Tibert Verhagen

Understanding online purchase intentions: contributions from technology and trust perspectives

This paper explores factors that influence consumers intentions to purchase online at an electronic commerce website. Specifically, we investigate online purchase intention using two different perspectives: a technology-oriented perspective and a trust-oriented perspective. We summarise and review the antecedents of online purchase intention that have been developed within these two perspectives. An empirical study in which the contributions of both perspectives are investigated is reported. We study the perceptions of 228 potential online shoppers regarding trust and technology and their attitudes and intentions to shop online at particular websites. In terms of relative contributions, we found that the trust-antecedent ‘perceived risk’ and the technology-antecedent ‘perceived ease-of-use’ directly influenced the attitude towards purchasing online.

Perceived risk and trust associated with purchasing at Electronic Marketplaces

Understanding consumer behaviour is of vital importance to consumer-oriented e-business models today. In this paper, we study the relationships between consumer perceptions of risk and trust and the attitude towards purchasing at a consumer-to-consumer electronic marketplace (EM). Typical for EM settings is that consumer behaviour is subject to perceptions of the selling party as well as of the institutional structures of the intermediary that is operating the EM. Building upon the well-established literature of trust, we consider the concepts of intermediary trust and seller trust. We extend this categorisation by introducing the concepts of intermediary risk and seller risk. We developed measurement instruments for intermediary risk and seller risk. All measurement scales have acceptable alphas and are unidimensional. An empirical study is conducted to explore the relationships between the risk and trust types and consumer purchase attitude. The results reveal significant, direct effects of seller trust and seller risk. Second-order effects of intermediary trust and intermediary risk are investigated and reported. The paper concludes with general observations and recommendations for research and practice.

Online purchase intentions: A multi-channel store image perspective

The advantages of the bricks-and-clicks retail format in the battle for the online customer has been widely discussed but empirical research on it has been limited. We applied a multi-channel store image perspective to assess its influence on online purchase intentions. Drawing on a sample of 630 customers of a large music retail store in the Netherlands, the results demonstrated that offline and online store perceptions directly influenced online purchase intention. In addition, our findings confirmed that offline store impressions were used as references for their online store counterparts. Synergy and reference effects are discussed.

Satisfaction with virtual worlds: An integrated model of experiential value

Although virtual worlds increasingly attract users today, few studies have addressed what satisfies virtual world users. We therefore defined and tested an integrated model of experiential system value and virtual world satisfaction. Drawing upon expectancy-value and cognitive evaluation theories, four important facets of experiential system value were hypothesized as determinants of virtual world satisfaction. Structural equation modeling was employed on a sample of 567 users of the virtual world Second Life. Direct and indirect effects were tested and are reported. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Virtual Customer Service Agents: Using Social Presence and Personalization to Shape Online Service Encounters

By performing tasks traditionally fulfilled by service personnel and having a humanlike appearance, virtual customer service agents bring classical service elements to the web, which may positively influence customer satisfaction through eliciting social responses and feelings of personalization. This paper sheds light on these dynamics by proposing and testing a model drawing upon the theories of implicit personality, social response, emotional contagion, and social interaction. The model proposes friendliness, expertise, and smile as determinants of social presence, personalization, and online service encounter satisfaction. An empirical study confirms the cross-channel applicability of friendliness and expertise as determinants of social presence and personalization. Overall, the study underlines that integration between technology and personal aspects may lead to more social online service encounters.

The Effect of Product Type on Consumer Preferences for Website Content Elements: An Empirical Study

This study attempts to demonstrate empirically how the importance of website content in online purchasing varies across 2 product categorizations: goods versus services and hedonic versus utilitarian products. We conducted an experiment that showed that when purchasing services, customers value evaluative elements and risk-reducing content, while consumers buying goods may be satisfied with fewer features. In addition, selling hedonic products could be more effective when focusing on large and unique assortment. Websites selling utilitarian products, on the other hand, may profit from investing in instrumental website content. The study validates the guiding role of product type in website design, and suggests that incorporating product tactics into design likely contributes to the development of websites tailored to specific consumer groups.

Benefitting from virtual customer environments

We propose and test a model for studying customer engagement within VCEs.Hedonic, social, and cognitive benefits positively influence customer engagement.Personal integrative benefits do not influence customer engagement.System-specific VCE characteristics influence the perceived benefits of a VCE.The results are robust across three datasets of actual VCE users. Customer engagement has been labeled as a prerequisite for the success of virtual customer environments. A key challenge for organizations serving their customers via these environments is how to stimulate customer engagement. This study is among the first to shed light on this issue by examining customer engagement and its drivers. Using the theory of uses and gratification as theoretical lens, we develop a model that relates characteristics of virtual customer environments, perceived benefits of using these environments and customer engagement intentions. The model is validated using partially least squares structural equation modeling on three samples of real users of different virtual customer environments in the Dutch telecom industry. The results provide clear support for the validity of the hypothesized relationships and show high robustness of the findings across the three datasets. An important finding of this study is that cognitive, social integrative and hedonic benefits appear to be significant in their influence on customer engagement intentions. Overall, the findings add to the underexplored field of customer engagement study and hold implications for research into and the management of virtual customer environments.

Present it like it is here

Emerging product presentation technologies create perceptions of local presence.Local presence brings the online product experience to offline settings.Virtual mirrors outperform 360-spin and pictures in terms of local presence.Local presence increases perceptions of product tangibility and product likability. Advanced online product presentation technologies such as virtual mirrors enable consumers to experience products like they are actually present with them in the real world. This study is one of the first to address the mechanism underlying this phenomenon. Inspired by literature on media technology the concept of local presence is put forward and applied to the online consumer behavior domain. A key objective of this paper is to examine whether local presence adds to our understanding of how emerging product presentation formats influence online product experiences. To this end, a laboratory experiment (N=366) was conducted with product presentation format as a three level (pictures, 360-spin rotation, and virtual mirror) independent variable, allowing for a comparison of the effectiveness of different presentation formats in creating perceptions of local presence. As a second objective, the influence of local presence on perceptions of product tangibility and product likability, two key facets of the online product experience, were assessed. The results, obtained with the use of analysis of variance and partial least squares modeling, show the superiority of the virtual mirror in creating local presence, and demonstrate that local presence is highly predictive of product tangibility and product likability. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Role of local presence in online impulse buying

Perceptions of local presence increase when products are presented in a vivid and interactive manner in a web store.Perceptions of local presence increase the urge to buy impulsively through increased product affect.Although local presence reduces perceived product risk, product risk does not inhibit the urge to buy impulsively. This paper proposes and tests a model to explain how consumers perceptions of product presentation technologies may affect online impulse buying. Data from a laboratory experiment (N=212), which were analyzed using a structural equation modeling approach, showed that vividness and interactivity of online product presentations increased the participants perceptions of local presence, which refers to the sense of a product being present with a consumer in his or her own environment. Local presence, in turn, influenced the urge to buy impulsively by generating both cognitive (perceived risk) and affective (product affect) product responses. The implications of these results are discussed.