Abstract
Consumer's evaluation of the internet shopping mall
Park, Hyun - Joo
This is exploratory research on the Internet shopping mall in Korea. Internet shopping is not common yet in Korea but increasing rapidly. Most papers about Internet shopping mall have focused on the good aspect of Electronic Commerce(EC).
So there is no paper to address the real condition of Internet shopping malls from a consumer's view. I wrote this thesis to investigate the consumer problems with the Internet shopping mall solely from the consumer's view and to know whether the evaluation is different for poor consumers or capable consumers. I hope that this thesis will give useful information to managers of Internet shopping malls. Internet policy makers, and consumer educators.
To investigate the consumer's evaluation for the Internet shopping mall, I made the survey questions based on some related papers. The survey was performed during September 1st through September 21st on the Internet. To analyze the data, t-test, percentage, etc were used with SPSS Win.
Through the analysis I found:
1. Regardless of the consumer's ability, privacy was the most serious problem. Not only to improve the technical part, but also to relieve the spiritual burden of the consumer is important. The establishment of objective credit insurance companies can help consumers.
2. The most common problem in the Internet shopping mall was delivery. Actually, the order process is done through the new electronic medium. But after that, the delivery process is the same of the old medium. Consumers who have bought items in the Internet shopping mall are pioneers and their expectancy level is relatively high. Because of the gap between their expectancy level and actual performance, consumer feel unsatisfied. To satisfy consumers, a technically advanced product delivery system is required.
3. Internet shopping is not functioning well as an intercommunication medium, According to past research, they say that the merit of Internet shopping mall is to relieve the burden of consumer complaint. But actually the only way to communicate with each other is just the company's counseling corner. And access is limited to other consumers, so other consumers can't use that as a experience sharing place. It blocks the opportunity to prevent the same problem that other consumer may have. Besides that, consumer's participation is too inactive and the response of Internet shopping mall is also. To maximize the merits of Internet shopping mall as an intercommunication medium, more open management and an active participation of the consumer's are necessary.
4. Research participants had good attitude toward informality and had fairly good Internet skills. The higher aptitude and skills are, the higher the evaluation scores are. To say more concretely, skills directly related to the Internet shopping mall were relatively lack and the knowledge of Internet shopping mall is really low. Because it can increase the probability of consumer complaint, related consumer education is required. As a result of analysis, it was revealed that the most necessary part of consumer education is contract related matters.
5. According to past research, they argued on the advantage of small companies on the Internet. But, small companies don't have a big advantage. Until now, Internet shopping is not common and consumers feel insecure compared to buying through the real market. To relieve the insecurity, consumers tend to buy standardized products produced by big well-known companies with brand loyalty. And management costs related to delivery needs much money like traditional market.
All over the world, each country is trying to have another trade-round through the Internet. These days, industry policy should be made not only for companies but also consumers. Encouragement of Internet shopping mall through the satisfaction of consumers can be the very answer to strengthen the company's competency.
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