An Empirical Study of the Impact of Product Characteristics and Electronic Commerce Interface Richness on Consumer Attitude and Purchase Intentions

Although there has been a pickup in the growth of business-to-consumer electronic commerce (EC) recently, the overall growth appears to have failed to live up to the various forecasts. Notwithstanding the concerns of security and privacy, this paper posits that for complex products and services offered on the web, existing EC interfaces (ECIs) lack the necessary "richness" to overcome the virtual nature that consumers face compared with a physical store. We empirically validate a conceptual framework that exists in the literature to address these issues of ECI design by drawing on insights from contingency research in information system (IS) design and media choice behavior. This paper finds that a fit or congruence between the product type and the ECI richness (in product information representation, and product-related interaction and communication between the consumer and vendor) leads to superior outcomes. Specifically, buying a complex product (e.g., digital camera) on the Web requires a greater ECI richness in the form of experiencing higher social presence and/or higher product presence. On the other hand, a lean ECI is sufficient for a simple product (e.g., diskette). The role of tolerance for ambiguity (TA), which is an individual difference variable, in this relationship is also examined. A significant three-way fit of TA with ECI richness and product types on consumer behavior is found. A number of implications and future research extensions are discussed