| With the rapid development of Internet technology, online shopping is available, and becoming a popular way to shop. Online shopping goes across spatial boundaries, even beyond the time limitation, so it is possible that such new consumption pattern will provide boundless space for development of the consumer. According to the report by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), up to the end of December2011, the number of China’s online shopping users reaches194million, online shopping usage rate increases to37.8%. Compared with2010, online shoppers increase by33.44million, an growth rate of20.8%. In addition, the latest statistics of iResearch Consulting shows, transactions of the online shopping market reach7trillion yuan, an increase of46.4%in2011. Obviously, online shopping is becoming the netizens’ normal consumption pattern.Online shopping as a transaction behavior, its study must be based on in-depth analysis of the online shopping market. By comparison with real market, unreality is the most important feature of online shopping market. Yet unreality is like a double-edged sword, it can make transactions across time and space possible by virtualizing real goods, shops and actors into code and symbol, which also brings a huge risk to online shopping market, largely hindering the conclusion of online shopping transactions. That is why many consumers want to buy goods from online shopping market, yet they dare not do it."Want to buy" is because commodities in this market are cheap, fine and optional, which can be bought conveniently without stepping out of doors. However, unreality brings a higher share of risk to online shopping than real store shopping. In order to avoid risks, many people still take a wait-and-see attitude towards online shopping and "dare not buy". Nevertheless, Taobao.com as an online shopping market rapidly developed, does not seem to have been hampered by its "unreality". Thus, from a sociological point of view, this paper selects Taobao.com as a case study to examine how an online shopping transaction is concluded. Issues of concern in this article is:what factors affect the conclusion of transactions in online shopping market, what degree of impact they have and try to explore the mechanism about the conclusion of online shopping transactions.Through research and data analysis, combined with previous research results, this study suggests that though the online shopping market has its unreality, which will increase risks and uncertainties of trading behaviors and largely hinder the conclusion of transactions, actually, moral and institutional factors play an important role in the conclusion of online shopping transactions. Moreover, unreality and reality are not completely opposed in the online shopping market; to some extent they manifest a mutually embedded and structured relationship. Conclusion of online shopping transactions will further promote the mutual constitutive relationship between unreality and reality. |
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