Understanding the Impact of Internet Shopping Agent to Consumer's Purchasing Behavior : A Decision Process Perspective

인터넷 쇼핑에이전트가 소비자 구매행위에 미치는 영향에 대한 이해 : 의사결정 프로세스의 관점에서

  • 정남호 (경희대학교 호텔관광대학)
  • Received : 2009.07.07
  • Accepted : 2009.09.16
  • Published : 2009.09.01

Abstract

The emergence of the Internet shopping agent enabled consumers to enjoy Internet shopping more easily and quickly. Especially, the role of Internet shopping agent is becoming more important following the information overload trend on the Internet in that the consumers can promptly obtain information about a certain product and its price among countless items on the Internet. As a result, consumers can now enjoy shopping more easily, compared to the offline shopping which requires a lot of efforts in comparing the products and purchasing them. Since the Internet shopping agents collect extensive information about the products' price, delivery period, detailed characteristics, etc., and present a comparison table containing the information to the consumers, the consumers can shop more quickly at lower price using such shopping agents. However, it has not been sufficiently studied about how the various functions of shopping agents actually support consumers' purchase decision making procedure in everyday life, and if they do, in which stages they play a supporting role in consumers' purchase decision making system. Therefore, this study conducts an empirical analysis on the role of the Internet shopping agents in the purchase decision making process of the consumers, considering the Internet shopping agent as a decision making supporting system. Moreover, it analyzes how the effects of the Internet shopping agent differs according to the consumers' knowledge level about the products.

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Acknowledgement

Supported by : 한국학술진흥재단