The Influence of Buyers' Time Orientation on Online Shopping Behavior: A Typology

Abstract

This research investigates the influence of buyers’ time orientations (measured as polychronic–monochronic and past–future time orientations) on four major variables of online shopping: trust, social interaction, browsing, and locus of control, which in turn influence users’ intention to shop online. Results using structural equation modeling with a sample of 377 Chinese cosmetics shoppers support our hypotheses and show that polychronic orientation of users tends to be positively related to trust, social interaction, browsing experience, and external locus of control and indirectly to intention to shop online through these four consumer characteristics. No relationship was found between future orientation and browsing experience and external locus of control, but a positive relationship was found with intention to shop online through trust and social interaction. Finally, results show that trust and social interaction are positively related to intention to shop online. The authors conclude that time orientations can be used as effective segmentation variables, which are useful in describing a universal typology among different types of online shopping behaviors. Internet retailers should take into account the role of time in e-shopping adoption when assessing different types of users and website design.