Information technologies' services and loyal customers: a synthesis of findings from the Hellenic market

The main question of both academics and entrepreneurs is that the potential for IT services is underexploited. Despite the overwhelmingly increasing internet penetration in world business and consumers, the majority of internet users are reluctant to make purchases on the internet. Where are the internet shoppers? What actually motivates e-shopping? While many writers are touting the unique capabilities of the online medium to provide interactivity and personalised experiences, few have focused systematically on why they are shopping online in the first place or why they are not shopping online. The purpose of this paper is to explore the degree to which Greek consumers' e-awareness is capable of transforming an internet user to a loyal internet customer and, therefore, replacing in the future the traditional stores to online shopping and changing the business environment. The research is based on posting questions on a web page in the form of a poll. The number of sample responders totalled to 532 internet users randomly selected with a 97% response rate. It was found that 15% of internet users are being transformed to internet shoppers, a rate of 5% of the main market of goods and services. This rate was also confirmed by later Eurobarometer estimates.