Network Environment, The Consumer Perceived Risk Dimensions

With the popularization of Internet, more and more companies began to do retail business on line. However, there are still few consumers taking online shopping as the main way. The risk involved in shopping online is a dominant factor which affects consumers' behavior. It is of great significance to explore the possible risks involved in shopping on line so that the Internet enterprises can frame strategies eliminating the risks perceived by the consumers.This paper begins with a literature review of perceived risk. It contains mainly two parts: the study of traditional perceived risk and perceived risk under the circumstances of Internet. The former summarizes the previous study on the concept, measurement and facets of the perceived risk. The latter mainly reviews the definition and facets of perceived risk on line. Because online shopping also falls into the category of family shopping, a brief review of the risks of family shopping is also presented in this paper. After reviewing the literature, ten facets of perceived risks are found out in the previous research.Afterwards the writer carries out a demonstrative study. A qualitative research on consumers' perceived risk on line is put up by the technology of focusing groups and deep structured interviewing to gain the original elements of consumers' perceived risk on line. By collecting data through Internet and employing statistics such as gene analysis, the four facets of consumers' perceived risk on line are obtained. They are core service risk of Internet retailers, risk going with Internet shopping, risk of personal privacy and risk of fake goods. In order to explore the distinctions between .different consumers' perceived risks in different facets, the impacts of five variables on the facets of perceived risk are studied. Those five variables are the features of consumers—age, diploma, salary, time of starting surfing on line, and frequencies of shopping on line. The result demonstrates that the elder the consumer' s age is, the more risks involved in the service of network tradesman. The longer the period of starting surfing on line, the less risks involved in online shopping and the more risks of fake goods. The more frequent the times of shopping on line, the less accompanied risks of online shopping. The consumer' s diploma and incomedo not have much influence on the facets of perceived risks.