Empirical Research On Consumer's Perceived Risk About Online Shopping In The Condition Of Information Asymmetry

Computer and Internet are another creations about information storage and dissemination since the invention of paper-making and printing. Internet provides people with an interactive platform to communicate and participate with each other. Not only does it provide people with amount of information and variety of entertainment, but also gives people a new way to shop-online shopping. Internet allows consumers to buy their satisfied goods never leaving home, free of the limits of time and space. More and more Chinese Internet users are accustomed to shopping online because of the transparent price and convenient purchase manner. Although online shopping has many obvious benefits, but some studies show that most of the time consumers are just searching on the Internet for more information, not for online purchase. The reason for this phenomenon is that online shopping environment has fundamentally changed compared with traditional shopping. The virtual network, imperceptible transaction subjects, as well as non-synchronous transaction process have increased consumers'risk perception in the process of online shopping and thereby affected the consumers'purchase decisions and actions. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out in-depth investigation and study so as to find the essence of the problem. If those who are interested in online shopping and frequently surfing online shopping websites are transformed into loyal user groups, there will be a great potential development for E-commerce in China along with the online shopping behavior further deepened.Based on the analysis of asymmetric information problems in online shopping, we place emphasis on studying the influence on the seriousness of consumers'risk perception by the asymmetric information. Besides, we have explored the impact on consumers'purchase intention from their risk perception. In order to finish this paper, a large number of questionnaires are collected to verify some hypotheses. Finally there are several hypotheses passed the empirical tests. We lead to the conclusion that the seller disclosure degree about information, the buyer evaluation ability about information, the degree of trust in the seller and logistics all negatively correlate with the perceived risk from dimensions of online shopping. In addition, the degree of consumers'risk perception about dimensions of online shopping has inverse correlation with their purchase intention.The characteristics of network transactions put the buyer at such active place that their distrust and perceived risk directly affect their final decisions. Based on this situation, study on the perceived risk due to the information asymmetry in consumers' purchasing process and the relation with their eventual purchase decision seems to have very important theoretical and practical significance. The research in this paper can make us more clearly understand network consumers'behavior so that we can formulate relevant strategies to eliminate their risk perception. Finally in this way we can promote the development of online shopping.