Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior?

Gregory K. White Associate Professor, Department of Resource Economics and Policy, University of Maine, Orono, Maine, USA Barbara J. Manning Independent Web Site Manager
This paper reports the results of a recent online survey of consumer attitudes toward selected US online storefronts marketing barbecue sauce, cheese, olive oil, and potato chips as well as international companies marketing an assortment of specialty food products. It describes the relationship between consumer attitudes toward a commercial WWW site and likelihood of purchase as well as demographic factors which are related to online purchasing behavior of food and drink products.

Introduction
Despite the tremendous growth in the number of companies opening online storefronts in the last two years, commercial success on the Internet has been limited. This may be changing. Bi-annual surveys of World Wide Web (WWW) usage estimate that the percentage of individuals on the Internet using the medium for shopping increased nearly 70 percent in the year between October 1995 and 1996 (Pitkow and Kehoe, 1996). Total online commerce in 1997 is expected to more than double from 1996s estimated $518 million, and may exceed $6.5 billion by 2000 (Sandberg, 1996). While shopping on the WWW is increasing in popularity, it remains eclipsed by the two most popular online activities of simply browsing and entertainment. In fact, browsing the Internet is a substitute for television viewing for an estimated 37 percent of WWW users (Pitkow and Kehoe, 1996). Since many of the WWW users who shop on the Internet began using, and continue to use, the WWW for entertainment, we were interested in examining whether the same traits that make a good WWW site lead to an increased likelihood of online sales. The WWW has been described as a gift economy one in which users expect to get something of value for free. That something may include information, software, or humor, depending on the nature of the site, but it is mandatory in a good WWW site (King, 1996). WWW users also favor sites which are regularly updated, well organized, and easy to read among other characteristics (King, 1996; Nielsen, 1996). Researchers at the University of Maine began studying WWW sites marketing specialty food and drink products on the Internet in May 1996. The above cited characteristics of good WWW sites closely resemble anecdotal evidence of reviewers attitudes toward commercial food and drink sites (White and Manning, 1997). In light of this similarity, we undertook a survey of consumer attitudes toward selected US online storefronts marketing barbecue sauce, cheese, olive oil, and potato chips as well as international companies marketing

an assortment of specialty food products. A total of 15 adjectives which were commonly used to describe commercial WWW sites in previous studies were included in the survey . Their use was evaluated to determine what relationship, if any, existed between respondents descriptions of the selected food and drink sites and their willingness to make a purchase from the companys online site. Demographic factors which had previously been determined to be related with willingness to purchase food and drink products online were also evaluated for the products in this survey .

Methodology
A survey of 16 commercial WWW sites marketing barbecue sauce, cheese, olive oil, and potato chips and four international sites marketing an assortment of specialty food products was conducted from 11-31 December, 1996. A total of 163 respondents completed a total of 874 evaluations. The survey instrument was an interactive WWW site located on the University of Maine server (http://www.ume.maine.edu/ ~specfood/ survey). Calls for volunteers were placed in a variety of sites on the Internet which are visited by Internet users interested in specialty food and drink products. These included commercial WWW sites marketing food and drink products, food- and drinkrelated electronic magazines (e-zines), and food- and drink-related newsgroups. Some of these notices were posted by the investigator; others were provided by companies and individuals interested in the project. The survey site was also registered with several Internet search engines and respondents who took part in previous food and drink Internet surveys were contacted by e-mail. These methods were designed to attract a sample of individuals who are likely visitors to commercial WWW sites marketing specialty food and drink products. It was not intended to attract a representative sample of the Internet population as a whole. This methodology was identical to that used in two previous studies which examined WWW sites marketing chocolate, coffee, fruit, salsa, seafood, and

This article was supported by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station and is publication MAFES No. 2132.

British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418 MCB University Press [ISSN 0007-070X]

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Gregory K. White and Barbara J. Manning Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior? British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418

wine sites. A further description can be found in White (1996). On entering the survey site, each respondent registered for the project by completing a questionnaire which collected basic demographic information, information about previous purchasing behavior for the products which were being reviewed, and information on how they had come to the survey . Respondents who registered prior to the survey start date were told that they would be contacted by e-mail when the survey began. Those who entered the site while the survey was in process were directed to further instructions immediately after submitting their registration questionnaire. Each respondent was assigned an individual ID and directed to one of 36 sites. These sites provided instructions and links to a set of six commercial WWW sites to be evaluated. Respondents followed these links to a standardized evaluation form with a link to the designated companys WWW site. Respondents would explore each site and then complete the corresponding evaluation form. Each form was submitted when complete and received by the investigator as e-mail. Previous site review surveys included open-ended fields for reviewers to write comments about the sites. These were reviewed and a list of commonly used descriptive words was added to the survey instrument for this study. A total of 15 terms (i.e. innovative, fun, personal, useful, clear, concise, attractive, interesting, informative, confusing, impersonal, wordy, hard to read, out of date, and busy) were selected. The first nine of these were assumed to be positively related to reviewers impressions of sites and the latter were assumed to be negative. They were incorporated in this survey to determine if they were significant in explaining likelihood of purchase. Respondents were asked to identify each term which they felt applied to the site being reviewed.

The majority of the respondents (86.1 percent) fell between the ages of 25 and 55. The estimated median age fell one year from the previous survey to 41 years. This, too, deviates somewhat from the estimated average age of 36 of the Internet population as a whole (Pitkow and Kehoe, 1996). Respondents are well educated with 94.5 percent reporting having attended some college or technical school or more. Nearly 64 percent had at least a four-year degree. The estimated median household incomes of the two previous studies were $54,000 and $56,000 respectively (White and Manning, 1997). The median income for this survey rose to $57,000. Forty percent of the respondents indicated their household incomes were between $45,000 and $74,999. Approximately 19 percent of the respondents did not disclose their household income. Fewer of the respondents to the current survey (6.7 per cent) reside outside the USA than in previous surveys. This is also a smaller representation of international residents than are generally estimated as using the Internet (Pitkow and Kehoe, 1996).

Previous and anticipated purchases

Among the products reviewed, cheese was reported as being most commonly purchased by respondents in the previous six months (99.3 per cent) (Table I). Cheese was also most frequently purchased at a retail store, while barbecue sauce was most frequently purchased both by mail order and online (11.2 percent and 4.9 percent respectively). While the vast majority of purchases of these products have been made at a retail store, it is interesting to note that all products have been purchased by mail order and online by some portion of the respondent population.

Table I Source and frequency of product purchases in the previous six months BBQ Cheese Olive oil Potato chips (%) (%) (%) (%)

Respondent demographics
The demographic prole of the respondents to this survey closely resembled respondents to the two previous studies (White and Manning, 1997). Females comprised a majority of respondents (56.3 percent); males were 43.0 percent. Thus women were more widely represented among those users who visit food and drink related sites than among the general Internet population as reported by other studies (Nielsen, 1995; Pitkow and Kehoe, 1996).

Source of purchase Retail 82.5 Mail order 11.2 Online 4.9 Total from any source 86.7 Frequency of purchase At least weekly 3.5 Monthly 29.4 Occasionally 61.5 Never 5.6

97.9 9.1 1.4 99.3 58.0 35.7 6.3 0.0

90.9 4.2 0.7 91.6 3.5 36.4 55.9 4.2

90.2 1.4 0.7 90.2 24.5 34.3 37.8 3.5

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Gregory K. White and Barbara J. Manning Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior? British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418

Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency with which they generally purchase the products. Barbecue sauce is purchased occasionally or never by 61.5 percent of the respondents. Cheese is purchased at least weekly by 58.0 percent and monthly by an additional 35.7 percent. Olive oil was most frequently reported as being purchased occasionally (55.9 percent). Potato chips stand out relative to the other products in that respondents were much more evenly divided among the categories of purchase frequency . Respondents rated the appeal of the product on a one (poor) to ve (excellent) scale. The appeal of the products marketed in the sites varied by category Respondents who rated . the product appeal as either good or excellent are identied as having high appeal in Table II. Those sites marketing cheese appealed to the largest percentage of reviewers (88.3 percent), the products in the international sites appealed to the fewest (61.4 percent). It is clear that respondents who found the product appeal to be high had a signicantly greater likelihood of indicating a willingness to make a purchase from the site.

Findings
To better understand the effects of the WWW site, as opposed to the products, only the 642 reviews which rated the appeal of the products as good or excellent have been considered in the analysis which follows. Aggregate data from all sites indicated that the majority of respondents (75.2 percent) were somewhat or very likely to make a purchase if the companys products were available at a local retail outlet (Table III). One-third of respondents or fewer were likely to make a purchase by mail order (33.6 percent) or online (29.7 percent). Thus, among those respondents who viewed the product as appealing, retail shopping was much preferred to either mail order or online purchases. Demographics continued to play a role in a reviewers likelihood of purchase from a retail outlet, by mail order, or online.

Previous research indicated that age and income were jointly signicant in describing signicant differences in likelihood of purchase by various purchase options (White and Manning, 1997). Respondents were categorized by age as less than 35, 35 to 44, and 45 and older. They were also categorized by income. All respondents aged 45 and older as well as those between 35 and 44 with annual incomes of $55,000 or more are classied as high age/income in subsequent tables. Low age/income describes all respondents aged 34 or younger and those in the 35 to 44 age bracket with incomes below $55,000. Results indicate that high age/income individuals are more likely than low age/income individuals to purchase from an online site or by mail order, but there was no signicant difference in their likelihood of purchase from a retail outlet (see Table IV). Mail order was preferred over online storefronts by low age/income individuals, but no preference was observed for those in the high age/income group. Gender also appears to be a signicant factor in describing differences in purchase option preferences (see Table V). Women were more likely than men to purchase from an online site or by mail order, but there was no difference between genders in likelihood of purchase from a retail outlet. There were no signicant differences between men and women in their relative preferences for online ordering compared to mail order. The difference in likelihood of purchase from online sites was not present in the two previous studies. It is not yet clear whether or not this marks a change in womens attitudes toward online shopping. Some have suggested that womens acceptance of catalog and television shopping could provide a predisposition for greater use of the Internet for commercial use (Weber, 1996). In addition to demographic factors, the quality of online storefronts impacted willingness to purchase. Respondents identied which, if any, of the 15 terms described each site. The rst data column of Table VI indicates the percentage of reviews in which each

Table II Likelihood of product purchase by product appeal and product category BBQa (%) Product appeal Low somewhat/very likely to purchase from e-site Product appeal High somewhat/very likely to purchase from e-site Note: a Signicant at 99 percent condence level [ 415 ] 23.2 7.9 76.8 41.3 Cheesea (%) 11.7 4.3 88.3 34.7 Intla Olive oila Potato chipsa Totala (%) (%) (%) (%) 38.6 2.6 61.4 20.7 28.2 0.0 71.8 18.0 29.1 0.0 70.9 29.1 25.7 2.7 74.3 29.7

Gregory K. White and Barbara J. Manning Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior? British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418

term was selected. Nine of these terms were associated with increased likelihood of purchase and have been categorized as positive, four were associated with decreased likelihood of purchase and are categorized as negative, and two were uncertain. There were too few evaluations in which sites were described as out of date (1.6 percent of the reviews) for statistical analysis, and busy

Table III Likelihood of purchase by order option Purchase on-line (%) 53.8 16.5 29.7 Purchase by mail order (%) 45.9 20.4 33.6 Purchase at retail outlet (%) 16.0 8.8 75.2

Rating group Very/somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat/very likely

Table IV Likelihood of purchase by age/income and order option Purchase on-linea (%) 58.2 17.4 24.5 2.32 45.8 16.6 37.5 2.70 Purchase by mail orderb (%) 48.6 17.3 34.1 2.67 40.2 23.6 36.2 2.79 Purchase at retail outlet (%) 15.8 9.2 75.0 3.93 16.6 5.8 77.6 3.96

Rating group

Low age/income Very/somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat/very likely Mean High age/income Very/somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat/very likely Mean

Notes: a Signicant at 99 percent condence level b Signicant at 95 percent condence level Table V Likelihood of purchase by gender and order option Purchase on-linea (%) 46.2 17.3 36.5 2.59 57.8 15.7 26.5 2.22 Purchase by mail orderb (%) 38.7 19.0 42.3 2.82 50.7 23.4 25.9 2.41 Purchase at retail outlet (%) 16.5 6.4 77.1 3.96 16.7 7.9 75.4 3.84

Rating group

Female Very/somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat/very likely Mean Male Very/somewhat unlikely Neither likely nor unlikely Somewhat/very likely Mean

Notes: a Signicant at 99 percent condence level b Signicant at 95 percent condence level [ 416 ]

had a mean score for likelihood of purchase which was comparable to a negative term but a use by respondents (i.e. 36.6 percent versus 26.2 percent) which was comparable to the pattern observed for positive terms. Among the positive terms, over two-thirds of the reviews described the site as interesting. While innovative was used in only 9.2 percent of the reviews, it is the term which was associated with the highest mean score of likelihood of online purchase. Over 40 percent of the respondents who described the sites with the terms innovative, fun, personal or useful were somewhat or very likely to make a purchase from the online site, while less than 28 percent of the respondents who did not apply these terms were likely to make a purchase. Less than 6 percent of respondents who described a site as confusing or impersonal were likely to make a purchase from the online storefront, 16 percent if the site was wordy, and 23.4 percent if the site was hard to read. The correlation matrix for the use of these terms by respondents contains no values greater than 0.32 (innovative and fun). This implies that respondents used each term independently of the others. While none of the coefficients is signicantly large, the signs are generally positive within the positive terms and within the negative terms. The signs are generally negative comparing positive and negative terms. We also examined how respondents used these terms to describe individual sites. Each site review was categorized according to whether the respondent had used only positive terms, neither positive nor negative terms, both positive and negative terms, or only negative terms. Respondents used only positive terms for 75.5 percent of the site reviews (Table VII). For this set of reviews the mean score for likelihood of purchase from the site was 2.67. Over one-third of the respondents who described a site with only positive terms indicated that they were likely to make a purchase. If both positive and negative terms were used to describe a site, both the mean score for likelihood of purchase and the percent of respondents likely to make a purchase were signicantly lower than if only positive terms were used. Therefore we may conclude that even with many positive impressions, having one or more negative aspect about a site will signicantly lower the number of consumers likely to make purchases from the site. While individuals in the higher age/income categories differed in their likelihood of making a purchase from the online site, they did not signicantly differ in their use of the terms to describe sites (x2 = 0.330) (see Table VIII).

Gregory K. White and Barbara J. Manning Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior? British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418

Table VI Likelihood of purchase by WWW site descriptions Applied term in description of site Percent of Mean respondents score likely to purchase 3.08 3.03 3.00 2.98 2.82 2.81 2.73 2.70 2.69 1.39 1.67 1.88 1.98 2.24 47.9 47.3 45.3 45.7 38.6 36.0 37.7 36.5 36.5 5.6 5.6 16.0 23.4 36.6 Did not apply term in description of site Percent of Mean respondents score likely to purchase 2.38 2.29 2.39 2.29 2.21 2.32 2.22 2.00 2.14 2.53 2.51 2.51 2.50 2.48 27.2 24.2 27.6 24.2 23.3 26.9 22.3 16.1 20.2 31.1 31.1 30.8 30.2 29.2

Terms

Percent of site reviews 9.2 23.5 11.7 25.5 41.3 23.9 47.7 67.5 58.7 5.6 5.6 7.8 7.3 1.6 6.5

Positive Innovativea Funa Personala Usefula Cleara Concisea Attractivea Interestinga Informativea Negative Confusinga Impersonala Wordyb Hard to readb Unclear Out of date Busy

Notes: a Signicant at 99 percent condence level b Signicant at 95 percent condence level Table VII Likelihood of purchase by use of positive, negative and mixed WWW site descriptions Percent of sites described 75.5 3.1 16.3 5.0 Mean score likelihood of purchase from e-site 2.67 2.10 1.83 1.72 Percent of respondents somewhat or very likely to purchase 34.5 20.0 16.3 6.3

Comments Positive only Neither positive nor negative Both positive and negative Negative only

Table VIII Use of positive, negative and mixed WWW site descriptions by age/income and gender Comments Positive only Neither positive nor negative Both positive and negative Negative only Low age/income 76.2 6.1 14.9 2.8 Percent of sites described High age/income Female 79.6 2.9 13.5 4.0 75.9 5.8 16.4 1.9 Male 75.0 4.0 16.1 4.8

The same is true for males and females (x2 = 0.213). Therefore, the differences in likelihood of purchase from the online companies among these groups cannot be explained by differences in the way they perceive the sites. Both demographic factors and the quality of the online storefronts impact consumers likelihood of purchase.

Summary
This was the third in a series of surveys of Internet users who are interested in food and drink sites on the Internet. Results conrmed previous ndings that this population is highly educated and has a median income above $55,000. Eighty-ve percent of the

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Gregory K. White and Barbara J. Manning Commerical WWW site appeal: how does it affect online food and drink consumers purchasing behavior? British Food Journal 100/9 [1998] 413418

population falls between the ages of 25 and 54. Women represent a small majority of the population of users interested in food and drink sites a larger proportion than for the Internet population at large. Respondents continue to favor shopping for food and drink products at retail outlets over online storefronts or mail order options. However nearly 30 percent of respondents were likely to make a purchase from an online company whose products appealed to them. Women and individuals over the age of 35 with higher incomes were the most likely to make a purchase from an online storefront. In addition to demographic factors, the quality of the company WWW site inuenced consumers likelihood of purchase. More than 45 percent of respondents who found a companys products appealing and described a site as innovative, fun, personal, or useful were likely to make a purchase from the electronic storefront. Those who described sites as clear, concise, attractive, interesting, and/or informative were also signicantly more likely to make a purchase than those who did not describe the sites with these terms. Conversely, fewer than 6 percent of those respondents who found a companys products appealing, but described the WWW site as confusing or impersonal would make a purchase. Only 16 percent would make a purchase from a wordy site, and 23 percent would purchase from a site which was hard to read despite nding the products appealing. Respondents were most likely to purchase from sites they described exclusively with positive terms. Those sites described in both positive and negative terms attracted 50 percent fewer likely buyers.

While demographic factors affected likelihood of purchase from an electronic storefront, they did not appear to be a signicant factor in inuencing respondents descriptions of the WWW sites. Thus, both consumer demographics and the quality of a commercial WWW site were important in determining the likelihood of purchase from an online storefront.

References
King, A.B. (1996), What makes a great Web site?, Webreference.com, http://webreference.com/ greatsite.html Nielsen, J. (1996), Interface design for Suns WWW site, Sun Microsystems, http:// www.sun.com/sun-on-net/uidesign/ designstory .html Nielsen, Media Research (1995), The commercenet/Nielsen Internet demographics survey: executive summary, Nielsen Interactive Services, http://www.nielsenmedia.com/ whatsnew/execsum2.htm Pitkow, J. and Kehoe, C. (1996), Sixth GVU WWW user survey High level summary and trend . analysis, October, GVU Center, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology , http://www.cc.gatech. edu/gvu/user_surveys/ Sandberg, J. (1996), What do they do online?, The Wall Street Journal, 9 December, p. R8. Weber, T.E. (1996), Who uses the Internet?, The Wall Street Journal, 9 December, p. R6. White, G.K. (1996), An online survey of food and beverage consumers on the Internet: an evaluation of the survey methodology, Marketing Research Online, Vol. 1, pp. 39-59. http://msc.city . unisa.edu.au/msc/jems/MRO_Vol_One.html White, G.K. and Manning, B.J. (1997), Characteristics of likely Internet specialty food and drink consumers, presented at American Marketing Association Future of Marketing Special Conferences, Dublin, Ireland, June.

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