PERSONALIZED E-SERVICES: CONSUMER PRIVACY CONCERN AND INFORMATION SHARING

Abstract

Our purpose was to identify the behavioral characteristics and determine the attitudes of different customer segments in regard to the personalization features of e-tailers' websites as they related to the criteria of privacy concern and willingness to share information. The data of 1,659 participants were subjected to multivariate analyses of variance and discriminant analysis methods. The results indicated that the customer segment for whom it was most likely to be profitable for companies to establish a personalized e-tail strategy had a high level of privacy concern and considerable online shopping experience, were willing to share personal information, and had a low level of privacy concern. By profiling online consumers falling within these categories, our aim was to fill the gaps and address discrepancies in the current e-personalization literature by adding to the available information about consumer privacy concern and information sharing. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed.