The Effect of Prior Knowledge on the Online Purchase Decision-Making Process

Purpose of the paper is to identify how does the level of customers’ expertise in knowledge of the category and the product itself affect the online purchase decision-making process. Methodology part is based on observations with the use of the additional strategy, as interviewing, collected from 50 respondents. It was conducted on the basis of two product categories: restaurants and pharmacy. The database is analyzed with the coding system, where dependent variable is presented, as stages of decision-making process, excluding post-purchase behavior, and independent variables, as the level of prior knowledge, time spent, participant`s age, use of feedbacks and search for benefits. The data is analyzed via qualitative and quantitative approach. The object of observation is a person who books a table in restaurant and purchase pills for stomachache pain online. Findings of the research revealed that different levels of primary knowledge affect the decision-making process about online purchases in different product categories. The level of prior knowledge for industries influences on online purchase decision making process in both spheres. By the way, decision making process for gastronomy sphere also is affected by spend time, where loyalty loopers make a decision more quickly than people who make an active evaluation of alternatives or do not go through all the steps of decision-making process. However, the pharmaceutic industry is influenced by the level of prior knowledge for the stomachache pills, where people who evaluate the alternatives have higher prior knowledge for a product, than those who are loyal or indifferent. Research limitations are following: sample size of 50 respondents is not enough for such tool of quantitative analysis. The multinomial regression model does not provide the authors with the stable and significant results what could be explained as the limits of the sample. Another type of data collection could illustrate some other trends on online consumer behavior which were not obvious from the analysis of this research. Practical implication of the results could help companies to analyze their positioning and promoting strategies in order to evaluate their competitiveness and full in the gaps in their ways of communications with potential customers. Moreover, findings could be implemented in brands’ marketing strategies, if they do specialize or have a division on e-commerce market.