Uses and Gratifications for the World Wide Web

Abstract

It has always been important to understand what motivates consumers to use the Internet, since network use is a critical precursor to electronic commerce (Eighmey & McCord, 1998; Lohse & Spiller, 1998; Schonberg, Cofino, Hoch, Podlaseck & Spraragen, 2000). Without Internet use, there is no e-commerce use; this is much the same sort of issue that retailers study when trying to determine issues that motivate store visits. Internet use motivations, then, serve an important purpose in the understanding of e-commerce activities (Stafford, 2003b).