2018/12/04 by Alexander Bleier, Colleen M. Harmeling, Robert W. Palmatier · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Decision Sciences · Business, Management and Accounting · #Digital Marketing and Social Media #Technology Adoption and User Behaviour #Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification
paper · doi:10.1177/0022242918809930
Creating effective online customer experiences through well-designed product web pages is critical to success in online retailing. How such web pages should look specifically, however, remains unclear. Previous work has only addressed a few online design elements in isolation, without accounting for the potential need to adjust experiences to reflect the characteristics of the products or brands being sold. Across 16 experiments, this research investigates how 13 unique design elements shape four dimensions of the online customer experience (informativeness, entertainment, social presence, and sensory appeal) and thus influence purchase. Product (search vs. experience) and brand (trustworthiness) characteristics exacerbate or mitigate the uncertainty inherent in online shopping, such that they moderate the influence of each experience dimension on purchases. A field experiment that manipulates real product pages on Amazon.com affirms these findings. The results thus provide managers with clear strategic guidance on how to build effective web pages.