Janette Hanekom

Department of Communication Science University of South Africa, hanekj@unisa.ac.za

Rachel Barker

Department of Communication Science University of South Africa, barker@unisa.ac.za

Abstract

Various theories, theoretical viewpoints and models on consumer behaviour stipulate consumers’ offline and online behaviour when purchasing a product or using a service. This article deviates from the purchasing perspective and instead proposes an information and web-based communication message ‘seeking and consumption’ perspective. This new perspective is theoretically grounded in two new approaches to online consumer behaviour: the web-based communication exposure and internal psychological behavioural processes approaches; as well as the integration of various theoretical perspectives, approaches, theories and models that address fragments of offline and online consumer behaviour. The research problem is to address the existing limited and fragmented approaches, because existing purchasing perspectives arguably do not provide adequate theoretical criteria to explain online consumer behaviour during interactive information-seeking and consumption activities. Hence, the main aim of this article is to propose new theoretical criteria for online consumer behaviour to address these shortcomings.

Keywords: determinants of consumer behaviour; consumer decision making; consumer information processing and response; information consumption; internal psychological behavioural processes; online consumer behaviour; web-based communication exposure

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/02500167.2016.1140665