The concepts of interactivity and virtual community associated with the World Wide Web are often mentioned in the academic field but are seldom used to explore their impact upon online purchasing intent . Aiming at community members as well as their online interactions , this paper attempts to construct a model of the relationships between interactivity , the utilities of interactivity and the online purchasing intent . It theoretically explores the effect and influence of interactivity as a new way of interpersonal intercourse in virtual community upon online purchasing . Four dimensional constructs central to interactivity are developed : site , specialty , mode and matter of interactivity . Utility of interactivity is classified by three dimensions : functional , social and psychological utilities . With a statistical analysis of 431 valid samples and the empirical research , twelve factors of interactivity and six factors of utility of interactivity are abstracted . The result shows that the utility of interactivity is a key indicator of online purchasing intent .