Research On Online Consumer Purchase Intention Under Information Overload Environment

As a major application of Internet, e-commerce has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, the number of consumers and commodities online increased a lot. On the one hand, a wide range of goods provide consumers with more choice,the presence of the long tail effect is also to meet the individual needs of more consumers. On the other hand, the richness of the commodity has also brought the "choice overload" problem, consumers have to spend more time and effort comparing commodities to make better purchasing decisions, resulting innegative emotions of consumers, thereby may reduce consumers’willingness to buy.Rational choice theory indicates that more available goods stimulate consumers’desire to purchase. However, It is confirmed by empirical studies that too much choice can actually reduce consumer purchasewishes, this issue is referred as" choice overloadeffect".Scholars has already made research on online purchase intention from the trust, perceived risk, perceived value, service quality perspectives. Yet no existing researches has focused on the effect of too much choice on purchase intention.Based on existing literature, This thesis is to build a consumer purchase intention formation model under information overload environment. Results show that, under the current e-commerce environment, consumers are indeed facing certain "choice overload"problem, excessive commodity options can significantly reduce consumers’ willingness to buy. Excessive products on the one hand can improve the consumer’s perception of the utility, including meeting the different needs of consumers, and the freedom of choice to meet the desire of consumers innovative ideas to improve consumer confidence in the final purchase goods, these benefits will increase the willingness to buy. But on the other hand, thischoice overload increase time and effort and opportunity costs to purchase an item, these factors will reduce the cost of consumer purchase. In addition, the study also found that pre-consumer preferences, personality characteristics, cognitive and other factors moderate the choice overload effect occurred, also the consumers of different gender, age, income differences will have moderation effects.