Quality, value, satisfaction, trust, a

order to develop involvement toward the brand or product. However, with high involvement and ability to
process information, central cues are used.
Finally, Bruner and Kumar (2000) found that attitudes toward the Web site impact purchase
intentions. On the other hand, Kwak et al. (2002) found that attitudes toward online advertisements
generally did not impact the overall Internet purchase process. We found the same results as Kwak et al.
(2002), but with the effect of attitudes toward the site on pre-purchase intentions and purchase intentions
for the product.
This study provides marketing practitioners with insights into some of the individual and
behavioral variables that influence consumers’ purchase intentions for an OTC drug when they
use the Internet channel to seek and collect information about it.
The findings generally indicate what types of navigational cues (CHPS), which kinds of design and
effective information content (INFO, EFF and STR) are more likely to involve surfers in seeking product-
related information from the Internet.
Given the early positioning of information search in the buying decision process, if marketers can
identify which consumer segments in their market niche rely more heavily on navigational characteristics,
information content and structure of the Web site (central cues) or on entertainment (peripheral cue), how
to decrease the difficulty of navigating on their site, and how to build a site with a structure and
information convenient and in the same time appealing to their needs, they can tailor their communication
strategies to better suit these segments.
The study is not without limitations. Empirical surveys gathered on the Internet may have questions
about external validity, more so since our sample of respondents was gathered from one single Web site
and was composed of students with computer and Internet experience. The addition of emotions (pleasure
and arousal) might have explained some paths considered in our study as non significant or through
indirect paths.
Some other areas for future research can be suggested here. It will have been interesting to also
measure and add to our model attitude toward the brand in order to have a direct link with PPURI and
PURI related to the brand. Knowing how consumers consider an OTC drug (search or experience
product) will help us in testing the ELM in a web context. Other additional variables might be trust and
experience as they influence consumers’ attitude and purchase intention at a specific Web site. Metrics for
evaluating our environmental cues such as stickiness (average time per visit, frequency and recency)
(Bhat et al., 2002) might also be studied in order to confirm our model.
Researchers could use cross-cultural research to find out if people from different populations
and cultures differ in their behavior vis-à-vis our model. Longitudinal studies could be done to
trace the evolution and adaptation of consumer behavior when technological developments and
215