The Use of Smartphone Technologies to Access Gardening Information
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abstract
Information plays a vital role in the purchase decisions of retail lawn and garden consumers. Consumers have readily adopted personal computers and Internet technology as a way of seeking information and/or making purchases online. However, the extent to which horticultural consumers specifically seek information and make purchases online is not well documented. Thus, this project investigated the impact of smartphone ownership and Internet search behavior on product purchasing related to gardening products and related items. Given the sharp rise in use of smartphones and mobile media use, how does this technological development impact retail-purchasing behaviors of green industry consumers? Differences were observed between those who had searched online for nongardening information compared to those who had searched online for gardening information. Women were more likely to search online for both gardening and nongardening information, but men were more likely to make online gardening purchases. Education level, ethnicity, and geographic location of residence had varying impacts on the likelihood of online search and purchase. Having searched online for non-gardening information increased the likelihood of an online purchase by 16%, while the likelihood of purchase increased to 19% for online gardeningrelated searches.