Title: A study of impacts on online purchase behaviour: information richness and website interactivity perspectives

Authors: Lili Ye; Zhihao Chen; Xueni Li

Addresses: School of Business Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, 430074, China. ' School of Business Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, 430074, China. ' School of Business Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, 430074, China

Abstract: The study investigates the factors of customers' online purchase behaviour from the perspectives of information richness and website interactivity. Adopting the experimental method and content analysis, the study divides information richness into two dimensions of informational breadth and depth, namely the diversity and quality on information display. The study also divides website interactivity into two dimensions of intelligent search and interactive inquiry, which are respectively further analysed from two corresponding aspects of interactive behaviour and mutual communication. Finally, this study reaches a conclusion that the response time is gradually becoming shorter with the richer information and that the impact of information richness and website interactivity on the online purchase behaviour would vary with the different categories of products.

Keywords: online purchase behaviour; information richness; website interactivity; service management; online purchasing; consumer behaviour; diversity; quality; information display; intelligent search; interactive inquiry; interactive behaviour; mutual communication; B2C websites; business-to-consumer; internet shopping; online shopping.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2012.049018

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2012 Vol.18 No.1/2, pp.3 - 15

Published online: 09 Aug 2014 *

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