CONSUMERS� PERSPECTIVES OF WEB STORE VISUALIZATION: GENDER AND AG! E PERSPECTIVES

! One of the Internet�s features that is widely popular is that it enables people to do shopping online via the creation of web stores. In order to attract the customers to the web store that has been created, the sellers or owners need to pay attention to the overall visualization of the web store, as the visualization is the first aspect that the customers will encounter. This research focuses on exploring how gender and age of the customers influence their preference of web store visualization (colors, animations, transitions, page organizations, etc.). Therefore, a web store may be designed to fulfill the preference of certain customers as the target market. This research also explores the influence of gender and age towards Internet usage, to discover a pattern of Internet usage difference among existing users. It is found that gender and age does have influence towards the preference of web store visualization and Internet usage pattern among respondents. Younger respondents tend to prefer aesthetically designed web stores with more gimmicks, while older respondents tend to prefer a simpler-looking web store. Internet usage pattern also changes with the increase of age cohort. Male respondents tend to prefer a simpler web store while female respondents tend to prefer a more colorful and aesthetically designed web store, but they share one similarit