Consumers’ Prior Experience and Attitudes as Predictors of Their Online Shopping Beliefs, Attitudes, and Purchase Intentions in a Multichannel Shopping Environment

Abstract

This study was designed to develop a conceptual model which indicated 1) the interrelationships among consumers’ prior in-store shopping experience with the multichannel retailer, consumers’ advertisement attitude, and their brand attitude and 2) the causal relationships of consumers’ prior in-store shopping experience with the multichannel retailer, consumers’ advertisement attitude, and their brand attitude with online shopping beliefs, attitudes, and purchase intentions at the website of the multichannel retailer. The conceptual model is based on the Theory of Reasoned Action, Schema Theory, and the Consumer Decision-Making Process. This research was comprised of two phases which were the brand selection phase and the model development phase. The brand selection stage (Phase I) was used to select three multi-channel apparel retail brands to be used in the Phase II research. Phase II research consisted of the model development and the hypotheses testing with the sample of four thousand randomly selected female college students. A pilot-test was conducted with female undergraduate students for both phases of the study. Web-based surveys were used to gather the data for the main surveys of the Phase I and Phase II research. To develop the measurement model, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to assess the validity of the scales. The three predictors of beliefs about online shopping at the website of the multichannel retailer were reduced to two predictors (i.e., prior in-store shopping experience with the multichannel retailer and brand attitude) after the construct validity was tested. Structural equation models for three apparel retail brands (i.e., Gap, Old Navy, and American Eagle) were developed using the data of the Phase II main survey. Multiple-group SEM was conducted to test structural invariance across the brands. The results indicated that this conceptual model can be applied to all three brands considered together. A positive relationship was found between consumers’ prior in-store shopping experience with Old Navy brand and their online shopping beliefs, attitudes, and purchase intentions at the Old Navy website. Brand attitude appeared to be a key predictor to indirectly increase consumers’ purchase intentions at the website of all three multichannel apparel retail brands in this study. Specifically, it was suggested that all three brands might have an indirect effect of prior in-store shopping experience and brand attitude on the attitudes toward online shopping.