Towards an Integrated Model of Online Store Environment

With the growth of E-commerce, there is a growing need amongst E-retailers to differentiate themselves from competitors to be successful. The online store environment is a significant differentiating factor as it has been found to affect consumer behavior. While store environment has become increasingly important in environmental psychology (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974) and marketing (Baker, Grewal, & Levy, 1992), much of the research has been in the context of physical stores. Further, the research done so far in an online store environment is fragmented as research in this topic has proceeded parallel in many academic fields, such as marketing, environmental psychology and information systems with little theoretical and empirical integration. There is hence a need to theoretically integrate the literature to come up with an integrated theory of the online store environment. This paper addresses the question of ‘how does the online store environment affect behavior’ by comprehensively analyzing the papers in the area of online store environment and behavior across disciplines and proposes an integrated model. The integrated model would help managers and academicians understand the impact of the online store environment by explaining how various combinations of atmospheric elements, mechanisms, and conditions affect.