Modeling Consumer Adoption of the Internet as a Shopping Medium: ...

However, most previous research has generally been centered on consumers’ ultimate purchasing activity, attempting to profile online buyers and investigate predictors of consumers’ buying behavior (e.g., Elliot Fowell, 2000; Miyazaki Fernandez, 2001; Shim, Eastlick, Lotz, Warrington, 2001; Verhoef Langerak, 2001). In most previous research, online shopping visits were either factored in with online purchases into a single research model or ignored (Moe Fader, 2001). Research treating online store visits and online purchases as fundamentally separate types of behavior would more accurately reflect consumers’ actual Internet shopping behavior (Moe Fader, 2001).

Third, the dynamic feature of consumers’ adoption of the Internet (i.e., whether online shopping adopters will change their current adoption behavior) has not been adequately addressed. Innovation scholars have argued that initial adoption might be discontinued as a result of an unsatisfactory experience (e.g., Parthasarathy Bhattacherjee, 1998; Rogers, 1995). Discontinuance is of primary concern for innovation adoption and diffusion. Online consumers’ perceptions, shopping behavior, and shopping experience may systematically shift over time. As a result, the way consumers adopt the Internet as a shopping medium is likely to change over time. For example, satisfactory shopping experiences will lead consumers to purchase more frequently through the Internet. At the same time, however, current Internet shoppers may discontinue shopping via the Internet and switch to other shopping media if they experience dissatisfaction in their online shopping. Therefore, initial adoption of the Internet as a shopping medium does not automatically lead to continued adoption. It is necessary to examine both current adoption and continued adoption separately to provide a more complete and useful understanding of Internet adoption for shopping.