The
Ecommerce trust and security study
Shopping
online: investigating the different perceived forms of trust and security
between English and Italian societies.
Thomas
Klein
14th
March 2001
Report
on a final year project submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Science in
information Technology, Business Management and Language in the Department of
Computer Science At the University of York
Number
of words is 16119 as counted by Word, word count command. This includes the body
of the report and the appendences.
Number
of pages is 54 as counted by Word, page count command. This includes the body of
the report and the appendences.
ABSTRACT
As the European union becomes
more integrated major E-tailers like Amazon are localizing their websites. Not
only should the language be native and currencies converted but also the design,
customer services and support should be adapted to the country's native shopping
culture. A key factor for a successful E-shop is its web site's usability and
adaptability in design to conquer the country's native shopping culture. In this
context the debate about Internet security and user trust issues has reached a
significant level of priority. A vast amount of literature, particularly on the
Internet, outlines many different approaches on how to achieve good web site
design. Equally, we can find other resources that describe bad web design.
Although there have been a number of recent papers and companies such as IBM
E-commerce division developing tools addressing this issue, this work has not
yet led to a full use of potentials in the Ecommerce domain, in particular
Italy, and therefore there are opportunities to improve usability.
The aim
of this project is to determine a different approach to a pragmatic eshop web
page design solution to provide a better localized online service and layout and
all that from a single site. The author has investigated three different sectors
that are essential for successful cross-cultural E-commerce; the degree of
usability for E-commerce sites, in particular E-tailers in the UK and Italian
sector; the key factors for a satisfactory shopping experience physically and
virtually; comparing trust and security perception between English and Italian
consumers; comparing the cultural and lingual differences between the UK and
Italy to draw out a better understanding in how web design must be distinguished
based on these findings.
The Ecommerce trust and security study
Shopping online: investigating
the different perceived forms of trust and security between English and Italian
societies.
CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................
4
2 Literature
Review.......................................................................................................
6
2.1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................................
6
2.2
A definition of
E-commerce?.........................................................................................................................
6
2.3
Web usability for
E-commerce......................................................................................................................
7
2.4
Security, Trust
and Usability........................................................................................................................
7
2.5
Ecommerce “truly
global”?........................................................................................................................
10
2.5.1 The
Impact of culture on usability..........................................................................................................
10
2.5.2 Ecommerce tools on
the market...............................................................................................................
12
2.5.3 Italians and the
Internet...........................................................................................................................
13
2.5.4 The
Italian retailer business.....................................................................................................................
15
3 The
Study..................................................................................................................
16
3.1
Experiment
description................................................................................................................................
16
3.2
Hypothesis......................................................................................................................................................
17
3.3
Method.............................................................................................................................................................
18
3.3.1 Why Choose a
Questionnaire?...............................................................................................................
18
3.3.2 Sampling.....................................................................................................................................................
18
3.3.3 An Explanation of
the Questions............................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.1
Section 1 ---
Profile.........................................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.2
Section 2 ---
Shopping Habits.......................................................................................................
19
3.3.3.3
Section 3 ---
views and attitudes on shopping either high street or online........................... 20
3.3.3.4
Section 4 --- A
good Web design................................................................................................
21
3.4
Analysis of
Results.......................................................................................................................................
21
3.4.1 Analysis: Section 1..................................................................................................................................
22
3.4.2 Section
3 --- views and attitudes on shopping either high street or online.....................................
27
3.4.3 Section
4 --- A good Web design...........................................................................................................
32
3.5
Technologies
used for the questionnaire..................................................................................................
41
4 Conclusion
& Further Work.....................................................................................
42
4.1
Report
Summary...........................................................................................................................................
42
4.2
Summary of
Findings...................................................................................................................................
42
4.3
Further Work
Ideas......................................................................................................................................
44
5 Appendix
A References...........................................................................................
45
6 Appendix
B A Full Questionnaire Sample...............................................................
46
The power of
E-commerce has tempted many existing firms and young entrepreneurs to start
their Dot-Com-Business in recent years. However, many of them went bankrupt
shortly after they were launched. Sadly most of those enthusiastic young
Managers had to realize that the Internet had no guarantee for its promises
made. It wasn't enough to build a web site, rent or buy a web server and then
load up the content in hope that the whole world may start crazily purchasing
online products. Young and enthusiastic Entrepreneurs forgot that however
'smaller' the world becomes, it is still a very large planet. It has its
thousands of diversified cultures, languages, religions and lifestyles. To
design a web site targeting the whole continent Europe for example, or even only
the richer western part, demands an equally customized and diversified web
design as its target regions are. Amazon.com was probably the most famous of
first companies to move into the field of business-to-consumer E-commerce. It
was originally known for selling books online, but has since broaden their
online product range into music, electronic goods and toys as well as having an
auctioning capability for customers to bid for desirable products such as rare
or second hand books. When Amazon started out, a huge marketing campaign, a well
designed website and discounts on the recommended retail price of most of their
products swiftly built a formidable brand image in online retailing. The share
price reflects the value of their international brands. Competitors are now
catching up.
UCommerce, a new
buzzword, the breaking future trend, the perfect combination of E and M-Commerce
also called the silent Commerce. ...” Where efficiency guards the door and
context-rich services are the jewel of the new economy"[14]. Where the seamless
stream of communications content and services exchanged among businesses, as
well as their customers, suppliers and products. The vision of uCommerce centers
on a concept of dynamic interaction with the clients, always to know and be
aware of the customer's activity.
Computer security and global risk
management of Ecommerce systems are crucial factors in the new market
development. The debate about Computer security has reached a significant level
of priority. The Internet as a market-place is developing to maturity and
therefore aspects of system safety are essential to lead the business to success
since it brings in the customers which are the base to keep the business alive
in the first place. However providing technological solutions for security is
not sufficient. Providing ease-to-use, understandable services, where the
customer knows what he is doing and is successful in using these solutions
properly is a necessity. Moreover, not only do we have to make these online
services usable, in the sense that they will be effective, efficient and
satisfying to use, but also we need to make the user aware of security risks
involved by online transactions through our design. Our web interface design has
to support cases were the user needs to make security-sensitive decisions.
Further having designed this foundational user trust-gaining interface we need
to lay it out for all our users in all over the world from a cross-cultural user
interface design perspective. And this is why we must include cultural studies
as part of our methodology for creating usability in a truly global environment
that the Internet essentially is.
I would start with an
introduction on existing literature on what is understood by the term Ecommerce
and web design usability, exploring what is believed to be effective web design
and what is ineffective. In addition to this I will investigate what a
satisfactory E-shopping experience is and how this differs in different cultural
settings. I will then set up a survey that aims to find out what a satisfactory
e-shopping experience is in respect to the UK (Northern European) and Italian
(Southern European-Mediterranean) shopping attitude and culture in the E-tail
sector. I will then critically analyze and compare the results gained from the
survey with the initial research I have carried out. This will allow me to
suggest what are the key factors for good web page design in a multicultural
E-commerce environment with a high degree of usability for E-tail in respect to
culture. Finally I will conclude the findings and suggest improvements that can
be made based on them.
This report aims to
give an overview of the perceived benefits to the retailer of selling online and
of the capabilities of E-commerce to the availability of online shopping and
discusses the current E-commerce climate. The author will then in particular
investigate the Italian shopping culture and Italians attitude to the new
economy. The Bocconi University in Milan and the American University has done
some basic research about what reasons there are for the Italians to use the
Internet more and why they do not use it as much as Internet retailer would like
to see. The main purpose for choosing this particular area of business in
geographical and economical terms is that it can be considered that Italy is a
growing market within the EU and globally. The two major industries to emphasis
are its Fashion and Clothes retailing, as stated by the Délégation Commerciale
d'Italie (Italian Trade Commission in Paris), and also the fact the Italy is one
of the largest merchandise countries in Europe, per proportion and
inhabitants.
An empirical study is carried out
to investigate further: why the Italians are still reserved in using the online
shops compared to English and how Web designers can ameliorate Interface
customization in terms of local needs.
In the author’s opinion, computer
security is and will be one of the hottest and most crucial topics for the
long-term success in Ecommerce. The e-market is still growing, but the recent
downfall of many dot.coms highlights that in many respects, these companies have
failed the shopper. It will be seen
that security and trust issues are crucial to investigate, since these seem to
be the key concerns of online customers. It is necessary to investigate the
level of society trust in Internet technology - the will to accept a new way of
buying things under different emotional conditions and a new ‘virtual’
environment. In this environment, the eyes of the consumer see only a user
interface and not a ‘real’, physical shop. Therefore it will be entirely up to
the trustworthiness’ generated through the e-shop interface and its content
whether the user is going to buy anything at all. Thus the review will cover how
the user-trust issue can be improved through usability. To be successful in this study it is
essential to have a clear idea of what E-commerce is and the relationships
between the parties. This is
necessary to be able to understand the impact of the investigated issues on
it. Different people have different
mindsets about what Ecommerce is. In the following we will see some of the most
common definitions.
The term electronic commerce and its
signification are often poorly understood.
It has different meanings for people depending on their professional
orientation, job function and background education as well as the type of
information technology deployed. It is possible to identify upwards of 30
different technologies that individually or mutually enable electronic commerce.
Certainly is Electronic commerce more than just the pure use of technology. The
author chose the following definition of Ecommerce published by Rolf Wigand in
1997: “Electronic Commerce: Definition, Theory, and Context” The information Society” [1].
“Electronic commerce denotes the seamless
application of information and communication technology from its point of origin
to its end point along the entire value chain of business processes conducted
electronically and designed to enable the accomplishment of a business
goal.”
These
processes may be partial or complete and may encompass business-to-business, as
well as business-to-consumer and consumer-to-business transactions. An alternative is offered by www.Commercenet.com [2]. This perhaps shows more of the
commercial essence of what e-commerce has become, and what this project will
relate to:
“Ecommerce is the use of Internet
worked computers to create and transform business relationships. Applications
provide business solutions that improve the quality of goods and services,
increase the speed of service delivery, and reduce the cost of business
operations.”
It carries on to discuss the
various relationships between the entities involved.
“It's a new methodology of doing business in
three focal areas:
·
Business-to-business
Perhaps the most interesting of
these is the Business-to-consumer relationship, and it is undoubtedly the main
focus of companies – since this is how they make their money. This is captured by a quote from the
same source.
“The new paradigm of Ecommerce is built not just
on transactions but also on building, sustaining and improving customer
relationships, both existing and potential.”
Online shopping over the
World-Wide Web has become a major commercial application in 1998 and volume is
rapidly growing. At the same time usability of these sites is an essential
problem as significant numbers of users (50 - 75% depending on study) fail to
find what they are looking for. As a matter of fact a key factor for a
successful E-commerce web site is its usability. It is thus essential that a
potential web shopper is satisfied with his shopping experience such that he is
likely to come back again. Moreover friends or colleagues who used the site
before rather than by ads or other promotion tools more often gain new customers
through recommendation. A well build and user-friendly e-shop will therefore far
more effective in product promotion and enhance the profit margin of the firm.
A number of HCI techniques, tools, and methods are used to design, realize,
and evaluate new forms of Internet shopping to address this
problem.
More and more people are learning
to use Internet for information retrieval, communication and leisure time
activities. Now they would like to widen the scope of their use of the Internet:
to use it to take care of more private businesses also, such as paying bills
from their bank account, for example. According to recent research from a
leading technology think-tank [7],
the Internet is continuing to boom, despite the current global recession. Despite some negative views predicting
the death of the net in the light of recession and slowdown in the tech
industry, the report predicts that by the end of this year, 600 million people
will be online. The continued
explosion in net-use highlights the growing size of markets for e-commerce firms
– and the importance of maximizing their potential. The issues that these
companies need to focus upon as shown by Rhodes [3]. When surveyed about why they are not
using the web, three common themes among people are trust, security and
usability.
According to Rhodes, people
simply do not trust the web.
A similar view was portrayed by the New York Times when it described
trusting the service of a website like: ”
trusting a website is like following a helpful stranger in Morocco who offers to
take you to the best rug store". Holmström and Karvonen further this idea by
saying that: “the Internet was not designed with security in mind, and
stories of its untrustworthiness have almost become ‘urban legends’ “. There is a huge mess of misunderstandings and confusion
related to the users' ideas about the security and privacy of the Internet. The
theme of trust goes hand in hand with those of security and usability. Without security, there is nothing to
base the trust on. The customer is more likely to trust a website if he feels it
is secure. However it is not enough
to just make the system safer and more secure - this also has to be communicated
to the users in some way. That is
why usability becomes such a central issue when considering the security of the
Internet. Obviously this puts a lot
of responsibility on the design of user interface: it has to make the users more
willing to use the services that the Internet provides by promoting the feelings
of trust and security. Other
factors that influence usability, trust, and security will be
explored.
A survey by Rhodes concludes that
people have the tendency to trust more usable Web sites. [3] Three other major trust factors
were identified: good content, simple design, and few grammatical errors. Rhodes
states that a solid and well-written content is essential to gain trust. The
core design question is therefore, content-driven versus design driven, since it
was found that fancy graphics, animations, may be used as “eye candies” but do
not have a substantial effect on the enhancement of user trust. And grammatical
errors seemed to have and repulsive effect on the user, reducing the possibility
the web site would be book marked. On the other hand, trust can be improved
rapidly when the Web site is well organized and provides the users with
frequently updated contents. Feedback on the site, the accuracy and speed of
emails links and feedback forms, is 'inversely proportional' to trust. Based on the three major trust factors,
Rhodes derived 8 principles in web usability for developing user trust:
1.
User
driven; Create first the content and then the design and the site with an
iterative approach (repetitive testing in spiral form).
Along with usability, brand
constitutes one of the central influences to a user’s concept of trust. A web portal from a household name with
a good image is more likely to be used than that by an unknown company. Studio Archetype and Cheskin [4] completed a user study of Web
trust. They identified six key elements for building online trust among
consumers. However the focus of the
piece is the concept of third party seals – TRUSTe. Studio Archetype is a
non-profit organization dedicated to building global trust and confidence in the
Internet through a third-party "seal" (TRUSTe). Though the impartially of the
study may be questioned, the results make very interesting reading. Susan Scott, Executive Director of
TRUSTe, says her theory that third party seals improve online sales is confirmed
by statistics that show that sites with the TRUSTe branding have signicantly
higher percentage of successful sales than others. TRUSTe assures users that
sites are indeed doing what they claim through periodic site reviews and
provides consumers with a dispute resolution mechanism. Sites that have
successfully met TRUSTe guidelines are able to display a "trustmark" seal to
inform users of their participation in the program.
Dave
Zentmyer, Vice President and Internet Managing Director stated, "I'm convinced that posting the TRUSTe seal
on our site has turned hesitant visitors into confident shoppers." This confidence mirrors that
of Scott. The success of the TRUSTe
campaign is shown by the study Studio Architype. The findings of that study
include the following.
"Clearly, the online medium is giving rise to
new symbols of trust that have significance to Web users," said Clement Mok,
Founder of Studio Archetype.
. "The study shows that sophisticated Web users
expect to see the six elements of trust identified in our research, including
seals of approval."
Furthermore the study says that
seals of approval have consequently improved the Web user’s initial feel of
chaos transformed to the believe of having control and security, crucial to the
consumer in order to make online purchases. In particular consumers new to
online purchase feel uncomfortable with the Internet. This is more so when
personal information is required from the user. It is therefore vital to
integrate the whole set of all six signifiers, seal of approval, brand,
navigation, fulfillment, presentation and technology. However, this task is not
easy:
"The key finding is that trust is a long-term
proposition that builds slowly as people use a site, get good results, and don't
feel let down or cheated. In other words, true trust comes from a company's
actual behavior towards customers experienced over an extended set of
encounters. It's hard to build and easy to lose: a single violation of trust can
destroy years of slowly accumulated credibility".
It will be
interesting to see if that is the same in every market and for every product or
if the consumer is more tolerant in some cases? [5]
One of the
major aims of my study will be to find out and analyze the key factors behind
users' comprehension of the Internet, computer security, privacy and
trustworthiness. This will possibly
allow the author to suggest further guidelines for integrating elements of trust
into web user interfaces.
Albert N.
Badre claims that due to daily evolution of the Internet, increases the
likelihood in international participants and transactions. Taking that as the
basic assumption several key issues were investigated related to the cultural
context of Web interface design. For this reason three major studies were
conducted to find out the relationship of culture to design on the
Web.
In the
first survey more general design issues were asked in order to find out if and
what are the repetitive design issues equal for any genre or culture, usable for
any genre-specific or culture-specific Web design. In order to answer this
question a foraging study was conducted by analyzing a dozens of Web sites from
various countries. It was found that indeed there are a few design elements,
called cultural markers, which are both culture specific and genre
specific.
In the
second study a cultural specific Web site was created based on the findings of
the foraging studies using some of the cultural markers identified and compared
their effects on native users performance and preferences.
Although
by the end of this year 600 million people will be online worldwide, according
to vice president of IDC's global research organization Carol Glasheento, [7] the idea that the global village
created by the internet will be homogenous is mistaken.
She
said: "In effect, instead of the internet
normalizing worldwide variations, it has become a reflection of the many
geographies, cultures, economics and political conditions that exist in the
offline world." This Internet
mosaic means businesses must be careful to understand the variations and
complexities of net use in each country if they are to utilize its full
potential.
The
effects that cultural differences can have on the degree of Web Interface
usability are very well know in the world of HCI (Human Interaction Interfaces)
science (e.g., [8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Acknowledging the
cultural aspects is essential both for localization and also globalization
services. This requires the web
interface designer to research the worlds of users, rather than relying on pure
intuitive to create designs that cover the diverse global user needs. [16] [9]. Day [13] states that the study of interface
usability is about the users perception of what a easy-to-use website is and
that this can vary depending on the users cultural background. Therefore the
social and cultural context that user brings, as a potential customer, must be
taken into account during the development of the user interface. This is required in order to achieve a
complete user task completion and satisfaction. He furthers says that elements
of cultural context have only been recently included in the mostly US or Western
Europe based interface developments and that this is about to change now. A
further argument is to be made that HCI attempts to understand the preferences,
mental models and cognitive processing of computer users, which can be seen as
the characterizations of personal cultures from a micro perspective. Depending
on that personal culture, a user will expose him in different ways towards new
technology. Thus it can be said that what HCI have done in the past at a
personal culture micro level should also be transfer towards a cross-cultural
and global level.
Firms
like Microsoft, Intel, Sun and Claris have realised for some time, the
importance of the user impact from other non-Anglophone cultures. However any
knowledge about those ‘other’ users is seen as firm intern property, highly
guarded and not shared. This attitude of the leading firms in the Interface
design field of the world falls on the shoulders of the every day hundreds of
users outside the western home base of Internet Technology and HCI
science.
In his study about cross-cultural awareness and
trust in an electronic environment, Hofstede finds some crucial dimensions for
consideration: power distance; collectivism vs. individualism; femininity vs.
masculinity; and avoiding uncertainty [5]. In particular, Hofstede considers the
last of these in detail, since, the uncertainty element plays a key role in
generate user confidence and trust. A simple example, as comparison between
India and Finland, was used to show the different level of uncertainty the
people are used to in there day-to-day live and what effects that has on their
dealings with technology. The major findings relevant to this report were that
Indians are able to deal with a higher degree of uncertainty without having
stress then Finnish people. The advantages for the Indians resulting from that
mentality is greater flexibility and swift reactions to any situations and
changes, whereas the Finnish has a greater ability in long-term planning and
predictability of actions. It might
be speculated that Indians would therefore have a lower-trust threshold (and
would find it easier to trust a website).
The author also points out that if a Finnish person swapped places with
an Indian person, there would be a “culture shock” during the transition
period. However, since a person
can, in effect, switch cultures (from their own to that of a website) by just
clicking a mouse-button, websites that are not of the same culture would be a
shock for them. Take for example,
what happens every-time an Italian living in Italy looks at an American or UK
Web site. This is a further pointer
to the fact that in order to generate trust, the interface must take into
account the culture of the user.
From that
knowledge base we can then go further and spend time on thinking how to bring
this kind of technology close to the user. The famous missing ‘last mile’, or
not having built the last ‘edge of the bridge’, as the Americans used to say,
describes the problem faced by many researchers. After having a brilliant idea and
developing it to the point that it is useful, investing in resources and setting
up the technology, these ideas would fade away because they were not
commercially exploited. They failed
because they were not reaching the customer. A similar story may be told for the many
dotcom startups that failed to maximize their commercial value. This is the reason so many online
companies went bankrupt after the initial euphoria in 1999/2000.
Whilst it
has been said that the HCI-culture link is well known, until recently, there
have been few attempts to apply this specific knowledge in commercial products.
However, the efforts made from leading companies in the Computer industry to
develop internationalization applications to overcome the current shortcomings
of existing online system are showing that the rewards are worth it. In year
2000 the IBM WebSphere Commerce Suite generated a 300% revenue growth compared
to a 145% revenue growth in the Ecommerce industry sector. This tool will
address functionality issues in the three main Ecommerce areas:
business-to-business, business-to-consumer and e-marketplaces. Carol Baroudi,
director, Electronic Business Strategies, Hurwitz Group
states:
"IBM's announcement is a clear indicator of its
serious intentions in the e-commerce space. Leveraging strong globalization
support and a truly global installed base, IBM’s longevity and prowess, its
commitment to a standards-based open platform architecture, improved ease of use
and extension into mobile commerce, IBM is squaring off to face other commerce
vendors head on.”
WebSphere
is a product for providing online retailers with a more complete E-business
solution: more than just variety in language and currency, but also including
ameliorated client services, tax issues and client support. Although this is
doubtlessly the right direction to go, with the inevitable process of
Globalization in particular in the Ecommerce domain, not all aspects of culture
and localized websites have been taken into account yet. On the shelf products
such as IBM-WebSphere, are supposed to contain a complete solution.
Ed Kilroy general manager, IBM Electronic
Commerce Solutions says that: "Conducting
business across countries and cultures is essential to improving customer
loyalty and increasing sales,” Furthermore he boasts that by taking cultural
differences and other globalization issues into account in the IBM-WebSphere
E-business package will improve revenue from a website by 15 percent. [15]
"Handling cultural nuances—such as taxation and
shipping policies—from a single solution helps businesses control their costs
while focusing on designing more compelling marketing campaigns that increase
sales reach and improve ROI."
As the cellular phone
was introduced, its usage in Italy exploded immediately, however the Internet
only slowly takes off. By 2001 the number of cell phones is expected to exceed
the total number of traditional lines. It can therefore be concluded that
Italians are not technologically averse, if they are interested they can be very
quick to adapt. One-author points out that the key to their interest lies in the
answer to the question, “What is in it for me?” [8] Another possible twist on the story
of Internet interest is that Italians are skeptical of outsiders and guard their
privacy. Italians are rather regionalists than anything else, no nationalists,
no European and certainly not globalists. Italy is a country in which personal
relationships form the cornerstone of life and its daily transactions. The
Internet is a global communications network for both individuals and business,
where the personal loses its priority. In fact, perhaps some Italians don't
trust the Internet because it takes away that local level. The anonymity of the
Internet would render them almost powerless and be counter to their culture.
Additionally, there
are major linguistic, cultural and economic regional differences among Italy's
fifteen regions. As a consequence the E-shop Interface designer has to spend
some extra thought into his work when applying to the Italian market. Certain
things will work differently and others will not work at all. To solve this
there are two major approaches. One is to note in the market analysis phase as
many differences as possible and spend some extra time and money in the design
to make things differently and more appropriate to that specific culture. Levitt
bases the second approach on the globalisation theory in 1983, he argues that
international customer analysis needs to concentrate on the similarities rather
than the differences between nations.
However even today, in a world
presumably shrunk by the mass media the typical Italian has a distinct way of
identifying him or herself, usually beginning with his/her city of origin.
Perhaps as a result of late unification and late industrialization, compared to
the rest of Europe, Italians still feel a profound attachment to the town or
even village of origin. Ironically, in this environment as more people begin to
use the Internet to communicate long-distance with family and friends, it may
strengthen the existing regional cleavages. These cultural idiosyncrasies and
many other issues ranging from financial backing of information technology to
the available labour pool and Italian thoughts on immigration are explored in
other sections of the site.
Although Italy is one
country, it is important to note that there are major differences among the
regions in their circumstance and ability to adapt technology. In other words,
as Luigi Barzini suggests in his book The Italians, " there is not one reality
but an infinite range of realities…”, thus emphasizes again the diversity within
the Italian culture itself (Barzini 1964, 2001). Wherever possible we will try
to illuminate the differences and to determine the reasoning behind those
differences. Italy will only be able to bridge the gap between the old and new
if the abilities and special qualities of the whole country are harnessed and
used to their full potential.
What we can see from
the below tables is that even though the costs of going online is in average
lower but the annual disposable income fairly the same for Italians than for the
rest of Europe, the usage of the Internet is lower compared to the US and the
European Average. Based on that research data it must be assumed that other
factors than money, but cultural differences in the purchase attitude must
determine the Italian consumer behavior.
|
|
% Of population owning PCs |
% Of Population Online |
PC’s per 1000 |
Cost to get online |
Annual Disposable Income |
Credit Debit Cards per 100 |
|
Italy |
|
6.1 |
297 |
$35.65 |
$14,266 |
14 |
|
European Average |
26.6 |
8.3 |
352 |
$49.32 |
$14,801 |
39.31 |
|
US |
30.8 |
64 |
580 |
$34.86 |
$21,928 |
148 |
Source: www.forbes.com
|
Italy |
% PC use |
% Internet Access |
|
Home |
30.8 |
8.3 |
|
Business |
40.5 |
13.3 |
Source: See
links for Davide Gallino's book.
On the lookout for new
opportunities, manufacturers are taking into account new consumer behaviours and
changes in retailing to make themselves into privileged suppliers of large
fashion retailing.
The Italian changing retail
world
Independent retailers, whose
numbers have decreased from 110,000 in 1992 to 76,000 in 1995, still account for
60 per cent of clothing and textile retailing, while some traditional circuits,
such as markets and itinerant vendors, are still dynamic. The retail landscape,
however, is changing, with the development of shopping centres, the growth of
organised retailing and the modernisation of the commercial apparatus. Retailers
are developing new buying strategies, and foreign companies are
arriving.
Specialist chains (branches
and franchises) accounted for 21 per cent of sales in March 1996. In addition to
internationally known names like Benetton (2,200 outlets in Italy and 4,900
abroad) or Stefanel (450 in Italy and 460 abroad), KSA counts 100 specialist
chains, both Italian and foreign.
Department stores like Coin and Rinascente
account for some 2 per cent of turnover. Variety stores Oviesse, Standa and Upim
account for 4 per cent of sales, as do the 214 hypermarkets and 4,253
supermarkets counted in 1995. Mail order plays only a small
role.
The Italian industry has a large trade
surplus and exports half of its production around the world, from luxury brands
to large fashion retailing.
Italy is the world's third-largest
producer of clothing after the United States and Japan. The value of Italian
exports grew to 44,705 billion lire in 1996 for the entire clothing and textile
sector, with 25,437 billion lire for clothing and 19,269 billion lire for
textiles. The top ten customers around the world for Italian clothing accounted
for 72.2 per cent of exports for the sector (source: Federtessile-Istat).
Italian clothing and textile imports totalled 17,230 billion lire in 1996, with
7,765 billion lire for clothing and 9,565 billion lire for textiles. The ten
leading foreign suppliers account for 61.6 per cent of the sector's
imports.
People’s culture plays an
important role when interpreting information [7], [4]. It is true also of how users
perceive security-related issues, such as feeling secure, feeling private, and
feeling trustful. For example, trusting someone or something is likely to be a
wholly different matter in Italy, than it is in the UK. This creates a
difficulty for even experts in user interface design, as it should be able to
communicate to users with different cultural backgrounds in an unambiguous,
well-defined and clear-cut way, in the multi-cultural environment of electronic
transactions. In order to create an appropriate user interface for different
cultures, changing the language is presumably not enough. Instead, also the
visual language, as well as the basic assumptions behind the interface design
will have to undergo some serious transformations. Knowing all that, what then
would be the right design to create that kind of secure and trustworthy user
environments that would enhance the use of online services? Would it be the
solution to create various user interfaces for various users, hence localising
as much as possible, or should we believe in the one-solution-fits-all approach,
as mentioned before with IBM-WebSphere, a truly global design, understandable to
everyone? Moreover, what are the visual cues that will promote trust in these
users, and how to find the right tools and to use them in an appropriate way?
For the present study, the
following questions seem most relevant and interesting:
The aim of this survey on
Ecommerce and Web usability is to therefore to gather information on what a good
online shopping experience is, to what extend these opinions differ between
England and Italy in terms of cultural shopping attitude, and finally how these
findings can be used to improve customized Web usability across geographical
boundaries. This experiment is to discover further knowledge about how consumers
feel what a website needs to meet the standard for an enjoyable web shopping
experience. It will in particular address issues relating to Costumer trust,
loyalty and the cross-cultural comparison. The questionnaire and evaluations
have been conducted by a common set of heuristics, or rule-based conditions.
This set of rules is based on common industry-accepted usability criteria, the
major areas being: (1) User Profile and
media accessibility, (2) Customer Support and Fulfilment, (3) Site Presentation
and Layout (4) Navigation Structure, (5) Product Information and Transaction (6)
Security and Trust issues.
Although there are a lot of web
usability guidelines, it is only recently that the element of culture has been
taken into account. Based on
statistical data, (http://gandalf.it/dati/dati4.htm),
there is the evidence that the Italian shopping habits, their attitude to
technology, in particular towards the Internet is extremely different from the
US and other English-speaking countries. The hypothesis made in this paper is
that the results from this survey show a similar pattern in behaviour as
reviewed from the literature. This will include the following principles:
Italians do not or trust less the Internet then English consumers; Italians live
in a society where social interrelations and interdependencies play a much
bigger role than in the English society and this effects enormously their
shopping behaviour and attitude towards new technologies;
Based on Italian research, and
also interview done by the author with Italian students on the York Campus, a
strong indication was given that Italians do not trust the Internet and are far
more unlikely to give personal data, such as Credit Card details, away into a
anonymous and endless big net. Italians personal relationship when purchasing
goods is part of the most crucial live bases. From conversations and personal
experience of the author with about 50 journeys to Italy it appeared as a strong
indication that in Italy the customer who knows the salesman personally will
receive the better quality of the product, such as food, clothes etc. This study
was intended to study whether these ideas are true.
Please refer to Section 7,
Appendix B for a copy of the questionnaire in English.
To study my hypotheses, I chose
to use a questionnaire. The
principle of this information gathering, questionnaire research method, is to
find out what English and Italian consumers felt were the most important
criteria for online shopping and how those two groups opinions differ from each
other. The desired outcome will be a set of guidelines that E-commerce interface
designers can use in order to provide a satisfactory and successful
intercultural online shop design. To achieve this aim, the study needed to query
a sample of people from both countries regarding their preferences.
The advantages of using a
questionnaire are obvious. Once the
questionnaire has been set up online it can be easily distributed to a large
number of people across geographical boundaries. It is cost saving since no
traveling is needed to for example interview Italians in Italy. Further it is
relatively easy to automate the analysis of the received responses via a
Database Management System (DBMS), which is explained in full details at section
3.6.
One of the major disadvantages by
using an online questionnaire is the lack of control whether the form was filled
in vaguely or with full concentration. One cannot easily monitor the sample;
therefore it might not be representative. E.g. it may be that because the
questionnaire must be sent out electronically, there will be a bias against
Italians who do not have easy access to a computer. However, in this case it does not matter
since the focus of the study is how culture differences affect attitudes towards
e-commerce. Italians without access
to a computer would not have a clear concept of what e-commerce was. Small
percentage of replies: At this
point the author wants to mention that the difficulty in obtaining a high
response rate was underestimated. The actual rate of response was only 25% of
the planned sample.
During the development phase of this project
other research methods were also taken into consideration, for example
proceeding interviews. Due to the individual shortcomings of each research
method it was decided to follow some of the tested up with interviews, however
it was felt that the time and resources and also from a geographical perspective
the interview methods would have constrained the method to generate sufficient
information within the given time.
In the test round the
questionnaire was piloted to a group of 10 students including the author’s
supervisor to discover how it could be improved. To enhance the effectiveness of
this feedback the author followed most of the written responses up with
discussions. It was found that some
of the pilot questionnaire questions were too long, with too many options to
choose from. Also, towards the end
of the questionnaire, most people lost motivation to carry on. As a result of
this, the author decided to shorten the questionnaire. There is a limit in the
amount of information and the accuracy of data that can be collected through a
questionnaire. It was concluded that there is a tradeoff to be made. If the
questionnaire is too long, you may get more from each completed answer, but
there will be a lower percentage of completed forms. If the questionnaire is too short, then
you will get a high percentage of returns, but there will not be much data to
analyze.
In order to gain a representative sample of
Internet users to be tested by the questionnaire, and because no support in
making contacts to companies from the Department of Computer Science was
provided, it was decided to announce this survey on various news English and
Italian groups. It was used: York.soc.culture York.soc.Italian.
Google.soc.culture, Google.soc.culture.Italian, Google.biz.internet.,
In the following text, each question will be
described by its target to achieve and its thought of design behind
it.
A description of the
questionnaire follows. The author outlines the
questionnaire by breaking it up into the following 4 sections: profile; shopping
habits; views and
attitudes on shopping either high street or online; and good Web design. The
splitting up of the long questions into sub sections helped to support the
respondent’s overview of the questionnaire. After question 10, a marker alerts the
respondent of their progress. It
was hoped that this would allow them to monitor their progress through it, and
that this would increase the likelihood of completion.
1.
Please
select your age group
2.
Please
select your gender
3.
Please
select your nationality
4.
Please
indicate your range of annual income
This
section was used to split the respondents into demographic groups to allow the
results to be classified according to age, gender or nationality. This forms the basis of analysis of the
results. The choices were all in
radio buttons and therefore there was only one choice possible. These simple
questions were asked at the beginning of the questionnaire since they were very
quick to answer and provide an easy start to draw the subject into the
questionnaire. Another possibility would be to start with the most difficult and
presumably time-consuming question (with this section later on), but this might
lead to incomplete results that did not indicate the nationality – a pointless
exercise.
This section was aimed at discovering
respondents’ shopping habits and their experience with the chosen test sites for
that experiment. Questions 5 and 6 were meant to find out whether the respondent
used the Internet only for surveying purposes rather than for actually
purchasing goods, a theory of most online shop providers. They feel that the
Internet is used for information gathering in the first place and that the
purchase itself actually takes place ‘on site’ in the physical shop, mall etc.
The customer feels more comfortable and secure in the traditional way of buying
his goods on the one hand and also likes to touch, feel and smell his goods
before he buys it. Therefore he uses the Internet just as supplement tool for
information collecting rather than as substitutional tool for the whole
purchase. Question 7 was chosen to be open text area questions to give the
respondent the chance to explain with his own words why he abandoned a purchase.
This is important to gain a general view of how web usability issues are linked
to cultural aspects. Question 8 was meant to investigate the general preference
of the tested of shopping via mail, Internet or High Street. This question is
crucial for the overall theme of this project. If a significantly higher percentage of
Italians were seen to be doing their shopping on the High Street, then it would
prove this difference in their culture.
9.
Using any of the above stated methods, how much do you usually spend for one
purchase?
10.Which
five of the following factors are the most important to you in deciding
whether to purchase online in a particular Shop?
11.Which
five of the following sentences best describe your views on using the
Internet?
12.
Please rate the following factors according to how important they are to you
while shopping either online or High Street.
This
section was intended to discover the respondent’s shopping attitude as a whole,
his online shopping tendencies (like how much is spent), and the reason for
those tendencies. Question 9 was seen as an important indicator whether
purchasing online or other could be related to the amount likely to be spent. It
could be that online customers spent more because it can be done 24 hours a day
as many Ecommerce shops advertise. A lazy customer does not need to leave his
house. With a regularly used eshop,
his profile is already stored, all he needs to do is log in and click on the
product he wants to buy. This means
that he does not even need to pull his wallet out – a potential psychological
barrier. Question 10 was to find out the cultural difference in importance of
buying goods, cash, with credit card etc. It was in particular paid attention to
the issue of web site layout and security issues. This ‘pick five’ approach was
used partly because the desired result was a list of the ‘top five’ important
influencers related to consumer decision making, and partly to introduce variety
into the questionnaire with the aim of keeping the respondent engaged. Question
11 was designed in a very similar style to question 10. Here the main
investigation was on what purposes the Internet was preferably used for. This is
to prove a point that was written in the literature review: that the Internet is
still mostly used for information gathering purposes rather then purchasing
purposes. The second half of the question was used to analyze the different
rating in importance to social factors while shopping. For question 12 a
Likert[1]
scale was used primarily because the author wanted to find out information
concerning all factors posed.
13.
How likely are the following methods of finding to influence you to buy from a
store Website?
14.
Once you have entered a website, which three of the following factors are
most likely to keep you on the site and possibly influence you into buying
something?
15.
Which three of the following factors are most likely to discourage you
from buying from a
website?
This section was used to investigate the
respondents’ perception of what a “good” web design is. It was hoped that this
would highlight the fact that visual contact with the sales person was a much
greater factor of importance for Italians than for English
respondents.
For question 13, a Likert scale was used
because all factors were considered to be important to investigate. The respondent was asked to choose from;
‘advertisement’, ‘recommendation from a friend’, ‘a review in a newspaper or
magazine’, ‘through a search Engine Google, Yahoo etc’, ‘links inviting you to
that site from other sites you may have been visiting’. These were there to
discover the likelihood of influence by these factors such as media on the one
site and personal recommendations on the other whether to buy from an online
shop or not.
For question 14 the respondent is presented
with a list of 13 factors, divided into Presentation, Navigation Structure and
Additionals. The question gave the respondent a choice of one for each sub
section to find out the tendency of the three most important factors of
influence in purchase decision-making.
For question 15 the respondent is presented
with a list of 13 factors, divided into Fulfillment, Up-to-Date Technology and
Trust And Security Issues. The question gave the respondent a choice of one for
each sub-section to find out the tendencies of the most important factors in
purchase decision-making. This question is to investigate the truth of the
themes identified in chapter 2. If
so, then these results will simply conform to those from previous
experiments. All of the
questions had a checkbox to choose from always one out of each sub section as in
question 14. It was decided so because it was felt that if the Likert scale
approach were as there were many factors, the respondent would become tired if
they had to rate every single factor on a scale of importance. This was in order
to enhance the speed of the questionnaire to be completed and therefore the
increase in likelihood to received more completed and valuable responses as a
whole.
Respondents were asked to complete an online
questionnaire, issued as a web page in HTML and passed to a PHP/mySQL database
application. An alternative PHP script was then used as a query page to allow
the author to easily query the results using SQL. For example how many Italians
prefer to go shopping on High Street, with their friends and pay cash etc.. This data was then input into a
Microsoft Excel program hence to generate graphs for a statistical
representation. A total of 40 responses were received; 19 English, 13 Italians,
5 Others and 3 invalid.
All of the results obtained have been
represented graphically or in tables in this chapter or in section 4.2, ‘summary
of findings’. The results from section 2: Section 2 --- Shopping Habits and Section3 --- views and attitudes on
shopping either high street or online, have been statistically tested
against Section 1: --- Profile. Chi
Squared tests were used to test the statistical relationships between the age
and the occupation of the respondents and their shopping habits and experience
of online shopping and the difference between the divers
cultures.
1.Please select your age
group
2.Please select your
gender
3.Please select your
nationality
4.Please indicate your range of annual
income
Questions 1, 2, 3, and
4
It can be
seen from the results of the first three questions that the percentage of
respondents with the age range from 18 to 30 years is the far highest (see
figures 1,2,3). Given that the request for respondents was posted on the web,
this shows that the younger generations are more inclined to use the Internet,
and more frequently than older ones. This fact has to be considered with
caution, since it may bias the rest of the results, however it was also felt
that this knowledge could be used to relate to some of the later questions. The
problem of gender-bias is perhaps more worrying, as only 20% of the sample was
female. However, it is assumed that as the focus is on culture rather than
gender, this will not have an impact on the validity of the results.
Figure 1: Graph of Age of
Respondents
Figure 2: Graph of Gender of
Respondents
The graph in figure
2 shows that mainly male were under the respondents. There is evidence that
gender affects the way of shopping, however this subject is beyond this paper to
discuss. It is assumed that gender has no effect on the cultural differences.
The reason for this question was to give the reader a complete picture of the
respondents profile.
Figure 3: Graph of Nationality of
Respondents
The graph shows that the majority of respondents were English, this result was expected since the survey were launched in the UK. This could also be an indication that more English have access to and use the Internet and consequently the percentage of English respondents was higher.
Figure 4: Graph of the range of the
respondents’ annual income
The graph shows
that mostly low-income users answered the questionnaire. This is because the largest body appealed to
were students. However, that should
not have an impact on the results.
Section 2 --- Shopping
Habits
5. Do you shop in one of the following online
Shops?
6. Have you ever visited any of the
following online Shops without purchasing?
7. Have you ever got halfway through an online
purchase and then abandoned it?
8. What is your preferred method of
shopping?
Questions 5, 6, 7, and
8
Figure 5a: Graphs of shopping online frequency
for English
Figure 5b: Graphs of shopping online frequency
for English
This question tried
to see if Italian-designed sites were more likely to attract Italian shoppers
(because of culture-ties between shoppers and designers). However, none of the respondents had
visited these sites, so no conclusion could be drawn.
Figure 6: Graph shows the frequency of visits
from the respondents of the sites
A lot of people
visited Amazon and therefore the author could look at Amazon and use it as an
example as perhaps good site.
Figure 7:
Have the respondents ever got half way through an online purchase and
then abandoned it?
A lot of people did
not complete their transaction and this showed the problems designers have been
having encouraging user to complete their transaction. The roots of this might
be traced to the various usability and trust issues that were the bases of this
project.
Table 1: Statements by respondents for giving
up half way through an online purchase:
|
English |
Italians |
|
“Would not accept the credit card I
had.” |
“The procedure was to complicated” |
|
“Both M&S and Amazon because changed
mind” |
“To long loading.” |
|
“Multiple. Often lack of clarity on
postage” |
“CDNow. Couldn’t pay because of credit
card” |
|
“I have done this on various occasions.”
|
“Just changed my mind - it happened several
times.” |
|
“Decided the item was too expensive! DVD from
Amazon” |
“Dabs or Simply or some online electronics
store” |
|
“It came up with lots of error
messages” |
“Just to see the final price with
delivery” |
|
“www.dvdpopcorn.com, got through to the
payments” |
“I can't remember which shop, but there are too
many bad shops.” |
|
“Bored, or it just timed
out.” |
|
|
“Amazon, computer seemed to
hang.” |
|
|
“www.tekheads.co.uk : got to 'checkout' to see
how.” |
|
|
“Amazon - I realised I could probably buy the
product cheaper.” |
|
|
“Many of them. www.scan.co.uk and
www.pcbooks.co.uk” |
|
Although some of
the statements made shown in table 1 are not very clear, we can see that time;
price, confusion and credit card issues seem to be the predominant factors for
giving up half way through an online purchase.
Figure 8: What is your preferred method of
shopping?
This question shows that a high percentage of people still prefer to shop on the High Street than on the Internet. Later questions will explore why this is the case. The difference between the figures for the English and the Italians confirm that Italians are reluctant to embrace the Internet.
9. Using any of the above stated methods, how much do you usually spend for one purchase?
10.Which five of the following factors
are the most important to you in deciding whether to purchase online in a
particular Shop?
11.Which five of the following sentences
best describe your views on using the Internet?
12. Please rate the following factors according
to how important they are to you while shopping either online or High
Street.
Figure 9: Using any of the above stated method,
how much do you usually spend for one purchase?
Figure 10: Graph shows, which five of
the following factors are the most important to you whether to purchase online
in a particular Shop?
Keys for figure 10:
|
The range of
products |
A |
|
The Shop offers well known
brands |
B |
|
Clear pictures of products and
clear product description |
C |
|
Easy to navigate
Website |
D |
|
Trust in credit card
safety |
E |
|
Trust in the online Shops
reliability |
F |
|
The possibility to pay with
credit card |
G |
|
The fact that other forms of
payment are accepted |
H |
|
Fast and cheap
shipping |
I |
|
The possibility of Shipping
overseas |
J |
|
The option of tax and currency
conversion |
K |
|
Reliable after sales
service |
L |
|
Easy to return goods without
losing money |
M |
Table 2 summarizes the top three factors for
Italians and English from the above graph.
|
Factors of
respondents describing the their views about using the
Internet. |
% Of the
respondents who voted for the factor [2] | |
|
|
English |
Italians |
|
Trust in
credit card safety |
79 |
85 |
|
Clear
pictures of products and clear product description |
74 |
62 |
|
Fast and
cheap shipping |
53 |
38 |
|
Easy
to return goods without losing money |
42 |
62 |
|
Trust
in the online Shops reliability |
32 |
62 |
From this we can
see that Italians have a bigger issue with trust (in terms of reliability and
goods returns). English respondents
seemed to be less concerned this.
Rather, they rated other things such as fast delivery and clear
descriptions of products higher.
This shows that the English have embraced the Internet more, and have
reduced their fears about trust.
Figure 11: Graph shows which five of the
following sentences best describe your views using the
Internet?
Keys for figure 11:
|
The Internet is the global
communication tool |
A |
|
I will increasingly use the
Internet for communication purposes |
B |
|
I will increasingly use the
Internet for information gathering purposes |
C |
|
I will increasingly use the
Internet for purchase purposes |
D |
|
I will not increasingly use
the Internet in the near future (reasons) |
E |
|
I do not like using the
Internet for any purposes because it makes me spend less time with my
friends and neighbors |
F |
|
I have the feeling that using
the Internet too much has a negative effect on my social
live |
G |
|
I do not like to use the
Internet because of the difficulty to understand the
language |
H |
Table 3 summarizes the top two factors for each
respondent group from the above graph.
|
Factors of
respondents describing the their views about using the
Internet. |
% Of the
respondent who votes for the factor[3] | |
|
|
English |
Italians |
|
The
Internet is the global communication tool |
94 |
100 |
|
I
will increasingly use the Internet for communication purposes |
79 |
92 |
|
I do
not like using the Internet for any purposes because it makes me spend
less time with my friends and neighbors |
84 |
77 |
|
I
have the feeling that using the Internet too much has a negative effect on
my social life |
94 |
100 |
This shows that
Italians see the Internet as a communication tool rather than perhaps a place
where they do their shopping.
Figure 12a:
The graph shows the rating according to the importance of factors while making
purchase decisions online. (English)
Figure 12b:
The graph shows the rating according to the importance of factors while making
purchase decisions online. (Italians)
Keys for
figure 12a, b:
|
Being able to touch and try on
the products before buying |
A |
|
Sharing the shopping
experience |
B |
|
Probability of meeting a
friend |
C |
|
The proximity of leisure
facilities to the shop, e.g. cafés and restaurants |
D |
|
Shopping alone but in a place
with a lot of people, e.g. big shopping center, street
market |
E |
|
Helpful sales
assistants |
F |
|
Being able to pay
cash |
G |
|
Store environment, e.g.
lights, the smell, music etc |
H |
|
No queues |
I |
|
Proximity of the shop to your
home |
J |
|
The fact to shop at a locally
based shop |
K |
|
The fact that you know the
shop owner in person |
L |
|
The fact that you get personal
preferential treatment |
M |
|
The fact that the service
provider is Italian |
N |
|
The fact that the products
come from your region |
O |
|
Reductions and low price
offers |
P |
Table 4 summarizes the top three factors from
the above graph.
|
Factors of importance to the respondents
while shopping. |
% Of respondents who voted for the
factor | ||||||
|
|
English |
Italians | |||||
|
|
A |
B |
C |
A |
B |
C | |
|
Being
able to touch and try on the products before
buying |
16 |
37 |
47 |
15 |
15 |
70 | |
|
Sharing the shopping
experience |
16 |
31 |
53 |
15 |
|||
