CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF INTERNET SHOPPING IN
JAPAN: CUSTOMER-CENTRIC
AND WEBSITE-CENTRIC PERSPECTIVES
Kanokwan Atchariyachanvanich
Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Shonan Village, Hayama, Kanagawa, 240-0193 Japan
Hitoshi Okada, Noboru Sonehara
National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-8430 Japan
Keywords: Internet shopping, critical success factors, technology acceptance model, customer-centric, website-centric.
Abstract: The results from a study conducted on the effect of factors on the customers’ attitude toward using Internet
shopping in Japan are presented in this paper. The research model was an extended version of the
consumers’ acceptance of virtual stores model with the addition of a new factor, need specificity, grouping
critical success factors based on their customer-centric and website-centric perspectives sources, and
examining how the differences in customer characteristics affect the actual use of Internet shopping. The
results of an online questionnaire filled out by 1,215 Japanese online customers pointed out that gender,
education level, innovativeness, net-orientation, and need specificity, factors of customer-centric
perspective, have positive impacts on the actual use of Internet shopping. The implication also shows that
Japanese online customers do not consider the service quality of Internet shopping, a factor of the website-
centric perspective, as significantly as offline customers do.
1 INTRODUCTION
Internet shopping has been introduced as an
electronic commerce (EC) application since the
early 1990s (Turban et al, 2002). The long-term
forecast of worldwide EC spending done by the
research firm International Data Corporation (IDC)
is expected to reach $7,127 billion by 2007
(International Data Corporation, 2004). The actual
amount of worldwide EC spending has feverishly
increased by 349.81 percent from 2000 to 2003.
However, in Japan, the growth rate in EC spending
has decreased from 39.26% in 2001 to 30.26% in
2003 (IDC, 2004). Two possible reasons for this
phenomenon are that the number of new online
customers and a number of returning online
customers are decreasing. These raised two
questions, what makes online customers purchase
from the Internet and what keeps online customers
repurchasing through the Internet. However, a better
understanding of the factors affecting the purchase
decision can provide a crucial grasp of the consumer
behavior in cyberspace (Limayem et al., 2000).
Since the purchasing decision process certainly
happens before the repurchasing process, we need to
investigate it first. Moreover, the Japanese market
characteristics are a mystery to most foreign
observers and the consumption behavior of Japanese
customers is notably different from other societies
(Synodinos, 2001). This study, thus, focuses on
these factors and the online customers’
characteristics influencing Internet shopping in
Japan.
The objectives of this study were to investigate
the factors influencing the actual use of Internet
shopping by using the consumers’ acceptance model
and to explore how differences in customer
characteristics affect the actual use of Internet
shopping by using a statistical analysis. This paper is
one of the first studies to examine the key factors
underlying customers’ purchasing intentions through
the Internet in Japan, by grouping them into two
views of their sources, customer and website
(Atchariyachanvanich and Okada, 2006a). This
paper is set up as follows. Section 2 presents an
overview of Internet shopping in Japan, its relevant
theories and factors, as well as develops the
261
Atchariyachanvanich K., Okada H. and Sonehara N. (2007).
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF INTERNET SHOPPING IN JAPAN: CUSTOMER-CENTRIC AND WEBSITE-CENTRIC PERSPECTIVES.
In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on e-Business, pages 261-268
DOI: 10.5220/0002111202610268
Copyright
c
 SciTePress

hypotheses. Section 3 discusses the research method.
In Section 4, the empirical data will be analyzed and
discussed. Section 5 concludes with the findings and
implications for research and practice.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Internet Shopping and Consumer
Behaviour in Japan
Regarding a preliminary online survey of the factors
affecting each online shopping process in Japan, the
consumer behavior of online customers of the goo
Research of NTT Resonant Inc. in Japan showed
that price is the dominant factor that makes goo
online customers shop online (Atchariyachanvanich
and Okada, 2006b). This is because it is difficult to
buy a product at a low price from traditional shops
in Tokyo where living expenses are the highest in
the world. Moreover, Internet shopping offers the
customers products that are not available at
traditional shops. Internet shopping is thus a way for
customers in high-cost-of-living countries like Japan
to seek cheap and rare products. This survey called
for further study on what else makes Japanese
customers purchase through the Internet and what
characteristics of Japanese customers affect their use
of Internet shopping.
2.2 Critical Success Factors
Recently, several researchers have investigated the
predictors of what makes customers purchase
through the Internet (Limayem et al., 2000; Chen et
al., 2004; Blake et al., 2003; Pavlou, 2003; Verhoef
and Langerak, 2001; Chen et al., 2002). The model
frequently employed to conduct this investigation is
the technology acceptance model (TAM) (Kwong et
al., 2002). Chen et al. (2004) conducted one of the
more outstanding studies that developed the
consumers’ acceptance of virtual stores theoretical
model. Their study not only proposed the
consumers’ acceptance of virtual stores model based
on the technology acceptance model (TAM) and the
innovation diffusion theory (IDT), but also unified
the five critical success factors (CSF) that include
product offerings, information richness, usability of
storefront, perceived service quality, and perceived
trust. With the strengths of Chen et al.’s study
including the theoretical model and CSFs for virtual
stores, it was used as a based model to develop the
research model of this study. However, these CSFs
are a combination of customer and website factors.
In the EC market, there are three entities interact
with each others, EC company, EC website, and EC
customer (Atchariyachanvanich and Okada, 2006a).
Each entity consists of several factors that are
further classified as critical success factors. CSFs
can be managed and/or built by the EC company in
order to achieve the business’s goals. The CSF
classification of each entity is thus important in
helping the EC company enhance its EC website and
serve its EC customers. Thus, this study groups
these CSFs into two categories based on their entity.
2.2.1 Customer-Centric Perspective
Customer-centric perspective is defined as a
subjective factor that occurs to customers
themselves and affects the actual use of Internet
shopping, such as customer characteristics, trust in
the Internet shopping, compatibility of Internet
shopping, and customer’s need.
Customer characteristics: A consumers’
personality characteristics influence their Internet
shopping behavior (Cao and Mokhtarian, 2005).
Age is found to have an influence on their
Internet shopping behavior, that is the higher a
customer’s age, the more likely that person will buy
online (Bellman et al., 2000; Bhatnagar and Sanjoy,
2004). In addition, older people would find Internet
shopping more attractive because their lives are
generally more time-constrained (Bhatnagar and
Sanjoy, 2004). Thus, we propose:
H1: The older the customer, the higher the level
of actual Internet shopping use.
Gender is a significant predictor of a customer’s
purchasing intentions through the Internet (Slyke et
al., 2002; Koyuncu and Bhattacharya, 2004). It was
found that male respondents were more likely than
female respondents to purchase products and/or
services through the Internet. Therefore, we
hypothesize that:
H2: Male customers have higher levels of actual
Internet shopping use than female customers.
Marital status is insignificantly found to
influence an Internet shopping behavior (Raijas and
Tuunainen, 2001). Thus, we propose:
H3: Marital status influences a customer’s actual
Internet shopping use.
Income is a determinant of purchasing power.
The higher a person’s income, the more likely that
person will buy online, and the higher a person’s
income, the more online transactions that person is
likely to make (Bellman et al., 2000). Thus, we
propose:
H4: The higher the income level, the higher the
level of actual Internet shopping use.
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Education level also influenced consumer
behavior. The higher a customer’s education is, the
more likely they will purchase through the Internet
(Bellman et al., 2000). Thus, we propose:
H5: The higher the education level, the higher
the level of actual Internet shopping use.
Innovativeness is often identified as a personality
construct, and has been employed to predict a
customer’s innovative tendencies to adopt a variety
of technological innovations (Yang, 2005).
Innovativeness was found to be positively associated
with the adoption of Internet shopping (e.g., Blake et
al., 2003; Limayem et al., 2000).
Purchasing through
the Internet is an innovative behavior that is more
likely to be adopted by innovators than non-
innovators (Limayem et al., 2000).
This leads to the
following hypothesis:
H6: The higher the level of innovativeness, the
higher the level of actual Internet shopping use.
Net-orientation is the subjective factor for
predicting the online buying behavior that indicates
if typical online customers are “wired lifestyle”
people who have been on the Internet for years, or
those who have been online for just a few months.
Wired-lifestyle people tend to be net-oriented style
(Bellman et al., 2000). They use the Internet not
only to improve their productivity at work but also
for most other activities, such as reading the news.
Net-oriented people are therefore defined as people
who are interested in and make use of Internet
applications. As customers become more wired to
the Internet, their intention to purchase items on it
may increase. Thus, we purpose:
H7: The higher the level of net-orientation, the
higher the level of actual Internet shopping use.
Perceived trust: Lack of trust in online
businesses is one of the main reasons for customers
not purchasing items through Internet shopping
(Hoffman et al., 1999; Pavlou, 2003). Customers are
reluctant to input their personal information when
Internet shopping sites asks for it. In addition, they
are concerned about the interception and misuse of
information sent over the Internet. Consequently,
they may not trust online shopping. This leads to the
hypothesis:
H8: A customer’s perceived trust in Internet
shopping positively influences his or her attitude
toward using it.
Compatibility: The degree to which consumers
perceive Internet shopping to match their shopping
needs and to be consistent with the existing values
and beliefs (Verhoef and Langerak, 2001; Chen et
al., 2002). We propose:
H9: The compatibility between using Internet
shopping and a customer’s needs positively
influences his or her attitude toward using it.
H10: The compatibility between using Internet
shopping and a customer’s needs positively
influences his or her perceived usefulness of it.
Need specificity: The specificity of the
customer’s needs with respect to how well
customers consider what they want when they visit a
store (Koufaris et al., 2001). We hypothesize that:
H11: The customer’s need specificity positively
influences his or her attitude toward using it.
2.2.2 Website-Centric Perspective
Website-centric perspective is defined as a factor
that is created by an EC company to fulfill the
marketing strategy and to be a successful website in
the EC market. In other words, this category
represents the EC company.
Ease of use: The degree to which customers
expect to effortlessly use Internet shopping (Chen et
al., 2002). In line with previous studies, we propose:
H12: The ease of use of Internet shopping
positively influences a customer’s attitude toward
using it.
H13: The ease of use of Internet shopping
positively influences the usefulness of it.
Usefulness: The customer’s probability that
using Internet shopping will incrementally influence
the performance of purchasing and information
searching (Chen et al., 2002). Based on previous
studies, we propose:
H14: The usefulness of Internet shopping
positively influences a customer’s attitude toward
using it.
H15: The usefulness of Internet shopping
positively influences a customer’s behavioral
intention on using it.
Service quality: The discrepancy between what
customers expect and what customers obtain. Since
offline Japanese customers significantly consider
getting high-quality products and services, the
service quality of products and services in Japan is
regularly high (Synodinos, 2001). This is also a
necessary concern in Internet shopping to provide
the high service quality to online customers in Japan.
This leads to the hypothesis:
H16: The service quality of Internet shopping
positively influences a customer’s attitude toward
using it.
Usability of Internet shopping website: The
degree to which Internet shopping would be easily
and quickly used by customers to navigate, operate
and find what they want. Many Japanese have
comparatively little free time (Synodinos, 2001). If
Internet shopping can provide customers with time-
saving shopping, the usability of an Internet
shopping website may influence the ease of use
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF INTERNET SHOPPING IN JAPAN: CUSTOMER-CENTRIC AND
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factor, which directly affects customers’ attitudes
toward purchasing items through the Internet.
H17: Usability of Internet shopping websites
positively influences the ease of use of Internet
shopping.
Information richness: The degree to which
customers can use the information to predict their
satisfaction levels with the product prior to the
actual purchase. Japanese may expect a lot of
product information and product comparison
functions as useful because they have been
characterized as insatiable information seekers
(Synodinos, 2001). Thus, the information richness
may influence the usefulness of Internet shopping,
which directly relates to a customer’s attitude toward
using Internet shopping. Another hypothesis is:
H18: The information richness of Internet
shopping positively influences the usefulness of
Internet shopping.
Product offering: The abundance of different
products, pricing strategies, and product retail
channel fits. Previous studies found that the
usefulness of Internet shopping is determined by the
product offerings (Chen et al., 2004). In addition,
since the cheap prices and rare products provided as
product offering of Internet shopping make Japanese
customers shop online (Atchariyachanvanich and
Okada, 2006b), product offerings may influence a
customer’s attitude toward using it. Thus, we
propose:
H19: The product offering of Internet shopping
positively influences the usefulness of Internet
shopping.
H20: The product offering of Internet shopping
positively influences a customer’s attitude toward
using it.
The last two hypotheses were in line with
previous studies.
H21: A customer’s attitude toward using Internet
shopping positively influences her or her behavioral
intention to use it.
H22: A customer’s behavioral intention to use
Internet shopping positively influences his or her
actual use of it.
3 RESEARCH MODEL
The research model used the consumers’ acceptance
of virtual stores model developed by Chen et al.
(2004) to investigate the factors affecting the
Internet shopping in Japan and to study the effects of
customer characteristics on the actual use of it. The
research model consists of thirteen constructs; ten
critical success factors and three determinants of the
actual use of Internet shopping. Figure 1 shows two
groups of critical success factors and their proposed
relations. A new factor, need specificity, was added
to the base model and critical success factors that
were investigated were categorized into two groups:
customer-centric/website-centric- perspectives.
3.1 Data Collection
A web-based survey was conducted to investigate
the critical success factors and consumer purchasing
behaviour through the Internet. The online
questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first
section was designed to gather the demographic
characteristics including age, gender, monthly
personal income, and Internet activities. In the
second section, the constructs employed in the
model were measured using multi-item scales. Each
construct contains several items measured by the
fully anchored, 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1)
“strongly disagree” to (5) “strongly agree”. The
items were generated from previous research
projects and were modified to fit the context of
Internet shopping when necessary.
As the survey was conducted in Japan, a
Japanese version of the questionnaire was
administrated. The questionnaire, originally written
in English, was translated into Japanese by bilingual
people whose native language was Japanese and
whose background was IT-oriented. The
questionnaire was then translated back into English
by other bilingual people whose native language was
English and whose background was also IT-oriented.
The English versions were then compared, and no
item was found to pertain to a specific cultural
context in terms of language or to a specific IT-
related context in terms of background translation.
An online survey targeted at potential online users
who have purchased a product or service through
Internet shopping was utilized to collect data. All
questions were posted on a reliable website with
four million registered users operated by the goo
Research of NTT Resonant Inc. in Japan
(www.goo.ne.jp). The period of the questionnaire
ran from July 21 to 25, 2006. After the initial
reliability and validity screening, 1,215 responses
were found to be complete and usable.
The initial screening eliminated incomplete and
fictional responses. Among the 1,215 respondents,
the percentages of gender (51.3%, 48.7% were male
and female respectively) and age group (7.4%,
19.5%, 22.1%, 18.4%, 18.8%, and 13.8% were aged
between 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and
more than 60 respectively), which are the same
percentages as those from the communication usage
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trend survey conducted in 2005 by the Ministry of
Internal Affairs and Communications (2006).
Therefore, the results of our study predicted the
same trend as the ministry’s study of online
customers in Japan does.
3.2 Data Analysis
The data analysis employed a two-step approach
Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) using a statistical
program, SPSS, and a covariance-based program,
AMOS. In the first step, the measurement model
was examined for instrument validity and refinement
by using a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The
second step involved confirming the relationships
and testing the hypotheses of the research model by
using the structural equation modeling (SEM)
technique.
To test the reliability of the initial questionnaire,
a Cronbach alpha was calculated for each construct
and the results are presented in Table 1.
The test of the structural model estimated the
goodness-of-fit of the research models so that the
hypothesized model would be a good representation
of the structures underlying the observed data. The
chi-square of the revised model was calculated to be
4015.213 (p=0.0) with 866 degrees of freedom. The
root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA)
was 0.055, which indicates a good fit and reasonable
errors of approximation in the population and was
lower than the recommended limit of 0.08 [23]. The
0.033 root mean square residual (RMR) and the
0.904 comparative fit index (CFI) meet the
recommended levels of 0.05 and 0.90, respectively
(Byrne, 2001). Overall, the research model for the
customer intention to purchase through the Internet
appears to be statistically well fitting. Figure 2
shows the results of the structural paths of the
research model. The estimated path effects
(standardized) are presented.
4 RESULTS
4.1 Customer-Centric Perspective
4.1.1 Customer’s Characteristics
The actual use of Internet shopping was measured
by a number of purchases that was defined as how
many times online customers have purchased items
through Internet shopping in the last six months. The
customer characteristic distributions of the
responding sample and the mean number of
purchases toward using Internet shopping are shown
in Table 2.
The percentage of respondents within each
characteristic distribution is enclosed in parentheses.
T-tests for independent samples were used to
identify the response differences in the actual use of
Internet shopping per gender and marital status.
An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to
determine the response differences in actual Internet
shopping use based on age group, income, and levels
of education, innovativeness, and net-orientation. In
addition, regression analysis was used to indicate
how a change in each independent variable (age
group, income, education level, innovativeness, and
net-orientation) affects the values taken by the
dependent variable.
Information
Richness
(IR)
Product
Offerings
(PO)
Usefulness
(U)
Ease of Use
(EOU)
Compatibility
(C)
Service
Quality (SQ)
Trust
(
T
)
Attitude
toward Using
Internet
Shopping (A)
Behavioral
Intention to
Use Internet
Shopping (BI)
Actual
Use of
Internet
Shopping
Need
Specificity (N)
Characteristics
Age
Gender
Marital status
Education
Income
Innovativeness
Net-orientation
Web-centric perspective
Customer-centric perspective
Usability of
Internet
Shopping
Website (U)
H1-H7
H16
H8
H9
H10
H11
H13
H12
H14
H15
H17
H18
H19
H20
H21 H22
Figure 1: Research model.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF INTERNET SHOPPING IN JAPAN: CUSTOMER-CENTRIC AND
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265

Table 1: Reliability of measured constructs.
Constructs
No. of initial
questions
No. of final
questions
Cronbach
alpha
Actual Use of Internet
Shopping
2 2 0.661
Behavioral Intention to
Use Internet Shopping
(BI)
1 1 1.000
Attitude toward Using
Internet Shopping (A)
3 3 0.898
Perceived Usefulness
5 5 0.883
Perceived Ease of Use
4 4 0.916
Compatibility (C) 3 2 0.797
Need Specificity (N) 3 2 0.418
Perceived Service
Q
ualit
y
(
S
Q)
10 9 0.906
Perceived Trust (T) 6 6 0.899
Product Offerings (PO) 5 4 0.779
Information Richness
5 3 0.715
Usability of Internet
Shopping Website (U)
5 2 0.801
The T-test results for the independent samples
showed that a number of purchases toward using
Internet shopping show an insignificant difference
per age group, marital status, and income. Therefore,
H1, H3, and H4 were rejected.
Gender was found to significantly affect the
actual use of Internet shopping. Female customers
made significantly more purchases (mean score of
6.87) than male customers did. Thus, H2 was
rejected. Concerning the customer’s education level,
the number of purchases were found to be
significantly different (F = 4.476, df = 7, sig. =
0.035). The regression analysis results showed that
the customer’s education level positively affected
the number of purchases made (β = 0.32, t = 2.12),
supporting H5. Customers who hold doctoral
degrees made the most purchases. Unexpectedly,
customers with the lowest level of education made a
rather high number of purchases.
The results showed that high-innovative customers
made the highest number of purchases (mean score
of 7.25) than other groups of innovative customers.
In other words, high-innovative customers tend to
more frequently purchase items through the Internet
than low-innovative customers. The regression
analysis results showed that innovativeness
positively affects the number of purchases (β = 1.30,
t = 3.47), thus supporting H6. High-net-oriented
customers made the highest number of purchases
(mean score of 7.88) than other groups of net-
oriented customers. The regression analysis results
showed that net-oriented positively affects the
number of purchases (β = 2.48, t = 6.32), thus
supporting H7.
Table 2: Customer characteristics and mean number of
purchases.
Characteristics Number (Percent) Mean
Age group: (F= 0.072, Sig.= 0.788)
15-19 90 (7) 4.17
20-29 238 (20) 6.11
30-39 268 (22) 7.29
40-49 223 (18) 7.30
50-59 228 (19) 5.87
>=60 168 (14) 5.67
Gender: (F= 5.551, Sig.= 0.019*)
Male 624 (51) 5.84
Female 591 (49) 6.87
Marital Status: (F= 0.048, Sig.= 0.589)
Single 461 (38) 6.49
Married 754 (62) 6.25
Income: (F= 3.127, Sig.= 0.077)
< 250,000 JPY 214 (18) 5.91
250,000 – 499,999 422 (35) 6.14
500,000 – 749,999 230 (19) 6.74
> 750,000 JPY 176 (14) 6.99
Education Level: (F= 4.476, Sig.= 0.035*)
Secondary School 30 (2) 7.43
High School 357 (29) 5.64
Vocational School 128 (11) 6.22
College 131 (11) 5.87
Bachelor Degree 493 (41) 6.80
Master Degree 65 (5) 6.62
Doctoral Degree 11 (1) 10.82
Innovativeness: (F= 12.030, Sig.= 0.001***)
Low 75 (6) 4.72
Medium 684 (56) 5.91
High 456 (38) 7.25
Net-orientation: (F= 39.921, Sig.= 0.000***)
Low 38 (3) 3.61
Medium 652(54) 5.26
High 525 (43) 7.88
*, **, *** significance at p < 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001,
4.1.2 Need Specificity, Trust, and
Compatibility
Figure 2 illustrates the structural model results. It
supports the H11 hypothesis of the effect of need
specificity on a customer’s attitude toward using
Internet shopping. However, H8 and H9 were
rejected. These results indicated that customers’
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subjective reasons in trusting Internet shopping and
compatible with Internet shopping would not affect
Internet shopping behavior.
4.2 Website-Centric Perspective
All website-centric perspective hypotheses (H12-
H20), except H20 concerning product offering were
valid after testing the research model. These results
indicated that the features of Internet shopping
including ease of use, usefulness, usability of
Internet shopping website, and information richness
affected a customer’ attitude toward using Internet
shopping and indirectly influenced the actual use of
it. Surprisingly, the service quality of Internet
shopping was found to have a negative impact on a
customer’s attitude toward using Internet shopping.
However, its coefficient and significance level are
low enough to be considered insignificant. Thus, this
implies that the service quality of Internet shopping
has no effect on Internet shopping behavior.
Moreover, product offering has no direct impact on
the customer’s attitude toward using Internet
shopping.
5 CONCLUSION
This study was conducted to explore the critical
success factors in terms of customer-centric and
website-centric perspectives that influence a
Japanese customer to use Internet shopping. The
consumer acceptance of virtual stores developed by
Chen et al. (2004) was used as a base model to test
the research hypotheses. From an online survey,
educated females with high incomes and low
innovative Japanese are the most active online
customers.
The critical success factors have been grouped
into two categories, (a) customer-centric
perspectives helping managerial people understand
the nature of consumer behaviors and (b) website-
centric perspectives providing insights into the
features and elements of Internet shopping websites
that make customers purchase items through Internet
shopping.
Regarding the customer characteristics as
customer-centric factors, an interesting find was that
the more innovative the online customers are, the
less intent they are on purchasing items through the
Internet. This finding does not conform to those of
previous studies (Limayem et al., 2000; Blake et al.,
2003). Since their respondents were not Japanese,
one possible reason to explain this is that the
consumption behavior of our respondents, which
were Japanese, is notably different from those of
other societies (Synodinos, 2001). Consequently, it
implies that the effect of innovativeness on the
actual use of Internet shopping may depend on the
nationality of the respondents. Unexpectedly, trust
has no impact on the customer behavior of Internet
shopping. This may be because of our limitation on
the respondents, who were members of the goo
website. Their perception of trust in Internet
shopping had already been approved and become
insignificant to their attitude toward using Internet
shopping. Regarding the insignificance of
compatibility, it may be because the underlying
items of compatibility made Japanese respondents
reluctant to answer with their true feeling on
whether purchasing items through Internet shopping
matched their needs. This issue should be considered
for further study.
0.42***
Behavioral
Intention to
Use Internet
Shopping (BI)
Attitude
toward Using
Internet
Shopping (A)
0.14***
Service
Quality
(SQ)
Actual Use
of Internet
Shopping
Characteristics:
Age
Gender
Marital status
Education
Income
Innovativeness
Net-orientation
Customer-centric perspective
Website-centric perspective
0.65***
0.3***
Product
Offerings (PO)
Need
Specificity (N)
Trust (T)
Compatibility
(C)
Usefulness
(U)
Ease of Use
(EOU)
-0.13
*
0.16***
0.65***
0.15***
0.64***
0.59***
0.05
ns
-0.16
ns
0.04
ns
-0.11
ns
***, **, * Significant at the 0.001 level, 0.01, and 0.05 level respectively.
ns
Not significant at the 0.05 level.
Usability of
Internet
Shopping
Website (U)
Information
Richness (IR)
0.5***
Figure 2: Model Results.
CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS OF INTERNET SHOPPING IN JAPAN: CUSTOMER-CENTRIC AND
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267

The findings showed that the website-centric
perspective factors have played a more important
role than those of the customer-centric perspective
factors. This indicated that enhancing the EC
website can ensure the success of EC, because the
website-centric perspective factors are more
controllable than the customer-centric perspective
factors. In addition, Japanese online customers do
not consider the service quality of Internet shopping
as importantly as Japanese offline customers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This research is a part of the Digital Eizou Common
Specification Development Project (DECSDP) and
was supported by the Science and Technology
Promotion Adjustment Budget of the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology,
Japan.
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