The effect of behavioral tracking practices on consumers’ shopping evaluations and repurchase intention toward trusted online retailers

• Published in: Computers in human behavior 2013-05, Vol.29 (3), p.901-909
• Main Authors: Jai, Tun-Min (Catherine), Burns, Leslie Davis, King, Nancy J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0747-5632; 1873-7692
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.021

► Young online shoppers concern about their personal information (PI) for secondary use. ► Increasing information sharing will increase consumers’ perceived risk. ► Perceived risk decreases consumers’ perceived fairness. ► Discrepancy was found between shoppers and their trusted online retailers in PI sharing. The study applies the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model and Social Contract Theory to investigate the effect of behavioral practices scenarios (stimulus) on consumers’ evaluations of their online shopping experiences (internal organism) and repurchase intention toward online retailers (external response). The findings suggest there is a disconnect between online shoppers and their trusted online retailers regarding the information collected from online shoppers since, currently, sharing of information collected from customers within affiliates or even with third-party companies such as networking advertising associations for secondary uses (e.g. targeted advertising) is a fairly common practice in the marketing field. Left unresolved, this disconnect may undermine consumers’ repurchase intention toward the retailers and potentially injure the social contract between retailers and their customers. These findings are significant for the online retailing industry, consumers and public policy makers.