Academic literature on the topic 'Tele shopping, Internet shopping, Mail order shopping'

Multi-channel retailing can offer a wide range of synergies for retailers when their distribution channels accommodate consumer’s preferences and their buying behavior. Among the large number of retail types, mail-order companies are well suited to benefit from electronic commerce. Not only can they use their infrastructure and experience with direct selling, but many mail-order companies also seek to use the Internet to attract new target groups to increase their typically small and narrow customer bases. Currently, we do not know enough about the antecedents of channel choices, especially in the mail-order sector. This paper addresses this issue and draws special attention to exogenous (i.e. independent of the retailer) factors influencing online shopping behavior. These variables include perceived convenience and perceived security of online shopping in general and consumers’ attitudes toward the catalog as the existing distribution channel. One endogenous factor, i.e. attitude toward the online shop, is assumed to influence buying behavior at the online shop. To examine relationships between the catalog and the online shop, 2,363 consumers who are familiar with both distribution channels of a mail-order company were surveyed online. The structural equation model developed reveals that attitudes toward the printed catalog most strongly influence attitudes toward the online shop. Further, the analysis has shown that antecedents of buying behavior at the online shop are moderated by gender. Shopping behavior of men is influenced by their attitudes toward the catalog, while that of women is determined by their attitudes toward the online shop.

This chapter looks at models for organizational development using the potential of virtual organization for established firms. For established businesses, particularly those in the consumer product area, much cash and knowledge is invested in the management of multiple physical outlets–bricks. The potential for the inexpensive and pervasive Internet technologies to reinvent the mail order shopping with a real-time interaction attraction has been widely touted and is under test. For books, music and perhaps even groceries, it is possible that the old measurement of value–“location, location, location” may be replaced with clicks of the mouse.

There is no doubt that interactive TV (iTV), which may be defined as a TV system that allows the viewer to interact with an application that is delivered simultaneously, via a digital network, in addition to the traditional TV signal (Perera, 2002), will replace traditional passive TV viewing habits. In fact, this technology enables a wide range of new interactive services, applications, and features that are becoming increasingly successful. In regard to interactive services, we have the traditional iTV service (which implies interacting with an application that is simultaneously broadcasted along with the TV program), the electronic program guide (EPG) which allows the management of the enormous amount of available channels/programs and the easy selection of them based on different criteria (title, author, date, time, genre, etc.), and Internet services which include e-mail, chat, WWW, shopping, banking, and so forth. As far as iTV applications are concerned, and following Livaditi, Vassilopoulou, Lougos, and Chorianopoulos (2003), it is possible to identify four basic categories of content: entertainment (content associated with films, series, and quizzes); information (content associated with news of all kind); transactions (content used to order/purchase goods), and communication (content that involve or require the exchange of messages). The success of iTV has mostly been due to the possibility of using different kinds of services, applications, and features through a unique and trustable device such as TV. Considering that European Internet penetration rates of around 40-60% and TV penetration rates of around 95-99% (Bates, 2003), we may anticipate a bright future for this new technology. However, as happens with any recent and emergent area, in spite all the advantages, there are many difficulties to overcome and research to be carried out. The main goal of this article is to bring together in one single source the most important research opportunities associated with iTV and, in some cases, present specific suggestions for future developments. For the purpose of this article, it is assumed that the person who interacts with an iTV system may be considered as a viewer (when viewing a traditional TV program and from a mass communication perspective) but also a User (when using the iTV application and from a Human Computer Interface - HCI - perspective). Thus, henceforth those who interact with iTV will be designated as Viewers/Users (V/Us).