Bringing Social Presence to

Online Shopping through

the Web Interface
Dr. Khaled Hassanein Dr. Milena Head
Associate Professor of Associate Professor of
Information Systems Information Systems
& &
Director, McMaster eBusiness Associate Dean Academic
Research Centre (MeRC) DeGroote School of Business
DeGroote School of Business McMaster University
McMaster University

METIS Security Seminar Series – March 10, 2006

Shopping .. a rich experience
Online Shopping …..
Online vs. Offline Shopping
 Offline shopping:
 a wide range of emotions involving various
types of social interactions
 engages our five senses
 Online shopping:
 geared towards reducing the user’s cognitive
burden through functional and performance
based Website design heuristics
 engages only 2 of our senses
Trust in the Online Environment
 Trust is more difficult to build in an online
environment because …
 different locations
 less data control
 lower barriers to entry and exit
 Perceptions of lower security
 lack of physical trust cues
 lack of physical evaluation
 impersonal, anonymous and automated
Social Presence
 Social presence (SP) is the extent to which a
medium allows users to experience others as being
psychologically present
 It can also refer to the richness of the media or the
interactivity afforded by the media
 SP could also be connected to the warmth felt
through the medium.… A feeling of human
contact .... Sociability .... Sensitivity

 Instilling human warmth through:

 actual interaction with other humans
 stimulating the imagination of interacting with other
humans
An investigation ….
 Varying levels of social presence though
text and pictures

 Impacts on trust, enjoyment and TAM …

and ultimately on attitude
The Model …

Perceived Perceived
Ease of Usefulness
Use

Social Trust Attitude

Presenc
e

Enjoyment
Low Social Presence
Medium Social Presence
High Social Presence
The Stats ….
 Content validity
 Constructs drawn from existing validated
measures
 Construct validity
 Convergent validity
 Loadings above 0.6; alphas above 0.8; AVE above 0.5
 Discriminant validity
 Correlations between items of any two constructs <
square root of AVE shared by items within a construct
 Manipulation validity
 Post-hoc Tukey test confirmed significant
differences between groups
The Results …

Perceived 0.400** Perceived

Ease of Usefulness
Use R2=0.324
0.247*
0.349**

Social 0.372** Trust 0.410** Attitude

Presenc R2=0.138 R2=0.463
e

0.342** 0.193*

Enjoyment
R2=0.117
n=78
Low Social Presence “straight forward” “clear”

“to the point”

“too plain”
“dull and boring”

“lacked a personal touch”

Medium Social Presence “fun and imaginative”
“interesting”

“not helpful in assessing what the

[product] looks like”

“did not help in making a decision”

 “clothing was masked by all the
High Social Presence actions in the pictures”

“enjoyed seeing people

wearing the clothing
“appealing” and the activities
they were taking
part in”

“helped better visualize the product”

“gives me ideas on how to dress … in which

situations I should wear the clothes”
Interesting ….
.... but does this vary by
product type???
Different types of products
Visual evaluation

Tactile evaluation
Product Types according to Burke*
 Infrequently purchased durable goods (e.g.,
appliances, consumer electronics, furniture),
 consumers want retailers to provide detailed product
information and excellent service;
 frequently purchased nondurable goods (e.g.,
groceries, health items, office supplies)
 consumers want to have fast, convenient shopping
experiences;
 entertainment (e.g., books, toys, games) and
apparel goods
 consumers want to have fun and entertaining shopping
experiences.
*Burke, R.R. Technology and the consumer interface: What consumers want in the physical
and virtual store. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 30, 4 (2002), 411–432.
Low Social Presence
Medium Social Presence
High Social Presence
 Comparing across product types …
Headphones
Clothing
Perceived Perceived
Ease of Usefulness
Use Clothing

Headphones Headphones
Clothing

Social Clothing Trust Clothing Attitude

Presence Headphones Headphones

Clothing Clothing
Headphones Headphones
Enjoyment
n(Clothing)=78
n(Headphones)=90

Social presence does not appear to have the same impact!

Comments ….
“cut to the chase
without extra fluff!”
“easier to view the product “pointless … I know
when people were not how to use
included in the pictures” headphones”

“untrustworthy because it tried

“makes me too hard to get an emotional
suspicious” response about a technical
product”
“freaky .... I don’t need to see someone
wearing headphones!”
Conclusions
 Incorporating social presence on
commercial Web sites DOES have a
significant impact on consumer attitudinal
antecedents towards retailing Websites
 It’s easy enough to do!
 Not all product types will benefit from this
approach
Future Directions
 Study impact of social presence on other
product types
 Study other methods of introducing social
presence on Websites
 Does the impact of social presence vary
by:
 Culture
 Gender
 Consumer goal
This type of research is
important to ….
Help turn window shoppers into …

Windows shoppers!
Reference
Hassanein, K. & Head, M., (2005/06) “The Impact of
Infusing Social Presence in the Web Interface: an
Investigation across Different Products”, International
Journal of Electronic commerce (IJEC), Vol. 10, No. 2, pp.
31–55.
 Thank you!
Khaled Hassanein
hassank@mcmaster.ca