Revisitation behaviour in a non-transactional website context

This dissertation examines revisitation behaviour in the context of non-transactional websites. A holistic framework based on theoriesfrom repeat purchase behaviour and satisfaction was developed and tested. This study is among the first to consider revisitation asanalogous to repeat purchase behaviour. The premise of the model is that revisitation is determined through an evaluation of priorvisits and that the elements influencing revisitation included satisfaction, involvement (site, product category and medium) and socialinfluences. Five non-transactional websites were examined with the selection based on the website typology developed in this thesis -a typology that will benefit website research as it provides a consistent and generic framework. Data were collected using a crosssectionalweb-based online survey via the homepage of the websites.Since satisfaction is considered to be a central factor in traditional repeat purchase behaviour and in website use, the antecedents ofsatisfaction were also examined. Overall the findings support the importance of content quality as a factor in satisfaction and eventhough website users are increasingly more proficient, ease of use is still an influential factor as is the attitude to the brand that the sitesupports. It was found that the users motives for using the site affected the relationship between the quality of the perceived benefitsand satisfaction. If the motivation to use the site was for information, then the impact of information quality on satisfaction was weakerthan the impact of entertainment quality on satisfaction. Alternatively, if the motivation was for entertainment, then once again theimpact of information quality on satisfaction was weaker than that of entertainment quality.Initial model testing showed that the only factor to influence revisitation behaviour was enduring site involvement. Cognizant of thedangers of data driven theory, the relationship of the elements was reassessed. The resultant model shows that productcategory involvement directly influences enduring site involvement and that enduring site involvement is a central construct operating asa direct and a mediating influence between each of satisfaction, social influence, medium involvement and website revisitation