Socializing online shopping

People rarely go shopping together online. Okay, occasionally I’ll show my wife that I can buy some item or other we need cheaper online than at the mall, but that’s usually just to save the car journey.

Online shopping is essentially a solo occupation, as are many other internet activities. Fundamentally, there is none of the social side of window shopping with friends, of trying outfits, of the Stadtbummel Germans apparently enjoy so much, and no opportunities to stop off for a skinny iced cinnamon dolce latte café and check emails at a wi-fi hotspot.

And, apparently, this angst regarding the lack of the social when it comes to ecommerce is the same the world over from Canada to China, according to Khaled Hassanein and Milena Head of DeGroote School of Business, at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario and Chunhua Ju of the Science and Research Office, Zhejiang Gongshang University, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, PR China.

They explain how earlier research studies have shown that website design elements, such as text and pictures, can be manipulated to increase the perception of Social Presence (SP) among online consumers, which can have some impact on perceived trustworthiness, usefulness and overall enjoyment of the online shopping experience. However, they have now found that perceived usefulness and enjoyment are affected by SP the same in Canada and Chine, although trust seems to be a different matter.

“The traditional offline shopping experience includes a wide range of emotions involving various types of social interactions with humans,” the researchers explain, “In contrast, the online shopping experience may be viewed as lacking human warmth and sociability. Online vendors can try to overcome the more impersonal, anonymous and automated stigma of online shopping by making their virtual storefront socially rich.”

How this enrichment is carried out, perhaps by using design elements such as emotive text and socially rich images, and whether it works or not is open to debate, but it is just possible that the ultimate success of ecommerce hinges on this very question.

Khaled Hassanein, Milena Head, & Chunhua Ju (2009). A cross-cultural comparison of the impact of Social Presence on website trust, usefulness and enjoyment Int. J. Electronic Business, 7 (6), 625-641