Customer Retention and Unplanned Purchases on the Web

With the explosion of business to consumer commerce on the web, manycompanies are faced with new challenges in their efforts to retain customers and increasesales. Our study explores some of the important factors that increase customer intentionto return and the number of unplanned purchases made. We find that both the level ofperceived control and the shopping enjoyment experienced by new web customers canincrease their intention to return. However, repeat customers do not seem to beinfluenced by either perceived control or shopping enjoyment in terms of their intentionto return. We also find that an engaging web store design that utilizes value-added searchmechanisms and presents a positively challenging experience can increase the customers'perceived control and enjoyment. Our results also indicate that product involvement isless important to new customers as opposed to repeat customers but the more oftencustomers return to a web store the more their shopping enjoyment is determined by theirproduct involvement. Finally, our study shows that neither perceived control norshopping enjoyment have any significant impact on the number of unplanned purchasesmade by customers. Our results deepen our understanding of the consumer onlineshopping experience and provide guidelines for the more effective design andimplementation of web-based stores