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Our findings also suggest that consumers’ concerns about product risk decline with more online purchasing experience. In addition, as technology upgrades and website usability increases along with consumers’ Internet self-efficacy, Internet shoppers are likely to feel even more comfortable with purchasing all categories of products online. It was predicted that apparel, as experience product in the Internet shopping environment, was not suitable for selling online. However, our findings indicated that apparel is the most frequently purchased product category, and heavy online shoppers were confident enough to purchase through the Internet without examining the goods physically. Therefore, apparel retailers should have at least equal opportunities to sell products online as all other types of retailers such as book or home electronics retailers.
The findings of this research also have several important practical implications for Internet retailers, enabling them to improve their performance. First, online shoppers may be loyal to the medium but not to an individual Internet retailer. It is very important to increase the size of the general population of online shoppers for e-commerce. The aggregate efforts of Internet retailers on improving this new retail channel will bring more online individual customers. Eventually, widespread adoption of the Internet as a shopping medium will be achieved.
Second, to attract and keep their customers, Internet retailers have to build their competitive advantages by providing more rewards, making the individual shopping experience more enjoyable, and reducing individual risk perception over its competitors in both the online and the traditional environments.