A Study On Factors Influencing Consumer Information Search Effort: Based On IT Product

Under the times of new economics, with the fast changing of technology, the rapid development and progress of IT industry have had a profound impact on the world economy and people's lives. One hand, IT products has been continuously enriched, which provide consumer with more choice; On the other hand, the product life cycle has become shorter and shorter, the product characteristics are increasingly complicated, the relevant information about these products for consumers is also mixed. These bring difficulties for consumers on screening information or choosing the best products or services, increase the uncertainty or risk of purchase. This paper studies customer external information search behavior on IT products, and attempts through literature review and empirical analysis to find out factors influencing consumer external information search effort and the relationship between these factors, proposes relevant advices for high-tech enterprises.Based on summarizing the definition and market characteristics of IT products, reviewing relevant theories on information search behavior, we design a theoretical model, propose the relevant assumptions, study the effect of 5 factors of consumer, such as involvement, subjective knowledge, perceived risk, perceived benefit, and time pressure, on consumer external information search efforts.Choosing notebook computer as sample product, we surveyed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xi'an, Shenyang, and other large and medium-sized cities by facilitating the sampling method, and received 489 effective questionnaires. After that, we use SPSS13.0 to test the effectiveness of model on statistical analysis methods, such as descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, validity analysis, correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis.Main conclusions of this study are: (a) involved degree, subjective knowledge, perceived risk, perceived benefit significantly positive impacts on consumer external information search effort; (b) time pressure significantly positive impacts on consumer external information search effort, this is inconsistent with the assumption that time pressure has a negative influence on consumer external information search effort for IT product;(c) involvement, subjective knowledge, perceived risk, significantly positive impacts on perceived benefit.