A Comparison of Four Online Shops With Different Degrees of Interactivity and Consequences For Affective, Cognitive and Intentional Customer Reactions

This paper seeks to contribute to the existing knowledge of the importance of interactivity in an Internet shop. Based on the knowledge of the Human-computer-interaction-research (HCI research), the emotional approach to environmental psychology, the research on constructivist learning and the flow research, the influence of interactivity in Internet shops will be analyzed in terms of affective, cognitive and intentional reactions of customers. In an empirical study, four versions of 3-dimensional Internet stores that offer different degrees of interactivity will be compared. Results suggest that the interactive online shop is superior to the less interactive stores for most of the variables analyzed in this study. However, some evaluations did not differ significantly. With regard to the variable “evaluation of the product as being high-quality”, the interactive online shop was inferior to the filmed walk-through of the real store.

Citation:

Sandra Diehl, Ralf Terlutter, and Peter Weinberg (2005) ,"A Comparison of Four Online Shops With Different Degrees of Interactivity and Consequences For Affective, Cognitive and Intentional Customer Reactions", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 7, eds. Karin M. Ekstrom and Helene Brembeck, Goteborg, Sweden : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 268-275.