There are several important implications from this research.
First, we find that the more Web shopping experience individuals have, the less they feel uncertain about product quality regardless of age. This indicates that the traditional SEC classification for goods and its directive function on advertising may be limited by an individual’s Web shopping experience. For younger generations,though they have less shopping experience that can be used to evaluate products and services, their relatively rich Web shopping experience may compensate for this limitation.
Second, even controlling for Web shopping experience, the age gap exists regarding how uncertain consumers feel about product quality. As indicated previously, age group 40–49 seems to benefit most from their past Web shopping experience because they have
an optimal combination of Main Street and Web shopping experience. They are the first generation that has both the income and opportunity to be familiar with the Internet and the Web as well as to conduct online shopping. Thus, they have the best combined
advantage. Their perception of goods, which is reflected in SEC ratings, is also significantly lower for most item categories in the experiment.
Third, the impact of online shoppers’ age and Web shopping experience are different on search, experience, and credence goods. The evaluation of credence goods probably requires both cumulative (long-term) Web shopping experience and Main Street experience (age) to lower uncertainty about product quality. This indicates age and Web-shopping experience are both very important to reduce the challenge of evaluating product and service online. The SEC ratings of search goods, on the other hand, are more sensitive to age.
It is a bit surprising to know that for most of the items we selected, their SEC ratings are not affected by prior purchase experience. This could be the benefit of easy access to product or service review information on the Web—since an individual could always utilize others’ evaluation experience through electronic decision aids like comparison-shopping agents.