Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

António Alves

Ana Soares

1Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor

in e-commerce

Porto/May 16- 17, 2013

The lack of sociability and human warmth on the Internet sale platforms has been identified as a major obstacle to its widespread adoption.

Several studies show that the introduction of social stimuli increases credibility and perceived trust of online stores.

These factors have a major impact on the adoption of buying behaviors and loyalty among consumers.

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

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Contextualization

Contextualization

The literature suggests that the use of avatars can increase the persuasiveness of online sales channels (Wang, Baker, Wagner, & Wakefield, 2007).

Avatars are responsible for increasing credibility, perceived trust, and allowing for social stimuli and human warmth in online stores interactions;

Avatars lead to greater consumer satisfaction with the seller, a better attitude toward the product and increased purchase intent

(Holzwarth et al, 2006).

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Avatar - virtual character with human characteristics created by technology.

Contextualization

The technology now available allows equipping a website with animated 3D avatars with high

level of interactivity and multiple graphic options.

Avatars can be built from real human beings images and endowed with

- synthesized voice through text to speech technology (TTS);

- real human voice;

- Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can be tailored to the specific online store characteristics.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Contextualization/Functions and Representation of Avatars

In an online store avatars should be used to act as a commercial assistant. (Salem & Earl, 2000 apud Qiu & Benbasat, 2005; McGoldrick, Keeling, & Beatty, 2008)

Avatares can be:

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Abstract/Cartoons

Naturalistic Realistic

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Objectives of this study

Contribute to increase the knowledge about the effects of the use of avatars, particularly those based on images of real persons, endowed with TTS or real human voice, on online consumer behavior.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Conceptual Model

The proposed conceptual model includes two distinct stages of analysis:

Step 1) to assess the effects of three different levels of sociability on the latent variables "Trust" "Credibility" and "Sociability and Human Warmth";

Step 2) to assess the importance of these three constructs as enhancers and predictors of consumers purchase and repurchase intention in the online store .

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Methodology

An experimental plan organized in the form of three groups with control group and post-test. Why?

1) Avatar technology is still unknown among firms that operate online shops;

2) Only an experiment can ensure the maximum possible control of externalvariables such as the influence of design and degree of sophistication of the website, theinfluence of the type of product, price and the always important factor that is the brand.

3) This experimental design, although simple, is robust both in terms of internal and external validity.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Methodology

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Experimental Plan

Distribution Treatment Post-Test (Questionnaire)

R X1 O

R X2 O

R X3 O

X1 – Online Shop only with photos and text, traditional treatment, control group;X2 – Online Shop with naturalistic avatar using TTS voice;X3 – Online Shop with realistic avatar using human voice.

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Methodology

The chosen products for sale were sports shoes, since these are

shopping goods which in general do not require a very complex

decision making process.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Online Shops

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Shop 1 – experimental group I

Online Shops

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Shop 2 – experimental group II

Online Shops

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Shop 3 – experimental group III

Used Avatars

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Female avatars were chosen to appear in Online Shops because they are perceived by consumers as more attractive (Nowak and Rauth, 2005).

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Built with SitePalTM Technology

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

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To test hypotheses H1, H2, H3 we performed an analysis of variance (one factor ANOVA).

Data Analysis

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Data Analysis

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Data AnalysisIn order to identify the groups which are different we analyzed the table generated by Scheffé post-hoc test.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Data Analysis

Group II

- More Credibility

- More Sociability and Human Warmth

Group III

- More Credibility

- More Trust

- More Sociability and Human Warmth

Group I (control)

Shop without Avatar

+

+

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

The differences between avatars with TTS voice and the photo-realistic avatars with real voice were not statistically significant.

Data Analysis/PLS-SEM

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In order to verify the strength of these linear relationships and their individualized predictive capacity, an Partial Least Squares analysis (PLS) was run between “Trust”, “Credibility”, “Sociability and Human Warmth”

and the dependent variable “Purchase and Repurchase Intention”.

Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Data Analysis/PLS-SEM

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

The results show that we must reject hypothesis H2a becausethe path Credibility Purchase/Repurchase Intention is notsignificant. The other two paths (Hypothesis H1a, H3a) aresignificant and accepted.

Data Analysis/PLS-SEM

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To assess the influence strength of each latent exogenous variable on Purchase and Repurchase Intention we calculated the Effect Size of each one. The “effect size” is calculated by means of the Cohen’s coefficient (Cohen, 1988).

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Trust 0.20 Moderate but significant effect

Credibility 0 Null effect

Sociability and HumanWarmth

0.48 Very substantial effect

Data Analysis/PLS-SEM

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

• “Sociability and Human Warmth” and “Trust” are predictive variables of “Purchase and Repurchase Intention”.

• “Sociability and Human Warmth” is the most important inducer of “Purchase and repurchase intention”.

• “Credibility” has a null predictive effect

Conclusion

Underpinned on this study, as also on the findings of Wangand Fodness (2010) and Qiu and Benbasat (2009), we can saythat animated avatars exert an influence on onlineconsumers similar to real salespeople.

Avatar technology, that can be combined with A.I., is alsopromising in the field of Customer Relationship Management(now transformed into e-CRM), in the market segmentationand in lead generation.

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Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor in e-commerce

Thank you for your attention!Questions?

25Evaluating the use of Avatars as Sociability Factor

in e-commerce