Chapter 16 - Consumer cyberpsychology and online marketing

Chapter Summary

The rise of online shopping

• New ways of engaging customers, new business practices and a global market have all combined to shift commerce online.

Who shops online?

• Customers can be profiled or segmented according to their characteristics.
• A typology of the global online consumer describing consumers based on their online activity segments into three types: basic communicators, lurking shoppers and social thrivers.
• Online window shoppers can be divided into four distinct groups: promotion finders, social and hedonic experience seekers, information gatherers, and learners and novices.
• These consumers exhibit different patterns of behaviour online and also frequent distinctive types of websites.

The factors affecting online shopping acceptance

• The theory of reasoned action (TRA) and the technology acceptance model (TAM) have been used to explain the acceptance of ecommerce.
• The other most common beliefs examined in online shopping adoption are trust, perceived risk, enjoyment and social influence.
• Attitude towards shopping online is the most influential variable in predicting intent to shop online.
• The beliefs that shape people’s attitudes are perceived usefulness, enjoyment, perceived risk, ease of use and social intention.

Personality and online shopping

• Individual differences in personality traits can affect online shopping behaviour.
• Both neuroticism and agreeableness have a negative effect.
• Openness to experience has a positive effect on willingness to shop online.

Motivation for shopping online

• Motivations to shop can be divided into four groups: convenience shoppers, variety seekers, balanced buyers and store-oriented shoppers.
• Convenience shoppers are most frequent shoppers across all product types except computer software, which was purchased most by variety seekers.
• Strong motivations to shop include anonymity allowing freedom to shop, diversion from everyday life, learning about new trends and socialising.

Consumer–brand relationships

• The Internet has changed the way that brands and customers interact.
• Building a strong brand social network page on social platforms can gain greater brand awareness, consumer–brand relationships and transmission of positive word of mouth (WOM) traffic.
• This can have a significant effect on consumer choices.
• Online product reviews have a significant effect on sales elasticity.
• The most impactful are critic reviews.
• Negative reviews are perceived as more credible and influential than positive ones.
• Creating a virtually interactive environment is important for increasing brand awareness.
• Active participation by consumers rather than passive is important in generating brand trust and commitment.

e-loyalty and retention of customers

• Long-lasting customer relationships are considerably more valuable than one-off transactions.
• e-loyalty is a favourable attitude towards an online business, intention to repurchase and the likelihood of recommending the brand to a friend.
• There are three areas where e-loyalty can be won or lost: pre-purchase, during purchase and after purchase.
• Consumers who feel that they are not satisfied or getting value from a transaction are more likely to look elsewhere for their purchases.

Decision making and purchase satisfaction

• The Internet has brought consumers expansion of freedom of choice and of information.
• Decision difficulty has increased by increasing task complexity, trade-off difficulty and preference uncertainty.
• Decision difficulty can result in poor choice making.
• Coping strategies include avoiding making the decision and engaging in choice simplification.
• All of these decisions may lead to suboptimal purchases.
• Excessive choice can lead to decision regret and diminished satisfaction.
• Decision-making aids can help towards resolving these problems.

Persuasion

• Creating successful human computer interactions requires the motivation and persuasion of people.
• The persuasion may occur at a macro level, where everything on the website contributes to the goal of persuading a consumer to purchase.
• Persuasion can also occur at a micro level in technology not specifically designed to persuade, but containing persuasive elements.
• There are four ways in which computers, or technology, are used as tools for persuasion: increasing self-efficacy; providing tailored information; triggering decision making; and simplifying or guiding people through a process.
• Additionally, computers can be used as persuasive media and as a persuasive social actor.

The impact of design on persuasion

• The more credible a website is, the greater its persuasive ability.
• The most important elements of a website for influencing credibility are the design look and the information structure.
• Few people actually click on banner ads, but they do, however, have an impact on brand awareness.
• Display ads containing imagery are more appealing for high involvement products.
• Image-oriented homepage designs increased visual fluency, leading to positive impression formation.

What makes content viral?

• Many advertisers attempt to harness the power of viral advertising, as it can be a very cost- effective and successful way to exploit the power of WOM to communicate about a brand.
• The decision by the consumer to spread the viral advertisement is entirely voluntary.
• The arousing emotionality of content shapes the virality of it.
• Positively emotional content is more likely to be shared than negative.
• People who are more individualistic and seek affection are more likely to spread viral content.