A study of more than 4,000 Web users by Brigham Young University (BYU) found that Internet retailers need to re-target their marketing, address customer fears over credit card security and make the experience less technologically challenging.

The study, which was funded by IBM, identified the shopping behavior of eight online consumer types and discusses which types would respond to marketing efforts designed to increase e-commerce sales. Segmentation studies focusing on the Internet have been very popular with commercial researchers hoping to break the ever-broadening Internet audience into groups marketers can better understand. "Other segmentation studies have been done by commercial research companies, but they focus on demographics like age, income and location. They scarcely look at the lifestyles or attitudinal characteristics that are the true identifiers for the way people behave," said business management professor William Swinyard, who conducted the study with fellow BYU professor Scott M. Smith. "In this study we track not only the actual amount of online purchasing people do, we profile individuals using a broad variety of computer literacy and lifestyle variables directed at understanding the psychology of online shopping," Smith said. "We anticipate that somewhere between 65 and 70 percent of all people on the Internet have the potential to become online shoppers, with excess of 40 percent someday shopping regularly." The study divides shoppers and non-shoppers into eight segments: Shopping Lovers, Adventurous Explorers, Suspicious Learners, Business Users, Fearful Browsers, Shopping Avoiders, Technology Muddlers and Fun Seekers. Of the eight, Fearful Browsers represent the largest untapped opportunity for e-retailers to win online shopping converts, while Technology Muddlers and Fun Seekers should probably be avoided, the study found.