Internet users and Internet shopping: Individual perceptions and consumer behavior

Electronic commerce is described by some as the being the most significant challenge to the business model since the emergence of information technology itself. In the UK, e-commerce is heavily promoted at governmental level, yet the UK lags behind major economics in terms of both business and consumer e-commerce use. In this paper we investigate perceptions of e-commerce as held by users of the Internet, reporting the results obtained from a survey conducted in the early months of 2001. Results indicate that UK Internet users exhibit a high level of caution when considering purchasing items via the Internet, and that the issue of product category risk is also a major factor in deciding whether to purchase or not.