 D.G. Taylor, D. Strutton / Journal of Business Research 63 (2010) 950956
As technological aspects associated with Internet marketing lose
their novelty, a new post-adoption era begs attention. While much of
the research to date in both marketing and IS has studied the diffusion
and acceptance of e-commerce, these results suggest future research
should focus on the interaction of technology and retailing. Analogous
to the study of atmospherics in the brick-and-mortar world, this
research should continue to strive for understanding the behaviors
and attitudes of the next generation of online shoppers. Future
researchers might also examine the framework developed above
through a longitudinal approach to determine whether a recursive
relationship exists between e-behaviors and e-attitudes, or vice-versa.
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