The effect of product price and product category on online payment methods and on the decision to own the secure server.

摘要

Online stores support three credit card payment methods: secured, unsecured, and mail and telephone order (MOTO). The first objective of this research is to examine the relationship between the payment methods supported by online stores and product price, product category and site longevity.;The second objective of this research is to examine the effect of product price and product category on merchants' decisions on whether or not to own the secured server that supports online credit card transactions.;Price data on 9631 products in 10 categories were collected from 127 online stores using a shopping agent. Data on secure server ownership was collected from a database maintained by an organization that provides domain-registering services. Univariate Analysis of Variance and the Logit Model of Log Linear Analysis were used to examine the data.;Results from the research show that online stores' payment methods are related to product price and product category, but not to site longevity. Online stores selling high-priced, technology-based products are more likely to own secure servers than online stores selling low-priced products such as flowers, gifts and groceries.;The results suggest that important differences exist between retail methods in the electronic world and the physical one. In the electronic world, product price and product category affect payment methods and ownership of the infrastructure required to support payment transactions. The provision of secured payment methods may have less to do with the desire to protect consumers' confidential information travelling over the Internet, and more to do with product prices and categories.;The finding that site longevity is not related to payment methods suggest that the barriers to offering secure payment transactions are low.;Finally, the use of a shopping agent was found to be an effective way to collect data for research purposes.