Consumer perceptions of online shopping environments: A gestalt approach

Abstract

Although Web pages and sites consist of a multitude of individual cues, this paper argues that marketers need a gestalt approach to understand how consumers perceive online shopping environments. Following a systematic review of the literature on categorizations of online shopping environments, this paper develops and tests a gestalt model of consumer perceptions of online shopping environments. The model shows that consumers perceive online shopping environments in terms of their sense-making and exploratory potential. It encompasses perceptions at the level of both individual pages and the experience consisting of the navigation through a succession of pages accessed during one visit. It also accounts for the informational needs all shoppers possess, reflected in the central role of information in online shopping environments. The model confirms the importance of the three main categories investigated in the literature (ease of understanding, informativeness, and involving qualities), but provides a theoretically grounded explanation of how consumers perceive online shopping environments holistically. It can form a basis from which to envisage organismic and behavioral responses.

Critical Atmospheric Cues in Designing Online Stores: The Case of Amazon.com

“…Information cues have been considered in a great number of online atmospheric studies, and multiple aspects of information have been addressed in online atmospheric taxonomies. For instance, the helpfulness and usefulness of information were considered in Demangeot & Broderick's (2010) online atmospheric taxonomy, and Chang & Chen (2008) considered information quality (e.g., clear and accurate information). According to the M-R model, information cues in an online store environment will generate a positive emotional state of pleasure, and this study thus proposes the following hypothesis: H2: Information cues in an online store environment will positively affect pleasure.…”

“…To help consumers easily find their desired information, online stores provide diverse functions, such as navigation bars, search options, logical menu hierarchies, organization of information, and so on, and these functions are considered as navigation cues. Navigation cues have been already included in various taxonomies of online store atmospheric cues (Chang & Chen, 2008;Demangeot & Broderick, 2010;Porat & Tractinsky, 2011;Richard, 2005;Wang, Minor, & Wei, 2011). Following the M-R model, the study posits the following hypothesis: H3: Navigation cues in an online store environment will positively affect the pleasure emotional response.…”

“…2.2 Online Store Atmospheric Cues 2.2.1 Visual Cues Visual cues are the attributes in a retail store that stimulate human vision, such as fixtures, layouts, and colors (Baker et al, 2002). In the context of online stores, visual cues are associated with comprehensive aesthetic quality of online stores (e.g., colors, image display, webpage design) (Demangeot & Broderick, 2010;Manganari et al, 2009;Porat & Tractinsky, 2011). These visual cues have already been considered in existing taxonomies of online store atmospheric cues.…”

Relevance of cognitive dissonance, activation and involvement to branding: An overview

“…This is chiefly relevant, seeing that a host of consumer behavior patterns only become explicable when the purchase situation is viewed as taking place within a social context. Furthermore, as already mentioned in earlier sections of this paper, a promising approach could be the consideration of principles from Gestalt Psychology underlying consumer perception, when designing (online) shopping environments (Demangeot & Broderick, 2010). In connection with the present paper, this above all is especially relevant and advantageous in view of the indicated prevalent information overload facing customers.…”

“…Felser, 1997). Also Demangeot and Broderick (2010) emphasized the relevance of a Gestalt approach in their study of consumer perceptions in online shopping environments and stated that marketers are required to take Gestalt Psychology into consideration when trying to understand how consumers perceive online shopping environments.…”