Quality, value, satisfaction, trust, a

emaining is the time spent browsing the Web sites (which corresponds to the time
spent browsing the aisles in the more traditional sources of retailing). Therefore, a
great attraction of the Internet is the convenience that it affords (p. 98).
In other words, the benefits of shopping online (easy access to retailers) outweigh the costs (not
obtaining the product immediately). Depending on what type of convenience is most important to
the consumer, the cost-benefit analysis could lead to a different shopping format decision. The
different types of convenience that consumers may choose to seek are described below.
The Multidimensional Nature of the Convenience Construct
Table 1 presents the various definitions and dimensions of convenience proposed by
researchers in this area. Brown (1989) is the first to define the construct of convenience, and he
focuses on the need for a definition that reflects the term’s multidimensional nature. The definition
of convenience proposed by Brown (1989, 1990) contains five different dimensions: time, place,
acquisition, use, and execution. Note that all five of the dimensions reflect the idea of saving
consumers’ time and effort expenditures.
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Table 1 about here
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Berry, Seiders, and Grewal (2002) identify and define five dimensions of convenience
applicable to the services arena: access, decision, transaction, benefit, and post-benefit. Seiders,
Voss, Grewal, and Godfrey (2003) empirically investigate these dimensions of service convenience
and their relationship to value perceptions and behavioral intentions. Their findings suggest that
decision convenience has a positive effect on value perceptions; access convenience has no
significant effect on either value perceptions or behavioral intentions; transaction convenience has a
positive effect on behavioral intensions; and benefit convenience has a strong positive effect on
both value perceptions and behavioral intentions.
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