Research by Dr Didier Soopramanien of Lancaster University Management School shows that people who are happy to buy online are generally happy to buy all kinds of products online. The research focussed on attitudes to buying 2 categories of products - CDs and personal effects - which have very different search and experience attributes and therefore different levels of product-specific risk.
You may think that if your product is one customers will want to experience before buying (ie pick up and touch), then there's no point in trying to sell online. But Didier and his colleagues found:
"previous experience of online shopping reduces the product-specific risks of online shopping. The variable 'has previously bought products online' significantly and positively increases the probability that the consumer will prefer to add the Internet as part of the decision making process rather than 'only going to shops' to buy both types of product"
The key to successfully selling all kinds of product on the internet is to reduce the purchase risk by providing masses of information about the product and being a totally reliable supplier. More on this later...
Reference: Soopramanien DGR, Fildes RA and Robertson A 2007, 'Consumer decision making, e-commerce and perceived risks', Applied Economics
