Predictors of online buying behavior

Abstract

Consumers worldwide can shop online 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Some market sectors, including insurance, financial services, computer hardware and software, travel, books, music, video, flowers, and automobiles, are experiencing rapid growth in online sales. For example, in Jan. 1999, Dell Computer Corp. was selling an average of $14 million of equipment online per day, and Amazon.com has become the third largest bookseller in the U.S., despite being in business only since 1995. With projections that the Internet will generate consumer and business-to-business sales in excess of $294 billion by 2002, online retailing raises many questions about how to market on the Net.