Make It Warm and Sociable and It Will Sell

Why do some Web sites appeal more to the online consumer than others? Do women respond differently to e-commerce Web sites and online shopping than men?

With a spotlight on gender differences and e-commerce, we already know men and women process information differently. For instance, men are selective processors, relying on highly available and salient cues.

Women are comprehensive processors, and are apt to assimilate all available information before arriving at a conclusion. In an online shopping experience, men tend to pursue a minimizing approach whereby they make a selection as quickly as possible.

Women, on the other hand, will spend considerably more time gathering information about products and comparing the merits of each before making a purchase decision. Further, women appreciate more perceived social interaction in the shopping experience than men do.

To investigate these premises, we conducted an investigation of “social presence” on the Web — social presence meaning the extent to which a Web site encourages in the user a psychological connection by projecting a sense of warmth while making the experience seem personal and sociable, thus creating a feeling of human contact.

Results of the study indicate that while social presence leads to enjoyment of an e-services Web site for both men and women, there was a huge difference as to whether or not this results in greater customer loyalty.

For women, social presence resulted in women indicating they would return to the site and purchase from it in the future — thus it made women users more likely to become loyal customers. But for men this wasn’t necessarily the case, and men were not likely to be enticed to a site to purchase even if they found it more “warm” and inviting.

In another study that looked solely at the experience of women, working alongside Dr. Milena Head at McMaster University, we tested how users reacted to Web sites that were designed to have “zones” or areas that were either more emotionally oriented (thus having social presence) versus more utilitarian oriented.

The Web site used for in this instances was that of women’s clothier Ann Taylor. More emotionally-laden zones featured emotive text describing a pleasant scene involving a garment; comments from customers who had previously purchased the garment, sharing their experiences; and a picture of the garment being worn on a human model expressing pleasure.

Utilitarian zones provided text navigation bars for site functional elements, details about functional attributes of the garments, and an order specification area.

Based on user impressions of the two zone types, the parts of the Ann Taylor Web site that were more emotionally oriented resulted in more social presence.

Further, higher perceived social presence led to higher Web site involvement — which in turn led to greater enjoyment of the Web site, which is more likely to produce loyal customers. Once again, social presence matters.

From a practical point of view, the results from this study can have immediate and direct implications for developers of business-to-customer e-services Web sites.

Repeat purchases from loyal customers are what distinguish the most successful commercial ventures from mediocre or failed endeavours. Web site developers should consider infusing social presence in their Web site designs, with a view to generating more loyal customers.

In particular, online vendors that cater to women may have better outcomes if they are able to convey a sense of warmth and sociability on their Web sites. The same also applies to men, who in the earlier study demonstrated that social presence did result in Web site enjoyment, if not online loyalty.

by Dianne Cyr

For more information about these research projects and others visit Dr. Cyr’s Web sites at diannecyr.com or eloyalty.ca

Dr. Dianne Cyr is a professor in the Faculty of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University in Surrey. This article was published in the April 7, 2009 edition of the Financial Post. To read it online, visit http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1471105