Keywords

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1 Introduction

Originally designed for data exchange, the Internet, transformed into the World Wide Web, became a point of interest for both businesses and customers (Ward and Lee 1999), generating all major purchasing activities ranging from information search to transactions (Shiua and Dawson 2004). Both businesses and customers have found the Internet to be a flexible, interactive and efficient medium of communication (Phau and Poon 2000). Since it is not limited in time and space, benefits are derived for both parties (Sprano and Zakak 2000), especially in terms of retail shopping (Brow et al. 2003). The Internet, therefore, gave from its first appearance an indispensable possibility to sell and purchase products or services electronically through so called e-commerce (Keeney 1999) which rapidly developed into a major economic activity between businesses and customers (Sprano and Zakak 2000).

Today e-commerce seems to play a major role in the world economy (Phan 2003) with purchase of goods and services online increasing continuously, along with profits from online shopping, as discussed by Chang. Yet these researchers emphasize also that e-commerce “hasn’t reached the take-off point of the diffusion ‘S’ curve” (ibid). Therefore it is no surprise that businesses increasingly want to participate in this virtual form of trading as they look for competitive advantage that will allow outperformance of rivals. Consequently, through e-commerce, they seek to strengthen their position in the market and gain access to e-markets unrestricted by national borders (Phan 2003). In virtual markets, therefore, businesses see direct benefits for themselves that can be achieved not only now but also in the future.

According to research from nearly a decade ago (Golsmith and Goldsmith 2002) e-commerce had even then become one of the essential characteristics of the Internet era which had begun to change traditional approaches to marketing mix, resulting in the popularization of online shopping. This seems to have direct relation to a number of advantages of online shopping for businesses but most importantly, for customers (Golsmith and Goldsmith 2002).

It is evident however that not all businesses can benefit equally from this rapidly expanding technology as customer motivation to shop online depends on cultural determinants which seem to play a crucial role in technology acceptance (Mahmood et al. 2004). Thus it appears to be obvious that before the business can benefit from e-commerce it must know and understand the culture of the target market. This seems to be a challenge for businesses in general, as cultural misunderstandings can cause a failure of the e-commerce strategy (Lynch and Beck 2001). The challenge seems to be increasingly complex to overcome, since nowadays businesses are faced with the phenomenon globalization and mass migration. This study therefore seeks answers to three questions: (1) Are online shoppers subject to an effect of acculturation processes? (2) Can customers change their attitudes towards e-commerce when changing their cultural environment? (3) Can consumers change their perception of advantages and disadvantaged deriving from e-commerce when changing cultural environment and culture they are subject to?

In order to address this research objectives, the exploratory study is conducted on a carefully selected sample population of consumers who have changed their cultural environment. On the basis of data collected, the effect of both native and non-native cultures on consumers’ perception of advantages and disadvantages deriving from e-commerce is examined as well as the effect of both cultures on consumer’s intention to adopt e-commerce is assessed. Results being compared and contrasted are expected to reveal whether online shopping consumers are able to overcome the native-cultural requirements while changing cultural environment and if so what is the impact of such a change on their perception of advantages and disadvantages deriving from online shopping and their intention to adopt e-commerce technology.

The study is organized as follows. Section 8.2 outlines advantages and disadvantages of online shopping. It presents factors potentially influencing the willingness of customers to shop online, since culture appears to be a strong moderator of e-commerce acceptance rather than any economic or demographic factor. Keeping in mind throughout the cultural effects on online shopping adoption the phenomenon of acculturation is discussed. Section  8.3 presents research methodology which is followed by the data analysis. Finally, Sect.  8.4 presents research findings and their implications for both theory and practice.

2 Online Shopping Advantages Versus Disadvantages

The most important advantage of e-commerce recognized in the literature is the ability to satisfy customer’s needs more effectively and efficiently than traditional shopping (Miyazaki and Fernandez 2006). Researchers (ibid) noticed that online shopping customers can look for the product with minimal effort, inconvenience and time investment. This minimized effort appears to be the main reason why customers use the Internet for the purchase of products (Brow et al. 2003). Moreover, it was found (ibid) that consumers can efficiently access and obtain a greater amount of detailed information about firms, products and brands reducing at the same time the cost and effort of information gathering (Oxley and Yeung 2001). Additionally, this access to information allows customers to compare product features, availability and prices (Hart et al. 2000), providing a level of anonymity (Ward and Lee 1999). Furthermore, Rohma and Swaminathan (2004) found that this information is increasingly targeted to the specific needs of the customer and thereby increases decision-making competency for making purchases.

Information gathering for online shopping can be done with a minimum time investment. Following on therefore from the first more general advantage, the second most important benefit for potential online customers, according to Monsuwe et al. (2004) seems to be time saving while looking for and finding products. Since customers perceive as too high this time investment in traditional shopping, the ‘time poverty’ of Internet shopping therefore additionally encourages customers to shop online, where they can choose a time convenient to them, unlimited by store opening hours or physical location of relevant shops (Shiua and Dawson 2004).

The Internet gives shoppers the opportunity to order products 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and to have them delivered directly to their address (Augustyniak 2002). Therefore the psychological costs of having to physically go shopping are also reduced (Jayawardhena and Wright 2009). Furthermore, the customer achieves within a relatively short time, a number of additional benefits including a virtually unlimited variety of products, an original service and personal attention (Zhou et al. 2007). All this makes shopping more enjoyable, exciting and attractive (Jayawardhena and Wright 2009), creating the perception that shopping via the Internet is an easy and convenient way of obtaining a wide variety of goods (Zhou et al. 2007) at lower than traditional brick and mortar shop prices (Chodak 2008).

As can be seen from the above literature search, customers derive a range of benefits from online shopping. However, more recent research carried out by Soopramanien (2011) has found that customers not only realize the benefits of the new technology, but they also seem to be concerned about the risks involved in this form of buying activity. Therefore, risks associated with online shopping cannot be ignored (Sjöberg and Fromm 2002) as this seems to be a possible barrier preventing customers from full adoption of e-commerce and a possible obstacle to its development (Stankiewicz and Millo 2004b).

According to Sjöberg and Fromm (2002) ‘people are of course not neglecting the benefits of new technologies’ though they are aware that ‘risks associated with new technologies are related to the expected benefits of the technology’. The customer, therefore, before adopting e-commerce fully as a shopping strategy, will also recognize risks associated with this form of buying activity as noted by Bauer (1960) who reports that consumers will usually choose to avoid risky choices or actions while making a purchase. The customer may aim to reduce risky options in a number of ways, by for example purchasing trusted brands or by purchase of so called ‘generic’ goods where the buying decision can be made on the basis of product description only (Turner and Callaghan 2006). Alternatively, customers might recognize risk to be too high and because of that they will choose traditional shopping rather than online shopping, finding that their needs are sufficiently satisfied through physical, conventional shopping. According to Stankiewicz and Millo (2004a), such a decision proves that the perceived benefits of e-commerce may be outperformed by risk factors.

This continuous assessment of risk attached to online shopping seems to be directly linked to the biggest weakness of the Internet, which according to Phau and Poon (2000) is the fact that it can reproduce only two (sight and sound) of our five human senses, which means that the customer cannot feel or try on, smell, or taste products while shopping online. Therefore, even though some product characteristics can be easily illustrated or described on the website, other subjective information such as taste or flavour, texture or feel, are impossible to provide making it difficult for customers to judge for individual suitability or taste as well as product quality (Ward and Lee 1999) or to be able to physically examine and test the product (Soopramanien 2011). The outcome of the buying decision depends therefore on the behaviour of the retailer rather than on the customer control (Lee and Turban 2001). As a result, there is some uncertainty about the product features that are sellable on the Internet which according to Stankiewicz and Millo (2004b) is the main reason discouraging customers from shopping online. This seems to be confirmed by Phau and Poon (2000) who over a decade ago identified that products having so called ‘an intangible value proposition’ are more likely to be purchased via the Internet, as the customers do not have to judge its tangible features; therefore their risk perception is lower. Moreover, as it is well-established and as stated earlier, products that customers are already familiar with, or those which are relatively low cost, are also likely to be purchased online because the customer can reduce uncertainty and therefore risk while making buying decisions (Turner and Callaghan 2006).

The second limitation for Internet shopping that also seems to directly affect purchasing of goods online is the interpersonal nature of the transaction process (Stankiewicz and Millo 2004a). Anonymity, therefore, which earlier Ward and Lee (1999) recognized as an advantage, can be for some customers a serious limitation. This seems to confirm the findings of Stankiewicz and Millo (2004a) according to which the lack of face-to-face contact with sales personnel forces the customers to share personal information in an anonymous environment which they are neither confident nor comfortable with. Additionally, without assistance and direct interaction with sales staff, the customer has to be more independent and self-sufficient which seems to increase level of uncertainty (ibid).

A third discouragement to shopping online concerns the findings of Włodarczyk-Śpiewak, who discovered that the Internet while giving freedom to view, to create and edit information, may decrease traditional forms of “gatekeeper” certainty. This risk factor is also discussed by Flanagin and Metzger (2007). It involves the large amount of product information which increases not only choice, but indecision based on unwillingness to accept the product on the basis of what they read or see online as pointed out by Oxley and Yeung (2001) as well as Hart et al. (2000). Hence as these researchers say, two main advantages of online shopping- rich product choice and information may become a great challenge to customers to overcome (Huang 2003) as they may question the objective source and quality of product information or find it biased (Clewley et al. 2009).

All the above factors lead to greater uncertainty through increasing perceived risk of e-commerce strategy, producing a significantly negative influence on customers’ attitudes towards online shopping. However apart from uncertainty that derives from lack of direct contact with the product and sales personnel, the concept of risk in online shopping refers overwhelmingly to the number of dimensions including infringement of privacy and system security involving financial transaction and personal information (Gibbs et al. 2002). This seems to be confirmed by Hart et al. (2000) as well as Turner and Callaghan (2006), according to whom a lack of security in payment methods is continuing to block e-commerce from full development. It is not surprising therefore that lack of transactional security is a high priority reason preventing customers from online shopping. According to Rymsza (2004) there is a common perception among customers that shopping online involves risk. More specifically Turner and Callaghan (2006) investigated that ‘card fraud is approximately double the rate online that it is offline’.

From the above literature review it seems to be obvious that a number of advantages are derived from online shopping to both businesses and customers. At the same time however, it also involves risk and the perception of risk, which customers will consider before making purchase decision. Identified advantages and disadvantages are summarised in Table 8.1.

Table 8.1 Online shopping: advantages versus disadvantages
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Keeping in mind both advantages and disadvantages deriving from e-commerce and their impact on consumer’ intention to adopt e-commerce businesses have to face a challenge and try to reduce disadvantages associated with online shopping, by taking steps to reduce risk while emphasizing the benefits of online shopping. To help businesses meet these challenges, researchers developed a number of frameworks that aim to guide e-businesses in reducing disadvantages associated with online shopping. The suggested approach and direction appear to be effective as current research from Doherty and Ellis-Chadwick recognizes that “online shopping is moving rapidly from a minority hobby, to an everyday part of most peoples’ lives”. However, even though current estimates showing that the market share of online retailing aims to continue to grow not all businesses seem to benefit equally form e-commerce strategy, since research has shown that a significant discrepancy exists across countries in relation to the adoption of online shopping. This seems to be caused by the fact that globally, fewer people than expected actually purchase through the Internet. Some customers use e-commerce website to obtain information about the product or compare prices but not for the purchasing transaction. Those customers seem to use the Internet for research in the early part of the decision making process, subsequently finalizing transaction in the traditional physical retail store environment (Hart et al. 2000).

In order to investigate the reasons or motivations behind such behaviour, several research projects were undertaken mainly focusing on the importance of demographics and lifestyle characteristics (Mahmood et al. 2004) such as age, educated, economic status (Donthu and Garcia 1999) as well as prior experience with the Internet (Soopramanien 2011; Kamarulzaman 2007; Krzak 2009). The research findings however were varied. On the one hand, researchers stress the positive role of experience as well as familiarity with the Internet. On the other hand, they indicate that Internet penetration growth, and therefore customer familiarity with the Internet, negatively affects the adoption of e-shopping strategies. Thus, it may be useful to obtain a third approach according to which ‘the Internet penetration growth in most countries did not justify the adoption of e-shopping strategies’ (Ernst and Young 2000).

The question of reasons for discrepancy in online shopping adoption across countries has not been comprehensively answered in the research literature surveyed so far. The reason for this may be due to the fact that a key role in e-commerce adoption may be found within the influence of cultural rather than economic or demographic factors (Krzak 2009). With this additional dimension in mind, research should focus on the national cultural characteristics which appear to shape customers’ buying behaviour. According to Zak and Lim et al. (2004) in the global marketplace culture plays a crucial role in defining the willingness of customers to shop online. Culture seems to play an important role because through their culture people learn many patterns of thought, value and belief, as well as social behaviour patterns.

National culture is defined as ‘the values, beliefs and assumptions learned in early childhood that distinguish one group of people from another’ (Newman and Nollen 1996). Moreover as stressed by Chau et al. (2002) people learn ‘potential acting from living within a defined social environment, normally typified by country’. Keeping those definitions in mind Chau et al. (2002) indicates that culture represents ‘mental programming’ which is determined by values of the local community and which in turn affects buyers’ behaviour. Moreover Manstead adds that cultural variations have significant impact on the way people view the world which eventually affects behaviour. Therefore it seems to be obvious that knowing and understanding cultural context is crucial for the business as different cultural backgrounds will respond differently to e-commerce strategy as culture greatly influences the way consumers behave.

In order to investigate cultural differences scholars have developed a number of frameworks. Hofstede’s cultural framework is one of the most popular as it distinguishes cross-cultural differences. His model is constructed upon four dimensions: Individualism versus Collectivism, Uncertainty Avoidance, Power Distance and Masculinity vesus Femininity on the basis of which one culture can be distinguished from another. According to researchers (Lim et al. 2004) two dimensions, Individualism versus Collectivism and Uncertainty Avoidance directly affect customers’ willingness to shop online. This seems to be caused by the fact that these two dimensions directly influence trust and willingness to take risk, with acceptance of uncertainty that derives from online shopping (Dawar et al. 1996; Jarvenpaa et al. 1999; Karvonen et al. 2000; Doran 2002; Ha et al. 2010).

Jarvenpaa et al. (1999) noticed that the Individualism versus Collectivism dimension also affects customer trust and therefore risk perception. This research expressed the view that consumers in different cultures might have conflicting perception of trustworthiness and therefore different perception of negative consequences of online shopping. The research confirmed this assumption as they recognized that consumers coming from individualistic countries have a higher trust in general and are more willing to base their trust in the retailer than consumers from collectivistic countries.

As can be observed from the above research there are significant differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, which differ according to the assessment of risk related to e-commerce. It can be assumed therefore that cultural differences assessed on the basis of individualism versus collectivism dimension are the reason of discrepancy of online shopping adoption across cultures. This seems to be confirmed by Karvonen et al. (2000) who proved that customers from countries of high uncertainty avoidance index will be likely to reject online shopping preferring traditional brick and mortar stores.

According to Karvonen et al. (2000) customers that come from low index of uncertainty avoidance cultures have greater flexibility and faster reaction to new situations, whereas the high level of uncertainty cultures require greater predictability of actions followed by prior planning. Research found also that customers (Finnish and Swedish) even though they may have had prior positive experience in shopping via the Internet still prefer to buy in traditional shops, since as the research revealed, the possibility to touch the product while buying goods in a traditional shop was found to be of high importance in those countries and cultural influences. Moreover those customers wanted more information about the products as they found that there was not enough information available or easily accessible in the website. On the basis of research run by Karvonen et al. (2000), therefore, it can be assumed that customers from countries of high index of uncertainty avoidance will be more likely to reject advantages deriving from e-commerce. This seems to be directly caused by the fact that customers from high uncertainty avoidance cultures require structured rules and regulations; they have stronger faith in institutions and lower tolerance for abstraction (Doney et al. 1998), which seems to be increased by their higher resistance to change (Lim et al. 2004).

On the basis of the above research there is no doubt that national culture plays a crucial role in e-commerce strategy adoption. This ‘mental programming’ seems to direct customers to specific behaviour for assessing adoption or rejection of online shopping as it directly evaluates risk associated with this form of buying activity. All this research makes clear therefore that before the business can take advantage of benefits deriving from e-commerce it must know and understand the culture of the target market (Mahmood et al. 2004). This seems to be a challenge as cultural misunderstandings can cause a failure of the e-businesses strategy. However the challenge of understanding cultural context seems to be increasingly complex as businesses in the global market have to face the phenomenon of acculturation facilitated by globalisation and mass migration.

Acculturation defined as ‘the process of learning and adopting cultural traits, different from the ones with which the person was originally reared’. It can be effected by a number of factors such as language or customs of the country culture where an individual currently resides. This seems to confirm Lee’s research (1993) which found evidence that “there are three fundamental elements in the process of acculturation, namely culture, contact, and change”. The process of acculturation therefore involves culture adoption of current occupation country.

Understanding the process of acculturation seems to be important in order to meet challenges derived from globalization which encourage customers to mingle and migrate from country to country. Some researchers Ward and Kennedy, Evenson et al. (2004), focused on the acculturation process but their research was based on customer attitudes to traditional shopping, ignoring at the same time online shopping. Karvonen et al. (2000) in his research on customer attitudes towards online shopping while recognizing global access of the Internet pointed out that the process of acculturation may occur. He believed that ‘when customers switch places, a cultural shock would be more than likely’ and because of that customer will experience stress while accommodating to the website created for another culture. He also emphasized that e-business ‘should be wise enough not to shock their multi-cultural users away by ignoring their cultural predetermines but should rather conform their service to serve users from all nationalities and cultures as well as possible’.

Hence, it looks like Karvonen et al. (2000) seem to disregard the fact that nowadays many customers are subject to ‘cultural shock’ as work or education migration become common. Thus businesses that want to take advantage of e- commerce strategy have to deal with the process of acculturation as customers physically are moving from one country, and culture, to another and realise the impact of this ‘cultural shock’ on consumers’ perception of advantages and disadvantages deriving from e-commerce as well its impact on consumers’ intention to accept e-commerce as their main shopping channel.

3 Research Methodology

In order to address the objectives of this research the exploratory study is carried out on a sample of Polish consumers currently residing in the UK. It is believed that this group has sufficient knowledge and/or experience to satisfy the study objectives, for the following reasons:

  1. (1)

    Polish culture and British culture represent two opposite directions in terms of Hofstede’s individualism versus collectivism dimension and uncertainty avoidance index. Polish culture is characterised as collectivistic and on a high uncertainty avoidance index. In contrast, British culture is highly individualistic characterised by a low index of uncertainty avoidance (see Graph 8.1). It can be assumed therefore that consumers subject to influences of Polish culture will be less likely than consumers subject to influences of British culture to realise advantages of e-commerce and thus accept e-commerce as their main shopping channels.

    Graph 8.1
    figure 1

    Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: Poland and the UK (www.geert-hofstede.com)

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  2. (2)

    Significant discrepancy in terms of e-commerce sales exists between Poland and the UK, confirming the effect of culture discussed above (see the Graph 8.2)

    Graph 8.2
    figure 2

    E-commerce sale and purchase (www.Eurostat.com)

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  3. (3)

    Polish nationals are one of the largest minority groups residing in the UK; thus a sample size sufficient to address the research objectives is guaranteed.

The exploratory study is based on an in-depth qualitative investigation during which informants were asked to compare and contrast their perception of advantages and disadvantages deriving from e-commerce as well as their intention to adopt it as their main shopping platform from two cultural perspectives: Poland and the UK.

Informants were recruited during face-to-face meetings taking place at ethnic cultural events, or through fliers posted in ethnic shops and online forums set up for Polish immigrants residing in the UK. Recruited informants were asked to recommend potential future informants. This way 25 informants were recruited to take part in this study.

Each interview lasted a minimum of 40 min. All informants were interviewed in their native language in order to reduce any fear factor and establish trust between researcher and informants. All interviews were recorded and transcribed. Transcribed data was later translated before content analysis was carried out.

3.1 Sample Assessment

In total 25 informants agreed to take part in the study, composed of 13 male and 12 female. All informants confirmed that they grew up in Poland and identified themselves as Polish. Informants revealed that they had come to the UK after 2004, when Poland joined the EU, in search of economic opportunities. All interviewed informants confirmed that they maintain Polish culture while living in the UK e.g. they celebrate holidays related to Polish culture. They also seems to have strong relationships with compatriots residing both in Poland and in the UK. At the same time they revealed that they did not adopt British culture and its customs. They also confessed that their interaction with British nationals is rather limited.

3.2 Advantages Versus Disadvantages of E-commerce

From the data collected it is clear that informants realise advantages deriving from e-commerce both in Poland and in the UK. Those advantages however differ in accordance with the cultural perspective they are assessed from.

According to the interviewed informants the biggest advantage of e-commerce in the UK is convenience. Informants claim that they are encouraged to adopt e-commerce because they find this form of shopping convenient especially when they suffer from ‘time poverty’ and lack of facilities (e.g. car) to shop in traditional shops.

Kazimierz (…) I do not have to leave my house. I do not waste my time. I order this and that. It is delivered. Someone knocks my door. I pay. Here you are- thank you. Yes, I would do it. Zosia: Sometimes. When I do it, it’s mostly because it’s more comfortable for me. Without a car it’s much easier that way. I don’t have to carry all these bags and I can save my time.

Piotr: My sister says that if I have free Saturday or Sunday then we can go shopping. But I don’t have a car so if it’s raining then it (traditional shopping) is a big inconvenience.

Piort B: It’s a very helpful because you don’t have to go outside, you don’t have to stay in a line too and you don’t have to carry all those bags. The other thing is that when you don’t have a car and you want to go to Asda or Tesco you have to take a bus, you don’t have to carry all those heavy bags. One day we checked and it came out that the round-trip by bus costs £8 and for the store delivery you will pay not more than £5. So advantages only.

Edyta: It saves my time. It is difficult with baby. (…) When I find what I want to have I do not have to go from one shop to the another and look for it God knows where. It is more convenient.

In additional to convenience deriving from e-commerce informants seem to also realise that while shopping online they may purchase products at lower price than in traditional environment. The possibility to purchase products cheaper seems to additionally encourage consumers to shop online in the UK.

Max: (…) First of all it is cheaper (…) you can save up to 75 %.

Despite the perceived convenience of e-commerce, informants seem to realise there are disadvantages to this form of shopping in the UK, among which the most important appears to be lack of the possibility to physically examine the product. Consequently, informants seems to carefully select products they purchase online. They reveal that they are likely to buy electronic devices as they base the purchase decision on parameters, which according to informants will not differ from one product to another.

Piort K: (…) for example an electronic device is not a vegetable that you need to check before buying, because one can be better than the other one, or one is smaller and the other is bigger. An electronic device has parameters that can be checked in a table and then find the most attractive offer.

They also seem to shop for clothing even though some informants revealed that they still want to try those product on before purchase thus they prefer to shop for clothing in a traditional shops rather than online.

Sylwia: (…) Grocery shopping no, but something like clothes or cosmetics yes, Not really clothes because I am that kind of person that cannot but clothes online, I have to try it on. But a bag for example, or hair cosmetics, face cosmetics. I use it, or some sort of equipment.

This suggests that indeed lack of possibility to touch the product and examine it before purchase may be a major disadvantage preventing consumers from accepting e-commerce. It is confirmed by informants discussing the possibility of doing grocery shopping online. They emphasize that they have to examine the grocery products before purchase as they do not trust online retailers to deliver high quality products.

Krzysztof: I do (online shopping) apart from grocery shopping (…) Because when I see a tomato I like to touch it and see if it is something I would like to eat. You can see it on a picture but you can have a ‘ketchup’ delivered.

Piort B: There is such a minus that a driver comes and you know that somebody crossed the store to find your products so you may receive a rotten cucumber. You know, that you wouldn’t take such a product but somebody did it for you. It’s a minus because you see it at a first glance or you bought a product with an expiry date till the end of the week and probably you would search for a longer one.

It is noticeable however that this perception changes in relation to time limitation as well as lack of facilities to do shopping in a traditional environment forces consumers to take the risk and shop online. It is also obvious that once informants have shopped online they seem convinced about the benefits of e-commerce and value its advantages more than disadvantages and thus they shop online for a wider range of products including grocery products.

Piotr B: If there was a situation when I logged on that page, I ordered some products and I didn’t receive what I ordered and instead of that I had products with short expiry date, 5 things are missing or things like that. Then I don’t know would I do it again. I suspect that we would go to the store. But if they charge your account with a proper price, they bring everything what they should and they inform you that you will receive your shopping between 3 p.m and 4 p.m and a driver comes at 3.20 p.m. Everything is arranged and you received all products you wanted, well… Then I tell you why even bother to go out. This is a huge advantage. If they would say now that all those shops like Asda or Tesco resign from this type of shopping it would be much harder.

Max: I buy everything, to begin with clothes, electronics, cosmetics. Everything.

Igor: Starting from electronic equipment, clothes, lots of things. I cannot choose one particular category, because it is a very wide range, almost everything.

From the perspective of Poland however it is not convenience (or time limitation) that encourages consumers to shop online, as according to informants they had more time to do shopping there than they have in the UK, but the possibility to access products that are not available in traditional shops is the biggest advantage of online shopping.

Basia: I like to do needlework and similar stuff. So when I wanted to buy products for my needlework I bought them online, as they were not available in regular shops. But when shopping for food, basic everyday stuff, electronics then no.

Weronika: You can get a books on Amazon or on any other website that you cannot get in a bookshop. We are looking for a book which we cannot get. We went to all bookshops in Poland and we could not find it, it was online on Ebay.

It can be assumed therefore that in Poland where consumers believe they have more free time they prefer to shop in traditional brick-and-mortar shops and they choose to make purchases online only if they cannot access the product they require in a traditional environment.

At the same time they use e-commerce websites to compare products. They believe that the possibility to compare prices of individual products is an advantage of online shopping, but subsequently they might actually buy the goods in a traditional environment.

Zosia: People can compare prices, it’s good especially for those who live in a small town and villages. I didn’t have any access to large shopping centres so it’s a huge short cut to my mind.

Marcin: (…) when I wanted to buy a computer I compared prices on Allegro. And in this way I found my laptop. And the offer was attractive, and the price was very attractive.

While comparing and contrasting consumers’ perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages they can derive from e-commerce it seem to be obvious that these perceptions are culture dependent. According to the data it seems clear that consumers decide to adopt e-commerce or reject it in accordance with the time perception. In essence, when consumers believe that they have limited time to do shopping they will be more likely to adopt e-commerce than consumers who believe that they have more time to spare for shopping. This time perception in turn may be directly associated with culture and in particular with individualism versus collectivism dimension. It is believed that in individualistic cultures preference is shown for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to be more independent, responsible for taking care of themselves. Consequently, consumers espoused to values of individualistic cultures will be more concerned about their own wellbeing and thus will tend to value time-saving and convenience deriving from e-commerce. In contrast, collectivistic cultures show preference for a tightly-knit framework in society; thus they value social interaction also as an element of shopping. Consequently consumers espoused to values of collectivistic culture (i.e. in Poland) prefer to shop in traditional shops and during this activity interact with their peers and turn to online shopping only if they have no other choice to access the product.

From the comparison it is apparent that these consumers are able to overcome their national or cultural characteristics, as once they change their cultural environment they seem to value convenience deriving from online shopping more than any possible social interaction taking place during traditional shopping. This is also true in relation to risk perception which is assessed on the basis of uncertainty avoidance index. Informants confirm that indeed they consider shopping in an online environment to be a risky activity but as they say, they tend to take this risk as they seem to value convenience more highly than they perceive any possible risk associated with e-commerce.

4 Conclusion

This study was set out to address three questions: (1) Are online shoppers subject to an effect from acculturation processes? (2) Can customers change their attitudes towards e-commerce when changing their cultural environment? (3) Can consumers change their perception of advantages and disadvantaged deriving from e-commerce when changing cultural environment and the culture they are subject to?

On the basis of the exploratory study there is evidence that online consumers are subject to some acculturation process because they are likely to change their culture-determined attitudes towards e-commerce once they change cultural environment, for example by moving to reside in another country. This results in change of consumer perception regarding advantages and disadvantages deriving from online shopping.

It is apparent that in highly collectivistic cultures characterised by a high index of uncertainty avoidance, consumers tend to turn towards online shopping only if they cannot purchase the product in a traditional environment. In opposite circumstances, being espoused to values of collectivistic culture, they seem to value convenience more than social interaction and thus appear more likely to adopt e-commerce as their main shopping channel.

The findings of this study seem to have direct implications for theory and practice. First, they reveal that culture determined attitudes towards e-commerce tend not to be static but open to change once a consumer changes cultural values which s/he is espoused to. Second, it was found to be the convenience factor that encourages consumers to shop online for the main reason—according to Daniel one of the informants—that ‘People aspire to do as little as possible. And online shopping favours this attitude’.

Consequently, on the basis of these findings, it seems to be obvious that businesses can enter and benefit from global and thus intercultural e-commerce because consumers are able to change their culture-determined attitudes towards e-commerce. Such a change however requires that the emphasis for change is on convenience in the use of e-commerce. At the same time businesses should try to replicate conditions which produce some perception of social interaction on a digital platform. This can be achieved through introduction of online forums and/or chats where consumers can spend their free time socially interacting with their peers. It is suggested therefore that a shopping platform which is both convenient and provides consumers with the opportunity for social interaction will encourage consumers to shop more readily online, reducing risk perception. The lower the risk perception in turn will reduce disproportion in terms of e-commerce sales across countries and will allow businesses to fully benefit from access to the global and thus the intercultural e-commerce marketplace.