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Website Perception: Examining the impact of website elements on

consumers’ attitude towards the websiteAUT HO R: CL AUD IO C ORT I

C OAC H : THOMAS FR IC K

C O-R EA DER : D IMITR IO S TSEK OUR A S

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Introduction e-commerce has become a vital marketing channel in this digital era

Web Design is crucial for firms’ online success

Websites fail to reach organisational goals

The cause of this failure has been associated with the lack of optimised website design

Research Question:

How can B2C firms improve consumers’ attitude towards their website by improving their web design?

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Critical Review & Theory Areas of review:

Online Marketing & Context Transfer:- Three locations of Context Transfer: Homepage, Category Browse, Search Transfer- Homepage as the most successful context transfer

Website Performance Indexes:- Attitude Towards the Website (predictor of purchase intentions of consumers): Performance measurement

Website Design, Elements and Attributes- Set of dimensions, attributes and features that affect consumers’ website perception, and website performance- Consumer behaviour differences, design adjustments based on consumers: website morphing- Stand out dimensions: Trustworthiness, Informativeness, Navigational help- Stand-out elements from dimensions: Certificate of Trust, Call-To-Action, Product Information

Gap: No found literature that studies consumers’ perception on the presence of individual elements, and their effect on website performance

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Hypotheses & Conceptual Framework H1: The presence of the element “Certificate of Trust” has a positive effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website

H2: The presence of the element “Product Information” has a positive effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website

H3: The presence of the element “Call-To-Action” has a positive effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website

H4a: The effect of the element Call-To-Action on consumers’ attitude towards the website is moderated by the type of consumer

H4b: The effect of the element Certificate of Trust on consumers’ attitude towards the website is moderated by the type of consumer

H4c: The effect of the element Product Information on consumers’ attitude towards the website is moderated by the type of consumer

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Methodology Survey Methodology: Amazon Mechanical Turk to generate fast respondents

◦ Qualtrics Randomization: 8 conditions for the homepage of the created website Smart-Phonia◦ Each condition included/excluded an element: (1) stating the presence of the element(s); (0) stating the

absence of the element(s)◦ Variables measured according to extant literature methodology◦ Manipulation Checks present

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Data1) Demographics

Number of valid participants = 312 American citizensMale versus Female: 152 (48.7%) versus 160 (51.3%)Age range majority: 45.5% between 25 and 34 years old, known as the MillenialsMean close to 3 for Type of Consumer, suggesting a equally segment consumer pattern

2) Independent Sampled T-TestsCheck for element recognition Results: The majority of participants have recognised the presence of the element(s) presented to them in the survey

3) Cronbach’s Alpha For variables Type of Consumer and Attitude Towards the WebsiteExclusion of one element of the Likert-Scale Type of Consumer (see Figure)

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Findings Certificate of Trust has no effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website H1

Product Information has a positive effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website H2

Call-To-Action has a positive effect on consumers’ attitude towards the website H3

Type of Consumer has no moderating effect on the effects of the elements H4

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Discussion Call-To-Action: Consistent with previous studies (i.e. Rosen and Purinton, 2004; Flores et al., 2014).

Product Information: Consistent with previous studies (i.e. Szymanski and Hise, 2000; Bilgihan and Bujisic, 2015, etc.)

Certificate of Trust: Consistent with previous studies, suggesting effects on Trust rather than consumer attitudes (i.e. Belanger et al., 2002; etc.)- Not searched for usually- Not recognisable- If present, increases security

Type of Consumer: different observations from J. Hauser et al., 2009: The simplicity of the elements might have affected the findings.

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Implications Theoretical Implications

Provides additional research in the field of website design

Added empirical evidence on the effect of the element certificate of trust: suggests that the element affects consumers’ website trust, and not attitudes

Attitude Towards the Website: Increase of measurement reliability for website performance and online advertising (originally defined by Chen and Wells, 1999).

Providing the actual effects of individual elements previously observed as part of website dimensions

Aligned with extant literature, contributes in empirical evidence in the effect of the call-to-action button

Aligned with extant literature, contributes in empirical evidence in the effect of product information

Practical Implications Optimisation suggestions for websites’ homepage for B2C firms

Suggestion for online firms to adopt the elements on their corporate websites

Raises additional importance of content information on website

Call-to-action presence, improves the easiness of navigation for consumers

The presence of the elements do not substantially ensure increased sales, however, suggest faster positive attitudes towards the websites

The simple individual elements, are not affected by the type of consumer.

Keep it simple, and informative

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Limitations & Future Research Limitations

Sample Size and demographics

Survey Methodology transferability, transparency and validity issues

Lack of resources: mock-up website

Future Research Study the positioning of the Certificate of Trust, and other types

Study the interaction between the presence of the elements

Study the effects of these elements based on different products (high/low involvement)

Type of consumer moderating the effect of dimensions on website performance indexes

Use different methodologies: Eye-tracking, or field experiment

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ConclusionTwo elements have been found significant in yielding positive consumer attitudes: Call-to-

Action & Product Information (consistent with extant literature)

Implications suggest for B2C online firms to adopt the two elements for higher attitudes towards their website, and improve their website design

Suggestions for firms: Include relevant content information on the homepage of a website, and a good navigational design

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Thank YouCLAUDIO CORTI – claudiocorti94@gmail.com

MSc. Business Information Management 2015-2016

Master Thesis Defence