Abandoning the online shopping cart before finalizing the purchase : influences form attitudes, subjective norms and internet experience : a study with contributions from the theory of reasoned action

This thesis addresses the problem of online shopping carts abandonment from the point of view of the consumer behaviour: what drives consumers into completing versus abandoning the online purchase? This is analyzed by the means of a questionnaire, distributed online to a heterogeneous sample, which aims to reduce the sampling bias and ensure a better representation of the online shoppers’ community. It is hypothesized that internet experience, attitudes and subjective norms have a predictive power in explaining consumers’ intentions to abandon versus to finalize the online purchase. Additionally, it is hypothesized the existence of a behaviour-action gap, leading consumers who originally intended to purchase, to abandon the e-shopping cart. This gap is suggested to be triggered by the intention to procrastinate the purchase. The results show the existence of a positive relationship between internet experience and attitudes towards online shopping. In the same line, consumers with higher attitudes towards e-shopping and higher levels of social influence showed higher intentions to finalize the purchase. Consumers with lower levels of attitudes and social influence showed higher intentions to abandon the purchase. Consumers with higher intentions to abandon the purchase have also admitted to abandon a higher percentage of e-carts. Finally, the intention-action gap is stimulated by the intention to postpone the purchase only when intentions to purchase are negative. However, when the intentions to purchase are positive, online procrastination does not influence abandonment. These results provide insight into the problem of online shopping cart abandonment, and can be applied to the field of online buying behaviour. The results suggest that marketing campaigns targeted at increasing internet experience as well as the attitudes and social influence will decrease e-shopping cart abandonment. However, postponement is not a good predictive of e-shopping cart abandonment for consumers who originally intended to finalize the purchase