Perceived Risk and Consumer Decision-Making—The Case of Telephone Shopping

Telephone shopping is in many ways the easiest and most convenient mode of shopping ever devised. Yet the majority of women surveyed did not shop by telephone during the course of a year. Why? The authors examine various determinants of telephone shopping and present data which suggest that the nature and degree of risk perceived by the consumer, and the manner in which she deals with perceived risk, are important determinants of decisions: a) whether to shop by telephone, and b) what items to buy by telephone.