Argument form and spokesperson type: The recommendation strategy of virtual salespersons (original) (raw)

Rationality versus emotionality among online shoppers: The mediating role of experts as enhancing influencer effect on purchasing intent

Journal of Customer Behaviour, 2017

The purpose of the paper is to study the role of expert and influencer consultancy in the online shopping environment and its effect on purchasing intent, highlighting consumer behaviour governance by emotion or rationality. A cross-national data set of 788 respondents from 59 countries is analysed with a structural equations model showing that the influencers' influence alone does not increase purchasing intent, but the mediator of expert advice does. The implication from this is clear: consumers in the online environment want multiple sources of information, particularly from people they like/follow, known as influencers, and those who give expert advice. Building trust in a virtual environment such as the Internet may be challenging, but the use of influencers and experts to guide customers can be a working strategy for marketing managers.

Online Persuasion for E-Commerce Websites

The persuasive design of e-commerce websites has been shown to support people with online purchases. Therefore, it is important to understand how persuasive applications are used and assimilated into e-commerce website designs. This paper demonstrates how the PSD model's persuasive features could be used to build a bridge supporting the extraction and evaluation of persuasive features in such e-commerce websites; thus practically explaining how feature implementation can enhance website persuasiveness. To support a deeper understanding of persuasive e-commerce website design, this research, using the Persuasive Systems Design (PSD) model, identifies the distinct persuasive features currently assimilated in ten successful e-commerce websites. The results revealed extensive use of persuasive features; particularly features related to dialogue support, credibility support, and primary task support; thus highlighting weaknesses in the implementation of social support features. In conclusion we suggest possible ways for enhancing persuasive feature implementation via appropriate contextual examples and explanation.

Reducing the Perceived Deception of Product Recommendation Agents: The Impact of Perceived Verifiability and Perceived Similarity

2006

Product Recommendations Agents (PRAs) are software applications that augment consumers’ purchasing decisions by offering product recommendations based on elicited customers’ preferences. The underlying premise of PRAs is often grounded on the assumption that PRAs seek to optimize consumers’ utility by tailoring product recommendations to meet requisite expectations. Because the majority of commercial PRAs are implemented by parties with partisan interests in product sales, it is highly probable that recommendations are biased in favor of their providers and do not accurately reflect consumers’ interests. This in turn may possibly induce perceptions of deception among consumers. This study theorizes that the incorporation of IT-mediated components in PRAs, which induce high levels of perceived verifiability and perceived similarity, could mitigate consumers’ perceptions of deception towards product recommendations.

The Power of Virtual Influencers: Impact on Consumer Behaviour and Attitudes in the Age of AI

Administrative Sciences, 2023

: In recent years, a new type of influencer has emerged in the field of social media marketing: virtual influencers. Though it is spreading fast, the trend is still new and, therefore, limited research has been conducted on the topic. This study aims to investigate the impact of virtual influencers on customers and whether there is a direct impact on human influencers due to the rise of virtual influencers in the industry. The study employed a questionnaire-based survey method to collect and analyse responses from a sample of 357 participants. The questions focus on trust, credibility, expertise, and contribution to purchase intention by the virtual influencers. The results indicate that customers are increasingly attracted to virtual influencers and that virtual influences are perceived as more trustworthy, credible, and relevant to customers’ preferences, leading to an increase in purchase intention. The study also discusses the implications of these findings for managers designing marketing campaigns. Keywords: virtual influencers; consumer behaviour; artificial intelligence; consumer perception; social media marketing; influencer marketing

From Structural Assurances to Trusting Beliefs: Validating Persuasion Principles in the Context of Online Shopping

The topic of shopping attitude has received long lasing attention in the context of e-commerce. Previous studies have elucidated the different facets of online shopping attitude and have overemphasized a prevalent assertion on the relationship between web design artifacts and consumers' psychological responses. However, the imitability of web design in practice makes no differentiation among a glut of shopping websites and probably leads to revenue declination due to the fact that the instability of attitude frequently leads to attitudinal ambivalence. Hence, understanding how to strengthen consumers' attitudes toward online shopping should be fruitful for remedying attitude inconsistency in e-commerce. The current study extended related research by examining the simultaneous effects of trusting beliefs on consumers' attitudes toward online shopping. We adopted the concept of structural assurance and the principles of persuasion as the theoretical underpinnings. The proposed model is expected to contribute to relevant literature by offering theoretical contributions and managerial implications that can help both researchers and online retailers to understand more clearly how consumers develop their attitudes toward shopping online.

Persuasive Online-Selling in Quality and Taste Domains

2006

Quality & taste' products like wine or fine cigars are one of the fastest growing product sectors in e-commerce. Online shops for these types of products require on the one side persuasive Web presentation and on the other side deep product knowledge. In that context recommender applications may help to create an enjoyable shopping experience for online users. The Advisor Suite framework is a knowledge-based conversational recommender system that aims at mediating between requirements and desires of online shoppers and technical characteristics of the product domain. In this paper we present a conceptual scheme to classify the driving factors for creating a persuasive online shopping experience with recommender systems. We discuss these concepts on the basis of several fielded applications. Furthermore, we give qualitative results from a long-term evaluation in the domain of Cuban cigars.

Can Virtual Customer Service Agents Improve Consumers' Online Experiences?

Research Anthology on E-Commerce Adoption, Models, and Applications for Modern Business, 2021

This chapter focuses on the navigation experience in ecommerce. The authors address the impact of a number of hedonic dimensions, specifically perceived visual attractiveness, perceived enjoyment, and sociability, in consumers' online experiences. They develop and test a research model explaining how these factors affect trust, satisfaction, and ultimately, website loyalty. Findings from a survey carried out with 132 users of an airline's website, which displays a virtual customer service agent, support the model proposed. Specifically, results confirm that enriching consumers' sensory experiences online through aesthetics, an enjoyable experience, and a social interaction interface positively affects trust, satisfaction, and subsequently, loyalty.

Virtual Agent: A Determinant of Online Social Presence and Consumer Trust in Websites

International Journal of Economic Practices and Theories, 2014

In the backdrop of rapidly changing technologically environment and rising consumer expectations, questions about the factors that make consumer more trustful of websites remain a subject interest for the researchers. One of these factors is the virtual presence of an agent on a website; a way to reduce the physical and social distance between consumers and companies. The objective of this study is to unearth the effects of such virtual agents on online social presence of websites. The study explores the effects of variables of social presence, consumer trust, online behavioral intentions, and the word-of-mouth. These formed the antecedents of the causal model which utilized SOR framework Bitner , 1992). Two well known commercial website were chosen for the study. A self-administered questionnaire was conducted on a representative sample of 481 French adults. The results showed a strong support for the relationship between virtual agents, social presence, and consumer trust. While consumer trust was found to influence online consumer behavior and word-of-mouth, thus confirming the previous research.

Credibility of Virtual Influencers: The Role of Design Stimuli, Knowledge Cues, and User Disposition

Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2023

Virtual Influencers (VIs) are digital influencers that can look and behave like human beings but project themselves as "robots". They influence people's attitudes and behaviors through their presence and interaction. While human-like design can lead to acceptance, additional information about machine-like description (robot) can create conflict about the influencer's identity and lead to unfavorable social responses. Social perceptions are also subjective. In this study, we examine the influence of human-like design, knowledge cues, and user disposition on user perceptions of VI credibility. In doing so, we present a case for the substitution of human influencers by "lesser human" counterparts in the context of social media.