A Value Centric Study of Intention to use Internet as a Shopping Channel in an Introductory Online Market

This study investigates the relationship between five consumer values (i.e., functional, social, hedonic, epistemic, and security) and their impact on the Intention to use Internet as a shopping channel within introductory Qatari online market. A modified version of Sheth et al.’s (1991) perceived value model was tested within an early stage Qatari online market and a questionnaire based survey was conducted. An e-mail containing a Survey Monkey link was sent to 500 respondents, with a total of 176 usable questionnaires were collected and SPSS 18 was used to perform multiple regression analysis on the data. Early stage Internet shoppers tend to pay more attention to functional, hedonic, and social values and place less emphasis on epistemic and security values. This implies that early stage online shoppers seek enjoyment (focus on hedonic value) and, at the same time, want to save time and energy (emphasis on functional value). This limited the scope of generalization to similar cultures and age groups. The focus of the study was the shopping experience and not the purchasing experience. This study presents testing of an extended value model within an early stage Internet shopping market. This should add to the understanding of values that early stage shoppers seek to shop online.