Effect of brand familiarity, experience and information on online apparel purchase

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of brand familiarity, the number of pieces of product information presented on a web site, and previous online apparel shopping experience on perceived risk and purchase intention. Design/methodology/approach - The experiment was 2 (brand familiarity) x 2 (information availability) factorial design and 166 students participated in this study. Findings - Multivariate and univariate analyses found a significant effect of brand familiarity and previous experience on perceived risk and purchase intention, and no effect of amount of information on perceived risk and purchase intention. Research limitations/implications - Participants may not have carefully considered the product information because the experiment was not an actual purchase situation, although a scenario was given. In future studies, creating an actual purchase situation may be necessary to investigate the effect of the amount of information available on the web sites on perceived risk and decision making. Practical implications - The present study suggests that internet retailers should capitalize on the power of their brand names. Multi-channel retailers may be able to derive significant advantages from brand familiarity among their customers. Orginality/value - This study has added to the in-home shopping literature by extending findings of previous research to internet shopping. Findings suggest that internal information, specifically familiarity with brands offered online and previous experience of shopping online, influence perceptions of risk associated with shopping online, as well as intentions to purchase online.