Consumer perceptions of online shopping environments: A gestalt approach

cues, this paper argues that marketers need a gestalt approach tounderstand how consumers perceive online shopping environments.Following a systematic review of the literature on categorizationsof online shopping environments, this paper develops and tests agestalt model of consumer perceptions of online shopping environments.The model shows that consumers perceive online shoppingenvironments in terms of their sense-making and exploratory potential.It encompasses perceptions at the level of both individual pagesand the experience consisting of the navigation through a successionof pages accessed during one visit. It also accounts for the informationalneeds all shoppers possess, reflected in the central role ofinformation in online shopping environments. The model confirmsthe importance of the three main categories investigated in the literature(ease of understanding, informativeness, and involving qualities),but provides a theoretically grounded explanation of howconsumers perceive online shopping environments holistically. It canform a basis from which to envisage organismic and behavioralresponses