Abstract
Having a website is no longer an option for businesses but a necessity in the new digital economy. To meet this challenge, companies must design websites facilitating electronic transactions and retaining customers. Hence, companies need to know and focus on the key triggers that drive consumers to buy online. This chapter sheds light on the effects of three fundamental website features on online shopping. Website usability, website interactivity, and website personality describe the evolution of website design. Website design has changed to become more responsive and efficient. To develop their first websites, companies focused on usability and ease of use. Website usability aims to strengthen the user's perceived control and facilitate online shopping. The expectations of online shoppers have evolved by requiring a highly captivating and engaging online experience. Therefore, companies tried to meet those expectations by developing interactive and playful websites. To stand out from the competition, companies rely on symbolism and website personality.
TopIntroduction
E-commerce is growing constantly and quickly. In 2017, e-commerce was responsible for around $2.3 trillion in sales and is expected to hit $4.5 trillion in 2021 (Statista report). In the US alone, e-commerce represents almost 10% of retail sales and that number is expected to grow by nearly 15% each year. In Africa and the Middle East, Revenue in the e-commerce market amounts to US$20,744 m in 2019. Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 7.2%, resulting in a market volume of US$27,417 m by 2023 (Statista report).
This growth is fueled by the advantages of online shopping (wide choice of products, online store accessible 24 hours a day around the world). The emergence of the internet has created opportunities for companies to stay competitive by providing customers with a convenient, faster, and cheaper way to make purchases (Lee et al, 2011).
Unfortunately, many companies fail to make profits via the internet. The main challenge for their websites is to convert visitors into buyers. Customers’ purchase intention is considered a predictor of their actual behavior. Hence, businesses need to understand their customers’ purchase intentions (Hasanov and Khalid, 2015). The website experience pushes consumers to spend more time and revisit. Website features can increase the likelihood of a purchase. With a good understanding of their consumers, e-tailers may be able to develop more effective websites that meet the requirements and expectations of their consumers.
The key factors of success in the virtual environment do not consist in being present on the internet or proposing low prices but in delivering a high-quality experience (Schmitz & Latzer, 2002). Yet, success resides in building an attractive online experience. Online shoppers are more volatile than traditional consumers because another website is one click away. The overall online experience becomes a lever for action to satisfy and retain consumers. The consumer is not only looking for a product but is looking for a different experience (Schmitz et al, 2011).
The “build it and they will come” attitude has led to the failure of several commercial websites which are too slow or too complex for ease of use (Lee and Kozar, 2012). Given the fickle nature of customer behavior, the growth in global web stores, and the increasing product and service availability (Qureshi et al, 2009), it is essential to go beyond the factors traditionally presented as predictors of online buying. Among various design characteristics, interactivity and usability stand out as key factors that impact users’ responses to a website (Foster et al., 2014).
The increasing level of competition motivated many firms to look for new sources of differentiation. Safe values such as content quality and customized offers are becoming less effective in attracting and retaining customers. Many firms stated new positioning based on consumer experience and symbolism (Shobeiri et al, 2013). Consumers aspire to convey their symbolic status through consumption. The purchase act can carry and reflect higher symbolic content (i.e., brand personality) (Das, 2014). Differentiation was built step by step through usability and website design to differentiation through website personality. Chang et al. (2005) categorized the antecedents of online buying into three categories: perceived characteristics of the web as a sales channel, product attributes, and consumer characteristics. Thus identifying more than 80 variables (value, ease of use, usefulness, privacy, trust, reliability, usability) as antecedents. This chapter focuses on website characteristics as the drivers of online purchasing. More precisely, we analyze the role of the utilitarian aspect, the hedonic aspect, and the symbolic aspect in the online purchase process. These aspects describe the evolution of website design, which has improved over time to retain consumers and convert visitors into buyers. Therefore, we chose three attributes that best reflect these three aspects which are respectively: website usability, website interactivity, and website personality.
So we will try to answer two research questions:
RQ1: How have website characteristics evolved?
RQ2: How do expectations of website usability, website interactivity, and website personality influence online purchase?
Key Terms in this Chapter
Utilitarian Attributes: Include the desire for control, autonomy, efficiency, broad selection & availability, economic utility, product information, customized product or service, ease of payment, home environment, lack of sociability, anonymity, monetary savings, convenience, and perceived ease of use.
Customizability: Reflects the extent to which products and/or services can be tailored to meet the unique requirements of each user.
Two-way communication: The two-way information flow which enables the user to respond back.
Synchronicity: Refers to the site’s ability to provide users with fast response, real-time feedback, and messages and transaction processing speed.
Sociability: The site’s capability to allow users to connect with other people through chat rooms, blogs, and social networking tools.
Website Interactivity: Consists of two-way communication, synchronicity, controllability, sociability, and customizability.
Website Usability: Related to users’ perception of the functional and instrumental qualities of websites. It refers to the website’s controllability and effectiveness and highlights navigability and organization of information.
Computers Are Social Actors: This paradigm states that experienced computer users do in fact apply social rules to their interaction with computers, even though they report that such attributions are inappropriate. These social responses are not a function of deficiency, or sociological or psychological dysfunction, but rather are natural responses to social situations.
Website Personality: The mental representation of a website store on dimensions that are similar to and reflect the dimensions of human personality.
Gamification: The use of game design elements and application of them to other web properties to increase engagement.
Controllability: The user’s capability to choose the timing, content, and sequence of communication.
Anthropomorphism: From the Greek word Anthropos for man, and morphe, form/structure) is the tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, and others to help us rationalize actions. It is attributing cognitive or emotional states to something based on observation to rationalize an entity’s behavior in a given social environment.
Hedonic Attributes: Include curiosity, entertainment, visual attraction, escape, intrinsic enjoyment; hanging out, relaxation, self-expression, enduring involvement with a product/service, role, best deal, and social.