Journals Proceedings

Abstract

With the increasing popularity of internet usage, internet economy has flourished. According to a study done by Institute of Information Industry (2012), the total revenue of Taiwan’s internet business was 562 billion NT dollars in 2011 and 10% of it was contributed to overseas shopping. The study also found an increasing number of Taiwan consumers made their overseas shoppings by themselves via the companies’ websites, instead of using internet transnational surrogate buying services. Previous studies on internet transactional surrogate buying service mainly focus on the investigation of consumers’ intention in usage and consumers’ attitude towards using the internet transnational surrogate buying services. Very little research has been done on investigating the antecedent variables that have effects on consumers’ attitude towards the internet transnational surrogate buying services usage. In addition, whether and how consumers’ attitude towards using the internet transnational surrogate buying services affects their intention in using the services has not yet been studied either. Based on Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), this study investigates the relationship between consumers’ attitude and intention towards using internet transnational surrogate buying service. This study further investigates selected variables, such as merchandise characteristics and personal characteristics, as antecedents of consumers’ attitude towards internet transnational surrogate buying service usage. Internet-based survey is used in this study to collect data. A total of 546 valid questionnaires are collected and analyzed using PLS method. It is found that merchandise’s attribute has influences on consumers’ attitude towards internet transnational surrogate buyer service. In specific, brand name has a positive relationship with consumers’ attitude. In addition, the perceived benefit has a significant positive relationship with attitude towards internet transnational surrogate buying service, whereas perceived risk holds a notably negative one. Secondly, consumers’ personal characteristics of openness and materialism have positive influences on their attitude toward internet transnational surrogate buyer service. This study also found that a positive relationship between consumers’ attitude towards internet transnational surrogate buying service and their intention in using internet transnational surrogate buying service.