Abstract
China had the world’s largest Internet user base. The tendency of exploring online for product information has been developing steadily over recent years in China, especially for high involvement product categories. Although some research has endeavored to gain understanding of online information search behavior, they were virtually suffering from disputable findings and lack of empirical examination on high involvement products and on consumers in China. This study examined consumers’ online information search behavior in China. Data were collected from automobile consumers in Yinchuan, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China. This study extends the existing understanding of online information search by reconciling the conflicting findings on the effects of the selected predictors on online information search in the third-tier cities of China. Findings of this study indicates that, except for perceived search cost on the Internet, other factors do significantly contribute to online information search, including perceived risk, product knowledge, and extent of offline information usage.
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