Purpose: This paper seeks to analyze the buying behavior of internet users in two European countries with different cultural backgrounds, Spain and The Netherlands, assessing the influence of online experience factors on the choice of an internet vendor. It also aims to identify and compare the influence of personal and behavioral characteristics on the e‐vendor choice.Design/methodology/approach: The study simulated a realistic virtual shopping activity in the computer laboratory; participants had to complete an online shopping assignment and an online questionnaire.Findings: The findings indicate that the basic traits of the online consumer behavior of internet users in the two countries are quite similar. Most of the disparities observed are attributed to different levels of experience with the internet as a commercial channel.Research limitations/implications: The outcome could suggest the emergence of a global virtual village, an issue worthy of further research but also of particular importance for global web vendors and website designers. The basic limitation of the study is that it is conducted in only two European countries and refers only to online purchasing of a standardized tangible consumer product.Practical implications: The findings of the study can be translated to web design guidelines useful to online organizations operating in different cultural or ethnic environments.Originality/value: The paper presents one of the first studies comparing the influence of online experience factors in two culturally different countries.

ResumenLas redes sociales virtuales han pasado de ser una actividad online especializada a un fenómeno de masas. Esta nueva herramienta interactiva entre personas, organizaciones, comunidades, etc. ha aumentado en los últimos años. Basándonos en la aparición y crecimiento de esta innovación tecnológica interactiva, el principal objetivo de este estudio consiste en analizar la adopción y uso de las redes sociales virtuales por parte de los usuarios, teniendo en cuenta sus características personales, en concreto, la confianza y el riesgo percibido hacia las mismas. La muestra analizada consiste en una encuesta online dirigida a un panel nacional de usuarios que interactúa dentro de las redes sociales virtuales. Los resultados apoyan una relación e influencia positivas entre las variables, analizadas a partir de un modelo adaptado basado en el Modelo de Aceptación de la Tecnología. Las conclusiones proporcionadas en este estudio ofrecen tanto implicaciones de marketing para las empresas que pueden permitir mejorar sus decisiones de gestión, como una profundización en esta línea de investigación útil para los académicos especializados en este ámbito de estudio.AbstractSocial networking sites have gone from being a specialized online activity to becoming a mass phenomenon. This new interactive tool among people, organizations, communities, etc., has increased exponentially in recent years. Based on the emergence and growth of this interactive technological innovation, the main objective of this paper is to analyze the adoption and use of social networking sites by users, taking account of some personal characteristics (i.e. trust and the perceived risk of these sites). The sample is based on a national online survey focused on a national panel of users which interacts within the social networking sites. The results support the positive relationships and influences among variables, analyzed using an adaptation of the Technology Acceptance Model. The conclusions have marketing implications for companies to improve their managerial decisions and for further investigation by academics specialized in this research field

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have showed an exponential growth in the last years. The first step for an efficient use of SNSs stems from an understanding of the individuals' behaviors within these sites. In this research, we have obtained a typology of SNS users through a latent segmentation approach, based on the frequency by which users perform different activities within the SNSs, sociodemographic variables, experience in SNSs, and dimensions related to their interaction patterns. Four different segments have been obtained. The “introvert” and “novel” users are the more occasional. They utilize SNSs mainly to communicate with friends, although “introverts” are more passive users. The “versatile” user performs different activities, although occasionally. Finally, the “expert-communicator” performs a greater variety of activities with a higher frequency. They tend to perform some marketing-related activities such as commenting on ads or gathering information about products and brands as well as commenting ads. The companies can take advantage of these segmentation schemes in different ways: first, by tracking and monitoring information interchange between users regarding their products and brands. Second, they should match the SNS users' profiles with their market targets to use SNSs as marketing tools. Finally, for most business, the expert users could be interesting opinion leaders and potential brand influencers.

Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response paradigm this research analyzes the main differences between the effects of two types of web technologies: Verbal web technology (i.e. navigational structure as utilitarian stimulus) versus nonverbal web technology (music and presentation of products as hedonic stimuli). Specific webmosphere stimuli have not been examined yet as separate variables and their impact on internal and behavioral responses seems unknown. Therefore, the objective of this research consists in analyzing the impact of these web technologies –which constitute the web atmosphere or webmosphere of a website– on shopping human bebaviour (i.e. users’ internal states -affective, cognitive, and satisfaction- and behavioral responses - approach responses, and real shopping outcomes-) within the retail online store created by computer, taking into account some mediator variables (i.e. involvement, atmospheric responsiveness, and perceived risk). A 2(“free” versus “hierarchical” navigational structure) x2(“on” versus “off” music) x2(“moving” versus “static” images) between-subjects computer experimental design is used to test empirically this research. In addition, an integrated methodology was developed allowing the simulation, tracking and recording of virtual user behavior within an online shopping environment. As main conclusion, this study suggests that the positive responses of online consumers might increase when they are allowed to freely navigate the online stores and their experience is enriched by animate gifts and music background. The effect caused by mediator variables modifies relatively the final shopping human behavior.