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The Virtual Consumer
Peter Lunt
Department of Psychology
University College London
Research Projects
• Economic and Social Research Council UK
(award number LI32251035) as part of the
ESRC Research Programme The Virtual
Society?
• European Commission for the ESPRIT
project AIMEdia (Project number 26983)
E-commerce research agenda
• Pre-empirical agenda
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the market effects of e-commerce
privacy issues
regulation
diffusion
• This agenda ‘writes out’ the study of the consumer
– The market is understood in terms of abstract idealisations of consumers
– Participation is understood in terms of distributions of technology in the
population
– Privacy is understood in relation to principles of rights
– Regulation is understood in terms of policy tools.
Research agenda ctnd
• The agenda issues in research questions of the following
kind:
– Will people be able to take control of information giving in online
transactions?
– Which data are considered to be sensitive?
– Will consumers trust online merchants?
– Will concerns about security or lack of regulation de-motivate
consumption online?
The Virtual Consumer Project
Focus on public reactions to e-commerce as an
emerging phenomenon -- beyond access and
evaluation
Uses of
technology
Public
understanding
Culture of
consumption
E-commerce
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
Project Methods
– 16 focus groups (August 1998)
• split by social grade and gender
– 42 user trials (Spring 1999)
• split by household type, computing experience
– national survey N= 868 (Summer 1999)
• national quota sample
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
Focus Group Results
– analysed using grounded theory
• identification of key concepts, grouping these into
categories, writing a narrative of these codings
– lay theories of e-commerce
• broadly positive view of e-commerce
– modern, novel, new technology, inevitable
• caution about adoption
– costs, mismatch with shopping practice, security, service ‘not
ready’ (M&S)
• disappointment with websites
– boring compared to computer games, product labels/categories
• missing experiential aspects of shopping
– impulse buying, being there -- with friends/family
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
• What was missing from these accounts?
– Little concern over privacy issues
• privacy collapsed into security,
– lack of interest in alternative or information sites
– Little awareness of technical/marketing developments
• data mining, agent software, personalised marketing
– Little explicit discourse of shopping practice
• People tend to see shopping online by analogy to
existing shopping arrangements
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
User Trial Results
– shopping structures household activities and obligations
-- not just transaction -- how does e-commerce fit in?
– when technical developments discussed people tended
to think in terms of warehousing data rather than
dynamic use of profile and aggregate data through
analysis
– inappropriate location of computer within the home -study, child’s room, living room -- not Kitchen
– more pressing issues in relation to technology
• access, relation to educational use, obsessive computing
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
Survey Results
– 49% had Internet access
– 14% (122) reported having shopped online
– Only 3 people reporting regularly (weekly) use of ecommerce over a range of goods
– typically use was occasional (75%) and restricted to 4
products or less (76%)
– Reasons for caution (% rated as important)
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Cost of being online (58%)
delivery payments (49%)
not trusting Web with credit card details (51%)
don’t want to give personal information (50%)
want to examine goods before purchase (60%)
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
• Attitudes
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men more positive than women
young more positive than old
rich more positive than poor
the more educated the more positive
positive attitudes correlated with general acceptance of
new technology and positive views about market effects
of e-commerce
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
• What discriminates online shoppers from other
Internet users?
– engagement with new technology
– shopping style
• non users have preference for local shops, bargain hunting,
benign view of markets
– intentions
• e-shoppers -- CDs, tickets, software
• non-e-shoppers -- news services
– orientation to e-commerce
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less inclined to use agent software
think governments should protect online consumers
concerned with privacy
want human contact when shopping
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
• Why are people only occasional online shoppers?
– not excited by technical developments
– do not believe market will lead companies to look after
customers
– would miss the fun of real shopping
– think online payments insecure
– think goods are available locally
– are less positive about technical developments (agent
software, data mining, personalisation)
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL
Conclusions
– generally positive attitudes are balanced by a range of
perceived barriers to e-commerce
– there is a preference for the reproduction of existing
shopping arrangements online
– knowledge gaps in public understanding
– e-commerce is boring (lack of issue engagement)
– a resistant group of Internet users is discernible
– using e-commerce appears to depend more on people’s
orientation to consumption than their attitudes towards
technology
“The Virtual Consumer”: Peter Lunt, UCL