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Thus, their decision-making process frames consumers’ adoption process and adoption behavior. For the purposes of this study, we define adoption of the Internet as a shopping medium as using the Internet to complete one or more steps of the consumer decision-making process, and conceptualize it with respect to two dimensions: (a) the steps of decision making completed through the Internet and (b) the shopper’s intention to continue completing these decision-making steps through the Internet in the future. Three major types of online shopping behaviors—visiting, purchasing, and multichannel shopping—are identified and examined. We separately examine consumers’ current online shopping behavior and future online shopping intention and, therefore, are able to examine dynamic features of online shopping behavior. This approach captures the multidimensional nature and the dynamic features of the adoption of the Internet for shopping, leading to a better understanding of the extent to which consumers will adopt this new shopping medium and whether online consumers are likely to continue to adopt the Internet as a shopping medium. Under the proposed framework, four categories of Internet shoppers, based on current and intended online shopping behaviors, were identified: steadfast visitors, steadfast purchasers, latent purchasers, and dropout purchasers.
Five dimensions of perceived innovation characteristics (i.e., relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use, enjoyment, and risk) and online consumers’ Internet self-efficacy were identified as significant direct factors influencing adoption of the Internet as a shopping medium. Internet retailers’ characteristics are external factors mediated by innovation characteristics. Product category is identified as a moderating factor. Following the conceptual research model, four research objectives were identified: