Investigating Customer Needs and Evaluation Behavior in Online Shopping

摘要

The purpose of this study is to segment the online market by the hierarchy of needs observed in online shoppers and to understand the impact of different motive styles on evaluation behavior during the process online shopping. Five needs that are satisfied by online shopping are listed in order as "non-interruption", "convenience", "economic benefit", "respect" and "achievement". A total of 4692 valid samples are divided into two clusters: achievement-motivated (57%) and convenience -motivated (43%). The accurate discrimination rate is 95.6%. The two motivated groups demonstrated different evaluation behaviors. The achievement-motivated group attaches more importance to all evaluation behaviors, especially on "opinion from reference groups" and "Website quality". Results from the study not only indicate that online shopping motives are valid variables for consumer segmentation but imply a relationship between different evaluation behavior of the two groups and their respectively different involvement in online shopping.