Vendor Bulleted List
Preferences For Purchasing And Information Gathering
Graphs: [Location]
- Respondents are fond of gathering information for future purchases on the web (3.9), but are neutral about purchasing over the web (3.0). The response to this question has been virtually identical since the Fourth survey. Almost all of the respondents have regularly purchased something from a retail store in the past six months (96.4%) and 74% have regularly purchased from a catalog. Just under half (49.7%) have purchased from online mail order. The difference between online and offline mail order is particularly interesting, given that these two kinds of vendors are rated equally well in terms of quality, support services, and delivery (See: Customer Perception Of Vendors.)
Vendor Characteristics
Graphs: [Location]
- This question asked users to rate the importance of vendor characteristics on a scale of unimportant (1) to important (5). Users where then asked to compare Web vendors gains traditional vendors on a scale where higher numbers indicate preference for Web vendors over traditional vendors.
- All characteristics were rated as important (over 4.0) but the most important were: security (4.6), reliability (4.6), and the quality of information provided (4.6). This is the same ordering as was seen in the Sixth survey. Web vendors were rated better than traditional vendors for easy of ordering, ease of contacting, and low prices. Traditional vendors rated better for security, ease of refunds, and reliability.
Copyright 1997
Georgia Tech Research Corporation
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0415
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Usage RestrictionsFor more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.GVU's WWW Surveying Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280