The impact of social presence on the experiences of online shoppers - A cross-cultural study
A notable difference between online and offline shopping that is hindering the growth of e-Commerce is the decreased presence of human and social elements in the online environment. This paper explores how human warmth and sociability can be integrated through the Web interface to positively impact online consumer perceptions. More specifically, the impact of design elements (emotive text and socially-rich pictures) is explored across two national cultures: Canadian and Chinese. Our results show increased levels of social presence through socially-rich design elements (i.e. socially-rich text and pictures) as having a positive impact on antecedents of attitude/intention of Canadian online shoppers (perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment). We were also able to demonstrate similar results with Chinese online consumers in the case of perceived usefulness and enjoyment but not for trust. The paper concludes with a discussion of these results outlining implications for practitioners and directions for future research.
social presence cross-cultural website design canada china