A study of consumer behavior model and web interface design in B2C electronic commerce

Autor: Hui-Ming Kuo, 郭輝明
Rok vydání: 2004
Druh dokumentu: 學位論文 ; thesis
Popis: 93
With the springing up and rapid development of the Internet, the advantages and potential of Internet should be doubtless. Owing to the convenience of the Internet, there has been a rapid growth in both local and international business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. Many companies are developing commercial web sites and adding web interfaces for their existing information systems in order to attract more people to purchase on their sites. However, not all of them can attract customers successfully shopping on their sites. Although customers browse some web sites, they don’t purchase successfully due to the very different and complicated shopping processes, unsuitable information and the inappropriate user interface designs that confusing, frustrating and discouraging them. Therefore, understanding the consumer behavioral process and providing a better environment is important to increase the probability of B2C transaction success. The purpose of this study will focus on these themes. The first objective of this study was to develop a complete and detailed consumer behavior model for B2C transactions. We constructed a preliminary B2C consumer behavior model by brainstorming and structured interview. Then, the model was verified by online observation experiment and analyzed by behavior analysis software. After that, a complete and detailed B2C consumer behavior model named Ten-Step Model was constructed. The second objective was to identify the difficulties that consumers may encounter during Internet shopping. The observation and interview methods were used to identify the consumers’ difficulties during Internet shopping. The difficulties were summarized in correspondence to the steps of the Ten-Step Model we constructed early. The third objective was aimed to find a better B2C environment. We take the Ten-Step Model as a basis to build a checklist and the current B2C web sites which sale different goods were evaluated. After analyzing the results of evaluating and take the difficulties we found previously into account, a web site with supporting interface on examining, evaluating and comparing steps was designed to provide consumers more effective and satisfactory shopping environment. Accordingly, this supporting interface was verified by online observation experiment. The results of experiment indicated that this supporting interface could help consumers to reduce their number of repeated, number of shifts among windows, times of taking notes, and reduce their mental workload during online shopping. By applying the results of this study, it is expected to provide some suggestions for the current B2C web sites to build a better shopping environment to attract and retain their customers.
Databáze: Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations