Effective design of electronic commerce environments: a proposed theory of congruence and an illustration

We posit that the current electronic commerce (EC) systems are not user-oriented. Consumers in an EC environment find it difficult to deal with the inherent nature of virtual reality in their interaction. We propose a conceptual framework to address such an issue by drawing on insights from contingency research in information systems design and media choice behavior. The basic theme of this model, called the congruence model, is that for an EC systems environment to have favorable impact on a consumer, the system must have a good fit with both the products/services that are sold/provided and the users it supports. An initial validity of this conceptual framework is demonstrated by working with a few product and user types. A detailed evaluation of eight different commercial web sites dealing with four different product categories provides additional support to the proposed theory. We expect our conceptual model to spur significant future research on this important phenomenon.