Posted on July 6: Study reveals online shopping experiences and trust vary by product

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[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/milena_khaled.jpg” caption=”Milena Head, Khaled Hassanein “]When it comes to online shopping, consumer experiences vary greatly according to the product they're seeking, according to a McMaster study.

In a study involving 227 online shoppers, McMaster business professors Khaled Hassanein and Milena Head uncovered critical factors that impact consumer trust, which they say is necessary in establishing a successful relationship with online vendors.

The survey included a mix of employees at a large Canadian utility company and MBA students, both male and female, who averaged more than 10 hours of online shopping a week, for both tangible products (such as books and clothing) and intangible products (such as concert and airline tickets).

“Trust has been lacking in the online environment and is stifling the growth of online sales,” says Hassanein. “People are used to face-to-face dealings, they like to hold products in their hands and feel them before making a purchase.”

In particular, the study revealed that online consumers have significantly less trust when shopping for tangible products that need to be physically evaluated. Therefore, online vendors selling such products would be advised to incorporate more trust cues, such as trusted third party seals and consumer reviews, on their Web sites.

The researchers presented their paper The Influence of Product Type on Online Trust at the 17th annual Bled eCommerce Conference, in Bled, Slovenia. The paper won the best paper award at the prestigious international e-commerce conference and the authors have been invited to submit their paper for a fast-track publication in the top e-commerce academic journal International Journal of Electronic Commerce.

Their study also examined the level of enjoyment consumers had in their online shopping experience. They found that while people have less trust in shopping for tangible products, they enjoy shopping for them more. However, perceived enjoyment for both tangible and intangible product sites was still rather low.

“The online shopping experience is primarily geared towards reducing the user's cognitive burden through functional and performance based Web site design heuristics,” Head says. “As such, e-commerce typically lacks human warmth and sociability, since it is more impersonal, anonymous and automated than traditional person-to-person commerce. Prior research has shown that the perception of social presence can affect online consumers' trust and their subsequent intention to purchase from a commercial Web site.”

Traditionally, adds Hassanein, Web designers have been advised to design sites that focus on navigating efficiently, but in doing so, have neglected the “fun factor” of shopping. “More interactive features can be added to improve the shopping experience,” he says. Such features could include mimicking mall shopping', by allowing multiple remote users to shop on the site simultaneously, like friends going to the mall. Other features could include 3-D models that allow users to create their body shape and then view that model with different clothes and in different settings, such as on the beach or at the office. Such features are starting to appear on some Web sites such as Landsend.com.

“Not only will such features heighten the enjoyment of shopping online, but it may also increase the trust of buying a product online,” says Hassanein.

Hassanein and Head are currently studying how various design elements, such as socially-rich text and pictures, can improve online consumer enjoyment and trust. This in turn can result in higher adoption of this new and promising shopping channel.