Consumer rules and orientations toward corporate websites: A pilot study

This exploratory analysis identifies rules consumers use to evaluate corporate websites and furthers work by W. S. Z. Ford (2001) by applying concepts from customer service relationship orientations to consumer perceptions of orientations to websites. Data are from a questionnaire administered to 147 undergraduate volunteers. Factor analysis revealed six rule domains that differ in prescriptive force: public relations information, customer rights information, e-commerce services, empowerment information, trust cues, and product information. Results from nonparametric sign tests and paired t-tests illustrate that relational expectations differ for e-commerce/service and information websites. Implications suggest that personalization and two-way communication are distinguishing consumer expectations of e-commerce/service sites, whereas respondents expect to visit information websites frequently and view them as replaceable.