Abstract
Problem statement: E-commerce is a reality; Companies must consider this media as an important trade channel without distances between products and consumers. A key issue of e-commerce is how companies are disclosing information to its customers. This study aims to measure if there is relationship between the information overload in the virtual environment and the response of satisfaction and confusion of consumers. Approach: Research had exploratory-experimental character and it was used a quasi-experiment. Due to the methodology adopted, two samples were obtained, the first of control with 114 respondents and the second of experiment with 178 cases reported. Data analysis was made though descriptive statistics (central tendency and dispersion), multivariate (factor analysis) and non-parametric (Mann-Whitney U test). Results: A factorial matrix was built and it was found that information overload relates to the responses of satisfaction and confusion in the environment of e-commerce. There was a statistical significance level supporting these relationships. Conclusion/Recommendation: The main implication of information load was the feeling of not having done the best buy, generating a possible repentance. Related to the feeling of confusion generated by the large amount of information, the physical and virtual environment has the same properties. The performed analyses in this study indicated that there is a relationship between the e-commerce consumer satisfaction and the experience of information overload. Future studies might investigate the relationship between information overload and other responses.
Highlights
During the information search process, when trying to buy a product on-line, the individual is subject to experience the state of information overload, which represents the consumer behavior under the influence of a larger number of information that is beyond capacity to process information[1]
The first observation which should be made is that the phenomenon of information overload exists and can be identified in virtual environments, as noted in the physical environment by previous studies
The state of confusion over the purchase decision from an experience information overload has been identified by various authors in the traditional environment[1,2,12,13,19,21]
Summary
During the information search process, when trying to buy a product on-line, the individual is subject to experience the state of information overload, which represents the consumer behavior under the influence of a larger number of information that is beyond capacity to process information[1]. The fundamental premise that underpins the overload condition is that consumers have a finite capacity to absorb and process information, in a given period of time[4]. The Information Overload (IO) issue has been studied for decades by[1,3,4,5]. Information overload effects have been already identified in consumer behavior and in other areas, such as financial management[6] and in the health sciences[7]
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