Online shopping is now a well entrenched and highly profitable multi-billion dollar industry. Despite this, little is known regarding the characteristics of online shoppers and why some consumers are more prone than others to purchase online. This book proposes and tests a new classification scheme and framework for understanding consumer adoption of the internet as a shopping medium. The work also employs one of the largest national online samples ever utilized in this area of research. The results of this book are highly valuable and have extensive implications. This book is required reading for academic researchers as well as online retailing executives.