Samenvatting

E-commerce is booming business. Growing globalization and upcoming new markets have made companies aware of the necessity to operate as effectively as possible on the internet in an international environment. This raises the question: will an e-commerce website that is successful in one country, automatically guarantee success in other countries? Can a website simply be copied and translated, or do cultural differences between users demand for local adaption of the website?
This study gives insight into this question. Specifically, what has been investigated is if there is a difference between consumers from different cultures in their information needs when choosing products on e-commerce websites.
Subject to the study were consumers in six different countries and cultures, namely Colombia, France, Germany, The Netherlands, South Africa and the United Kingdom. In every country, 30 consumers were
asked to make a judgment on a specific hotel on 'Booking.com', a website for online hotel reservations. Through eye tracking, the attention they paid to different kinds of information (based on the Consumer Information Processing Model by Liao, Proctor & Salvendy, 2008) was measured. By means of a survey it was investigated how important they found this information in their judge making.
Results show that there is a difference between consumers from different cultures in their information needs and that differences exist to a larger extent in the attention that is paid to different kinds of information than in the importance that is given to different kinds of information. Most striking is South
Africa. This country shows higher information needs for product descriptions, product specifications, product images, price and promotions and expert information about quality than (some) other
countries. No clear relationship was found between the cultural differences in information needs found in this study and Hofstede's (1991) and Hall's (1976) theories on culture classifications. However, results give some indications that high-context cultures (Hall's classification) may have more needs of product
descriptions and product images than low-context cultures and that masculine cultures (Hofstede's classification) may have more needs of product specifications and expert information about quality than
feminine cultures.
Based on the results, it is recommended to take cultural differences into account when designing ecommerce websites for international audiences. Designers should keep in mind that some cultures, such as the South African, have higher information needs in general than other cultures. Also, some cultures give more value to certain kinds of information than other cultures (this report lists all the differences). E-commerce web designs should reflect these differences by drawing more or less attention to these kinds of information.