PurposeThis paper examines the shopping and buying behavior of younger and older online shoppers as mediated by their attitudes toward internet shopping.Design/methodology/approachOver 300 students and staff from a US university completed a survey regarding their online shopping and buying experiences for 17 products.FindingsThe results show that, while older online shoppers search for significantly fewer products than their younger counterparts, they actually purchase as much as younger consumers. Attitudinal factors explained more variance in online searching behavior. Age explained more variance in purchasing behavior if the consumer had first searched for the product online.Research limitations/implicationsThe limitations of the present research are threefold. First, the sample was restricted to university faculty, staff and students. Second, a better measure of the hedonic motivation construct is needed. Third, additional independent measures such as income should be included to understand the additional demographic factors related to online purchase.Practical implicationsRetailing managers can make use of the results as describing multifaceted nature of online shopping and buying behavior. Age differences (in both directions) were seen for many product categories. In addition, results indicate that how one measures online shopping impacts on one's understanding of age effects on internet shopping. Age was negatively correlated with online pre‐purchase search but was positively correlated with online purchasing when pre‐purchase search behavior was taken into account.Originality/valueThe present study advances knowledge of the nature of the relationships among age, attitudes, and online shopping and buying behavior.

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Older adult memory performance declines with age. However, memory for newly learned material is only one measure of cognitive competence. This article reviews research that measured older adult cognitive performance using tasks that tap crystallized abilities, everyday problem solving, and those that used older expert subjects. The results indicate that many cognitive functions remain stable from middle age onward. This suggests that cognitive decline is not an inevitable result of aging per se. This implies that antecedents of cognitive decline, such as health, should be used as a segmentation variable for the older adult market. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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