Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

This project was a study of public responses to early developments in electronic commerce (e-commerce). The aims and objectives were: to provide new data (qualitative and quantitative) relating social and psychological variables to uses of e-commerce; to relate aspects of design and implementation of e-commerce websites to social psychological variables; to provide an analysis of consumers' understandings of the regulatory and social context of e-commerce; to make a methodological contribution by introducing a new application of user trials in the context of social psychological consumption research; to reflect upon the implications of the development of e-commerce for the academic study of consumption. Three modes of data collection were used - focus groups, user trials and a national survey. The focus groups ranged across social grade, gender and user trial. The user trials were conducted in people's own homes and sampled a range of household types: single, households with children, cohabitees, varying across social grade, age and experience with technology.

Main Topics:

The survey included questions on shopping style and practice, experience with new technology, online shopping, responses to developments in e-commerce and demographic information. Fifteen of the focus groups and 44 user trials were recorded and transcribed, and are presented as .rtf files. The focus groups are not complete transcriptions due to identification issues and noise; the user trials transcriptions are more complete.

Quota sample

Volunteer sample

Selection questionnaires were used to get participants for the focus groups and user trials. Face-to-face recruitment was used to get a quota sample for the survey.

Face-to-face interview

Self-completion

The focus groups and user trials were conducted face-to-face, and the survey via self-completion questionnaire.